FRAU VON TROCKENAU’S ‘GESELLSCHAFT.’
The Count and Countess of Trockenau were both young, rich, and what
their countrymen call _lebenslustig_, a word for which we have no
equivalent shorter than a well-rounded sentence of explanation.
Their estate was large, and as beautiful as heart could desire. It
stood sloping up a rounded, richly-wooded hill in the neighbourhood
of K——au; and from its great terrace, as well as from other less
distinguished points of vantage, there was a broad and beautiful vista
over the rich and many-coloured plain, to where in a silver line the
Rhine might be seen winding his way towards Coblenz. Far distant,
like blue clouds on the horizon, lay the soft outlines of the Rhine
mountains; far over hill and dale shone the delicious sunshine, while
the fair land spread her broad bosom, in the rich maturity of the
latter July, to his fervent beams.
All the summer long, Frau von Trockenau loved to have her friends
around her, and those friends were various. Coffee-parties and
picnics—or rather the German equivalents of picnics in the shape of
_fêtes_ and _Landparteien_, suppers and dances, riding and driving,
and, when it was late enough, shooting and _die Jagd_. An admirable
cook, wines of a character not to disgrace the _cuisine_, a hearty
welcome, and unlimited liberty to the guest to follow the bent of his
own wishes—these were the attractions offered to their guests by the
count and countess, and they proved so strong that Frau von Trockenau
very rarely had an invitation refused. People refused or put off other
visits in order to make one to Schloss Trockenau, and persons who were
not spontaneously invited there schemed to get invitations.
To the initiated reader the remark will be almost superfluous that
the practices at Schloss Trockenau must have been characterised by
a certain unconventionality and _laisser faire_ not always found in
German or any other country houses, whether belonging to the nobility
or to the _Bürgerschaft_. This was the case, and the guests of the
countess were by no means confined to persons who were her equals in
rank, many of whom, she was wont to say, might be excellent creatures,
but were often old, and, when they lived in the country, were wont to
be dull. And dulness was the bane of the countess’s existence. In their
hatred of it she and her husband were sworn allies; they were never
known to oppose one another’s schemes for killing time, though it often
happened that in their zeal in that cause they would both have provided
some entertainment for the same time. When this occurred, the rule was
that each should give way in turn, and this plan was found to answer
admirably, and to be productive of the greatest harmony, conjugal and
social.
On the evening after that meeting in the _Kurgarten_, a large company,
or _Gesellschaft_, was assembled in the rooms, or wandering about the
gardens and terraces of the Schloss. It was a mixed and motley society.
There were friends of the count, brother officers who were staying in
the house, or who had come over from Coblenz for the occasion; young
men from Berlin, fashionable or otherwise; some gay cousins of Countess
Carla, very stylish young ladies indeed, who, with their pretty cousin
as a chaperon, were creating havoc by their accomplishments, and by
their airs and graces, in the hearts of all the shy young _Junker_ in
the vicinity, except in that of Hans von Lemde, who was irresistibly
drawn in another direction. There were some young Englishmen from Bonn,
fellow-students and friends of the count’s younger brother. There were
two learned professors, and a poetess whose verses were _fades_, and
who was rightly and universally voted a bore, but who was amongst the
_von_-est of the _vons_, and who distinctly and unmistakably belonged
to the _genus irritabile_, and apparently to no other.
There was Jerome Wellfield, who had just arrived, and who was talking
to his hostess; there was Herr Rudolf Falkenberg, the great banker
and picture-critic, who had arrived that morning. There was a knot of
stout, oddly-dressed, _gauche_-looking ladies of a certain age, who
clubbed together in a corner, and represented the local nobility and
squirearchy.
‘No one knows who else may be coming,’ said one. ‘I think die Trockenau
is much too careless. She does not consider the dignity of our
position.’
‘_Ach, lieber Himmel!_ Who is that?’ murmured another.
‘That’ was Sara Ford, who came sweeping down the room with her head in
the air, followed by Herr Falkenberg, to whom she talked in her frank,
audible, unconstrained English fashion, and who begged her to come
with him to the terrace that he might show her a view which he said
ought to be painted.
The pair were followed by the disapproving looks of the local
_Junkerthum_ before spoken of, and by the round eyes of a number
of young German girls, just arrived at that stage in life which is
known to their countrymen as the _Backfisch_. Now, a _Backfisch_ is a
kind of _ingénue_ not often met amongst English girls; and Sara Ford
could never, by any chance, have had anything of the genus about her.
