CHAPTER I. SPRING.

CHAPTER II. A COLLOQUY.

CHAPTER III. OWL-TOWERS.

CHAPTER IV. A BEER-SCANDAL.

CHAPTER V. THE WHITE LADY'S SLIPPER AND THE PASSION-FLOWER.

CHAPTER VI. GLIMPSES INTO CLOUD-LAND.

CHAPTER VII. MILL-WHEELS AND OTHER WHEELS.

CHAPTER VIII. OLD HUMBUG.

CHAPTER IX. THE DAYLIGHT OF THE DWARFS, AND THE FALLING STAR.

CHAPTER X. THE PARTING.

BOOK III.

Epigraph

CHAPTER I. SUMMER-TIME.

CHAPTER II. FOOT-TRAVELLING.

CHAPTER III. INTERLACHEN.

CHAPTER IV. THE EVENING AND THE MORNING STAR.

CHAPTER V. A RAINY DAY.

CHAPTER VI. AFTER DINNER, AND AFTER THE MANNER OF THE BEST CRITICS.

CHAPTER VII. TAKE CARE!

CHAPTER VIII. THE FOUNTAIN OF OBLIVION.

CHAPTER IX. A TALK ON THE STAIRS.

BOOK IV.

Epigraph

CHAPTER I. A MISERERE.

CHAPTER II. CURFEW BELLS.

CHAPTER III. SHADOWS ON THE WALL.

CHAPTER IV. MUSICAL SUFFERINGS OF JOHN KREISLER.

CHAPTER V. SAINT GILGEN.

CHAPTER VI. SAINT WOLFGANG.

CHAPTER VII. THE STORY OF BROTHER BERNARDUS.

CHAPTER VIII. FOOT-PRINTS OF ANGELS.

CHAPTER IX. THE LAST PANG.

BOOK I.

Epigraph

"Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate,

Who ne'er the mournful, midnight hours

Weeping upon his bed has sate,

He knows you not, ye Heavenly Powers."

CHAPTER I. THE HERO.

In John Lyly's Endymion, Sir Topas is made to say; "Dost thou know what

a Poet is? Why, fool, a Poet is as much as one should say,--a Poet!"

And thou, reader, dost thou know what a hero is? Why, a hero is as much

as one should say,--a hero! Some romance-writers, however, say much

more than this. Nay, the old Lombard, Matteo Maria Bojardo, set all the

church-bells in Scandiano ringing, merely because he had found a name

for one of his heroes. Here, also, shall church-bells be rung, but more

solemnly.

The setting of a great hope is like the setting of the sun. The

brightness of our life is gone. Shadows of evening fall around us, and

the world seems but a dim reflection,--itself a broader shadow. We look

forward into the coming, lonely night. The soul withdraws into itself.

Then stars arise, and the night is holy.

Paul Flemming had experienced this, though still young. The friend of

his youth was dead. The bough had broken "under the burden of the

unripe fruit." And when, after a season, he looked up again from the

blindness of his sorrow, all things seemed unreal. Like the man, whose

sight had been restored by miracle, he beheld men, as trees, walking.

His household gods were broken. He had no home. His sympathies cried

aloud from his desolate soul, and there came no answer from the busy,

turbulent world around him. He did not willingly give way to grief. He

struggled to be cheerful,--to be strong. But he could no longer look

into the familiar faces of his friends. He could no longer live alone,

where he had lived with her. He went abroad, that the sea might be

between him and the grave. Alas! betweenhim and his sorrow there could

be no sea, but that of time.

He had already passed many months in lonely wandering, and was now

pursuing his way along the Rhine, to the south of Germany. He had

journeyed the same way before, in brighter days and a brighter season

of the year, in the May of life and in the month of May. He knew the

beauteous river all by heart;--every rock and ruin, every echo, every

legend. The ancient castles, grim and hoar, that had taken root as it

were on the cliffs,--they were all his; for his thoughts dwelt in them,

and the wind told him tales.

He had passed a sleepless night at Rolandseck, and had risen before

daybreak. He opened the window of the balcony to hear the rushing of

the Rhine. It was a damp December morning; and clouds were passing over

the sky,--thin, vapory clouds, whose snow-white skirts were "often

spotted with golden tears, which men call stars." The day dawned

slowly; and, in the mingling of daylightand starlight, the island and

cloister of Nonnenwerth made together but one broad, dark shadow on the

silver breast of the river. Beyond, rose the summits of the

Siebengebirg. Solemn and dark, like a monk, stood the Drachenfels, in

his hood of mist, and rearward extended the Curtain of Mountains, back

to the Wolkenburg,--the Castle of the Clouds.

But Flemming thought not of the scene before him. Sorrow unspeakable

was upon his spirit in that lonely hour; and, hiding his face in his

hands, he exclaimed aloud;

"Spirit of the past! look not so mournfully at me with thy great,

tearful eyes! Touch me not with thy cold hand! Breathe not upon me