Consequently she was an object of wonder, and some disapproval to those
who either were or had been _Backfische_ themselves.
‘These English girls!’ sighed one of the native nobility, shaking her
head portentously. ‘If I were to see my Paula monopolise a man in that
way—but she is incapable of even speaking to a gentleman before he
speaks to her. If a girl of mine were to be like that, I should die.’
‘_Gott_, yes!’ answered another, intently watching, while Herr
Falkenberg held open the long glass-door, and Sara stepped through it
and down the steps on to the terrace. The sun was setting as the young
lady and the banker paced towards the point to which he wished to
draw her attention. Sara was dressed in black, and there was nothing
costly about her attire; for she was not rich, and her only jewellery
consisted in certain old rings and a pearl-necklace, which had long
ago belonged to her mother when, as the beautiful Marion Fanshawe,
she had been married to Sara’s father. Plain though the dress was, it
set her noble beauty off to great advantage; and one felt—at least
Herr Falkenberg felt—the same conscientious delight in looking at her
grand, simple loveliness, as results from the contemplation of some
fine carved gem of ancient days, found perhaps by accident in the midst
of a stock of gaudy modern jewellery.
Sara had never met Herr Falkenberg before. His name was well known to
her and to other artists as a judge of almost unerring taste, and a
patron of generous liberality. He was the last of a line of financiers
and bankers of princely fortune and passionate devotion to ‘the noble
pastime of art.’ She had felt highly flattered when Frau von Trockenau
brought him to her, saying:
‘_Liebe_ Sara, Herr Falkenberg wishes to be introduced,’ after which
he had remained beside her chair, speaking of two of her pictures,
and discussing them with an admiration, and at the same time a
discrimination, which instantly showed her that report had not belied
the keenness of his critical powers and the purity of his taste in such
matters. ‘Perhaps,’ thought Sara to herself, repressing a smile of
satisfaction, ‘if she were very amiable, and listened with attention
to his criticisms, he might some day give her an order; and if she
could say to friends and fellow-students, “I am painting this for
Herr Falkenberg,” it would be as good, indeed much better, than fifty
laudatory but unprofitable criticisms.’
‘See!’ said he, as they came to the end of the terrace—and he pointed
to the round shoulder of a hill, round the foot of which a bend of
the river flowed in a silver curve, while the setting sun gave the
most mellow and warm tints to the stretch of the landscape in the
background—‘that is almost perfect; there is a meaning in the scene—a
poetry. Do you not see it?’
‘Indeed I do!’ she replied; the deep look settling in her eyes, which
always visited them when she looked upon grand or beautiful things,
and which alone would have made her face a rare one. ‘I see it!’ she
continued; ‘and I have studied and sketched it often since I came here,
and the result has been despair! I hate myself, and every attempt I
make. I don’t think landscape is my forte.’
‘I don’t agree with you. I think you ought to study landscape. I
believe, from the examination I have given to those two little pictures
of yours, that you might attain high rank as a painter, both of
landscape and _genre_; with hard study, of course.’
‘Oh, Herr Falkenberg, you are flattering! It is impossible. I often
think how presumptuous it is in me to imagine that I shall ever do well
in either. Why should I?’
‘Why should you not?’ he asked, smiling. ‘You are ambitious.’
He had seated himself on the arm of a bench at the end of the terrace,
and Sara was leaning upon the parapet, her arms folded on the ledge of
it; her glorious eyes gazing out upon the feast of colour, of rich calm
beauty which lay below. As he uttered the last words, the deep musing
look left those eyes; another fire flashed like lightning into them.
Her lips parted, the delicate nostril quivered. She raised her head,
and looked full at her companion.
‘Yes, I am. I am as ambitious as a man—the worse for me, I suppose.’
‘I do not say so. How old are you?’
The question was put with a grave, patronising directness which was
free from the faintest trace of curiosity or impertinence. She answered
it in the same spirit:
‘I am twenty-three.’
‘Ah! it will be many years, no doubt, before you do anything that
will live. It is a toilsome ascent to the high peaks and pure snows
of real lasting fame, but it may be accomplished by a single-hearted
perseverance.’
He paused, looking at her. The girl felt herself strangely moved, half
depressed at the calmness with which he adjudged to her years upon
years of future toil, as if from that verdict there could be no appeal,
half with a proud elation at the fact that so great a judge should hold
it possible that she could ever do anything which would live. His eyes
still dwelt upon her face, and hers upon his. He had a good, powerful,
and attractive face; dark, massively cut, with keen, shrewd, sarcastic
eyes under level dark eyebrows. The small moustache and short pointed
brown beard gave great character to this visage, and were two or three
shades lighter than the short-cropped hair. He was a man whose age it
would be difficult to guess. Sara imagined him to be about forty; he
might have been any age from thirty to five-and-forty. She had spoken
to him, and listened to him entirely as a well-known judge and possible
future patron of great power and influence—so she regarded him still.
Of what he was or did, how he was regarded outside this, to her, most
important capacity, she had not the least idea, and formed none to
herself.
‘You have a sketch of that bit,’ he said at last; ‘would you mind
letting me see it?’
‘Oh! well, if you will promise to regard it merely as a rough attempt,
done more because my instinct compelled me to try to reproduce that
scene—not as anything that was ever intended for anyone to see but
myself,’ said Sara, very unwilling to submit so crude an attempt to
such critical eyes, and yet not wishing to appear affected.
‘If you showed it me, I should judge it entirely on its own merits, of
course,’ was the composed reply, and Sara felt suddenly, as many other
persons often felt in exchanging ideas with Herr Falkenberg, that with
him simplicity of nature and conduct reigned supreme, and that to make
excuses and apologies to him was so much trouble lost. Sara wished she
had not made that little speech about her sketch, and Falkenberg went
on:
‘I am staying here a few days, so perhaps to-morrow, before we set off
to Lahnburg——’
‘Are we going to Lahnburg?’
‘I believe so; the countess is, at any rate. I have a little country
house there, which she was so kind as to say she very much wished to
see, and I asked her if she would not make a party and go there with me
to-morrow. She said she wanted you to go too, but I don’t suppose she
will force you there against your will,’ he added, smiling.
‘It would be anything but against my will. It is a place I have often
wished to see.’
‘Then I am glad you are going. There may be time for you to give me
your sketch to-morrow morning, early, if you will be so kind; and,
as I expect to be in Elberthal during the autumn, may I call at your
atelier?’
‘I shall be honoured if you do,’ said Sara, her cheeks flushing with
pleasure at this mark of favour. ‘I only fear that you will leave the
said atelier a sadder and a wiser man.’
‘As how?’
‘As having discovered my attempts to be very poor, commonplace
delusions after all.’
‘That remains to be seen; all I hope is that you will not be offended
if one who, by some misfortune, has got such an inveterate habit
of pointing out what appear to him the merits and demerits of any
composition, should——’
‘That would be of the utmost advantage to me,’ said she, gaily,
wondering how long the interview was to last, and wondering also, in
strict privacy, whether critics—of that eminence—never relaxed into a
laugh; whether a sedate smile were all their lips would condescend to.
How long the interview might have lasted it is impossible to say. At
that moment it was interrupted. Frau von Trockenau, with a number
of the ingenuous girls before alluded to—whose tender years and
inexperience she seemed to find somewhat embarrassing during the ‘off
season,’ before the dancing began—Emily Leigh, Jerome Wellfield, Hans
Lemde, and others, came up.
‘Oh, Herr Falkenberg!’ cried the countess, seeing him, ‘a word with
you.’
She paused, as did also Jerome Wellfield, and the others went on.
Wellfield had not yet spoken to Sara, and while Frau von Trockenau
discoursed with much animation to Falkenberg on some point connected
with the morrow’s excursion, Jerome turned to Miss Ford.
The flush of exultation which her conversation with Falkenberg had
aroused, died from her cheeks. She silently put her hand into that of
Wellfield, while he, an expression of pleasure dawning in his face,
asked her how she did.
After a few minutes, the countess put her hand within Falkenberg’s arm,
and they went up the terrace, in earnest conversation. Jerome and Sara
were left standing alone.
‘Herr Falkenberg is a friend of yours?’ asked Wellfield.
‘I don’t know. I hope he will be. He would be a very valuable friend to
me.’
‘I can suppose so. Does he wish you to paint this scene?’
‘Yes. And it is very beautiful. Do you not think so?’
‘It is—lovely. I wish you could see the place my father will not live
at—Wellfield Abbey and the country round about. As an artist, you
would delight in it.’
‘But it is in Lancashire, isn’t it?’ asked Sara.
‘Yes. What then?’ inquired he.
‘I always fancy it such a black, hideous place. I have only once been
in Lancashire, when I passed through Preston with my father on our way
to Scotland, years ago.’
‘Then you passed not a hundred miles from Wellfield,’ he rejoined with
some animation. ‘But I own, you could not be favourably impressed with
what you saw there. It is not lovely. But Wellfield is.’
‘Perhaps I may see it some day—who knows?’ said Sara, musingly.
‘I am sure I hope you may,’ he answered quickly. ‘There is nothing I
should so much——’
He paused abruptly. Sara felt her face flush, and said quickly:
‘Would not you like to come down this side-walk—this ilex walk? The
countess has spent a great deal of care and attention upon it, in
remembrance of the ilexes of Rome.’
‘Ah, the ilexes at Rome! I remember them,’ he said, as he followed her
into the cool green gloom of the ilex walk, where daylight was dimmed
by the intertwining boughs which formed a roof above.
Three quarters of an hour later they returned to the same spot, and
found that it was almost dark. The windows of the Schloss blazed with
lights, and the music which streamed out on the air said that the
dancing had begun.
‘What a long time we must have been out!’ said Sara, in a dreamy voice.
‘They are dancing.’
‘So they are. Will you give me this waltz?—it is a waltz, I hear.’
‘With pleasure,’ said Sara, as they walked towards the house. ‘There is
to be a cotillon,’ she added; ‘it is the great thing at these German
dances, and Frau von Trockenau has made elaborate arrangements for it.’
‘What a pity I don’t know how to do it!’
‘You should learn,’ said Sara.
‘There is nothing I should like better if you are at liberty to——’
began Jerome, as they entered the room by the long glass-door, just
within which stood Lemde, not dancing.
‘_Mein Fräulein_,’ said the poor youth, humbly coming forward, ‘will
you honour me by dancing the cotillon with me?’
‘How fortunate for me that I secured your promise a moment ago,’ said
Jerome, with imperturbable composure and a slight smile.
Hans’s face fell; that of Sara crimsoned as she said:
‘I am very sorry, Baron Lemde, but I have promised it to Mr. Wellfield.’
In another moment she was waltzing with Jerome Wellfield, and Junker
Hans, after watching them for a few moments, turned aside.
‘She is too proud and too clever, I suppose, to have anything to do
with me,’ he was saying to himself, as he struggled with a degrading
and childish inclination to cry. ‘And those other fellows, Falkenberg,
and that Wellfield, and the others, I’ve no chance against them.
It’s odd,’ the youth continued moodily to reflect, ‘how little a lot
of these English girls care for rank. Falkenberg is _bürgerlich_:
Wellfield—it isn’t his rank she cares for; it’s his way, I suppose, of
behaving as if he had a right to everything he sees—they don’t mind
rank when a man has “go,” or when he pleases them; but then they are so
hard to please.’
To Sara, the evening passed like a dream. This was the first, the
very first and most delicate flavour and aroma of love, which with her
could only be deep and earnest, full and profound, as her own nature.
She knew that she was beautiful, without having ever thought much about
it. She had seen admiration in men’s eyes before now; she had heard
words of love and beseeching addressed to her once or twice, and all
had lightly passed over her spirit, like a breath of air across a fair
garden. But Wellfield’s eyes, with their eloquent homage, thrilled
her; his mere presence aroused in her the feeling, never known before,
of delight, mingled with apprehension; she shrank away from trying to
guess, even in her own mind, how much his look meant—what the end of
this episode would be. She questioned and doubted, for the first time,
her own powers of pleasing, because for the first time she was desirous
above all things to please. Advanced spirits may condemn such anxiety
as servile and degrading. No opinion is offered upon those points, only
the certainty expressed that such feelings of ‘servility’ are very
common amongst women, and men too, who are in love. Instead of feeling
confidence now, she absolutely trembled lest she should have mistaken
the meaning of his glance, and of the few words he had now and then
dropped, and which had seemed to her to have a deeper meaning than mere
phrases of politeness or of compliment.
Such was her deprecatory and tremblingly uncertain state of mind—hers,
who had laughed through life, free from tyrant love or care, undaunted
by reverses, and holding her own against difficulties with a
steadfastness born of innate, inbred courage of soul. Till now every
higher thought and aspiration had been resolutely and singly directed
towards her art, and her own advancement in it. Her heart’s desire had
been faithfully, so far as she could, to act up to Goethe’s words, and—
‘Im Ganzen, Guten, Wahren
Resolut zu leben.’
The defeat had been rapid and complete, and, true to her woman’s
nature, she rejoiced in it rather than otherwise. At least, this
night, in Jerome’s presence, and surrounded by the subtle incense of
admiration and flattery which he offered her, she rejoiced in it. There
were other times, when he was absent, in which the rejoicing was not
pure, and the sense of captivity was stronger than the thrill of love.
The evening thus passed on, and every time she met those dark and
eloquent eyes she felt, with a throb of the heart, the half-welcome,
half-dreaded conviction grow stronger—‘This that I see in his eyes is
love!’
There ensued a pause in the dancing, organised by Frau von Trockenau,
in order to have some music; for she was a woman who utilised all her
resources, and never allowed the meanest tool to rust for want of use;
and knowing that there were several admirable musicians, vocal and
instrumental, in the company, she was firmly resolved that they should
display their talents.
A certain young Englishwoman, married to one Count Eugen of Rothenfels,
was the first to sing. The fair soprano was filling the room with a
flood of melody, when the countess came up to the place where Sara Ford
was seated, somewhat apart, with Jerome Wellfield leaning over the back
of her chair, his eyes dreamily fixed on the face of the singer.
‘Mr. Wellfield,’ said his pretty little hostess, ‘I know I am asking a
very great favour, and that you hate it; but _won’t_ you sing to-night,
to please me?’
‘Oh, will you?’ said Sara, involuntarily. She had heard wonderful
rumours of Wellfield’s voice, and the wish to hear him was strong.
He bowed towards the countess.
‘To please you, _gnädige Frau_,’ he said, with a slight smile, ‘is a
privilege, and I shall at once obey your order when I receive it.’
‘That is good! _recht freundlich!_’ exclaimed the lady, radiant with
delight; for Wellfield’s reserve was generally as great as his talent
was said to be, and she had had little hope of his consenting to sing
before that large audience of perfect strangers. She confided her
success to the ear of one of her cousins, Helene von Lehnberg, who
said, with a sneer:
‘Another of your English amateurs, Carla? For my part, I don’t think
much of a talent that is so haughty and reserved as almost to require
one to go on one’s knees to it.’
‘Ah, my dear Helene! I doat upon proud, haughty people, when they are
just the reverse to me, which is the case with Mr. Wellfield,’ rejoined
Frau von Trockenau, not without malice.
‘I am glad you are going to sing,’ said Sara to Jerome, when they were
alone again.
‘I am naturally of an obliging disposition, and could not refuse the
Frau Gräfin.’
‘She is delighted,’ said Sara, with a smile.
‘When I have done,’ said Wellfield, in a low tone, ‘I shall come and
ask if you were delighted—may I?’
‘May you?’ she stammered.
‘I mean, will you answer me if I do come?’
‘Do you expect me to tell you that I am not delighted?’
‘I expect nothing, therefore I am blessed; but I desire very much that
you should tell me the truth.’
‘I will do so if you wish it.’
‘Thank you.... Yes, Frau Gräfin, I see and I obey,’ he added, as the
countess was perceived making her way to him.
There was some little stir and sensation when Wellfield advanced to the
piano. ‘An Englishman, an amateur—_nun, wir werden ’mal sehen!_’ said
one or two sceptics, with a supercilious curl of the lip.
‘What does he sing? English songs—“The Last Rose of Summer”?’ asked
one young lady, sarcastically.
‘No, no!’ whispered a dapper little lieutenant, who was paying her
devoted attention; ‘he will sing a comic song, “What Jolly Dogs we
are!” An Englishman told me last week that they sang nothing else in
England now. He was at a party where nineteen of the company had
brought their music——’
‘_Gott!_ Herr Lieutenant, how horrible!’ tittered the young lady.
‘And sixteen out of the nineteen had brought “What Jolly Dogs we are!”
Fact, I assure you, _parole d’honneur_! But hush! He is playing his own
accompaniment. What! Rubinstein! “Asra!” Impossible!’
If so, the impossible was being performed in a masterly manner.
Would-be sarcastic lieutenants, tittering young ladies, were bewitched
into silence and admiration. Rubinstein’s weird and melodious legend of
the youth whose race ‘die if they love,’ was sung to the end, as few
of the audience had ever before heard it sung. The last notes, _Die
sterben wenn sie lieben_, were followed at first by silence; and then
some murmurs, not loud, but deep, of applause, greeted the singer.
The song that followed was, _Es blinkt der Thau_, and it made Sara’s
heart beat. That finished, as if to give his audience a complete
change, he struck a couple of deep chords, and began to sing that
oft-quoted, hackneyed, but ever-beautiful _Ich grolle nicht_.
Sara felt a slight shiver run through her. Why did he choose that one
weird song of Heine’s, set to Schumann’s equally weird music? She
had heard it once at a concert, sung in a style which hardly rose
above mediocrity, and yet even then it had impressed her; and she had
pondered involuntarily over the gruesome, hinted mystery of the last
lines. Jerome sang the strange song with a depth and a meaning all his
own: her artist-nature thrilled to the strains, which are in very truth
a song of death; it was ghostly—it was as if her spirit was enfeebled
and chilled, and had to trail its drooping wings through a land full of
vague and awful shadows.
‘Ich sah die Nacht
In deines Herzensraume;
Ich sah die Schlang’
Die dir am Herzen frisst—
Ich sah, mein’ Lieb’,
Wie sehr du elend bist!
Ich grolle nicht.’
There was a pause as he finished this song. Jerome half-rose from the
piano, but a voice cried from the window:
‘We have not had the test yet, Mr. Wellfield. Give us a love-song. Give
us _Adeläida_.’
Sara saw, even from her place in the background, the expression that
flashed into the young man’s eyes, and over his face.
‘Good!’ was all he said, as he sat down again, and that melodious,
significant single _F_ was struck—that note which is the prelude to
the sea of love and fire and passion which follows.
Sara sat pale and composed in her place, but feeling as if everyone
in the room must see and observe that she was blushing furiously—so
burningly hot were her cheeks. Each time that the notes ‘Adeläida’ rang
out, she felt that she was apostrophised—the company, and the lighted
room oppressed her—yet she looked, to one who was observing her from
the other side of the room, grave, quiet, almost tired.
When the last notes had died away, Wellfield rose very decidedly, nor
could he be prevailed upon to sing another note. The company clustered
round him, thanked him, and congratulated him; asked to be introduced
to him, and dispersed. Dancing began again, and still Sara sat as if
spell-bound, in the place where he had left her.
‘I have come to know if you approved?’ murmured Jerome’s voice beside
her.
She looked up, and met his eyes with an expression in them, before
which her own in vain tried to remain calm and untroubled.
‘If I approved?’ she said, indistinctly. ‘How can you ask?’
Jerome was leaning against the wall, looking down at her—looking, too,
as undisturbed as if he had been asking her whether she would have an
ice. In the same manner, with the same tone, so low that none but she
could hear it, he added:
‘And did you understand?’
‘I—I think so,’ said Sara, faintly.
‘Herr Wellfield, Miss Ford! the cotillon is about to begin. Here is
your favour, Mr. Wellfield. Be good enough to let me pin it on, and
then go and find your partner.’
It was Fräulein von Lehnberg, one of the countess’s Berlin cousins, who
spoke, with some impatience in her voice; for she had twice addressed
Jerome, and he had taken no notice of her. He stepped forward now,
and held the basket of ribbons while she pinned on his favour, with
an imperturbable severity of gravity which irritated the young lady
exceedingly. Then he offered Sara his arm, and they advanced to meet
the rest of the company.
In the discussions next day on the subject, it was universally decided
that Mr. Wellfield might be a musical, Miss Ford an artistic prodigy;
but that in the matter of dancing a cotillon they both displayed to
the full that insular stiffness characteristic of their nation. That
little Emily Leigh had ten times the spirit of her taller and handsomer
country-woman. How gracefully she danced, and contrived to make even
that maypole, Hans Lemde, look almost graceful too.
Beloved and candid discussions of the day after! How much does not
society and the individual owe to you, in the matter of establishment
of the facts, and an exhaustive analysis of the motives actuating the
behaviour of those who come before your tribunal! May nothing ever
occur to make you less vigorous or less rigorous than you are at this
day!
[Illustration]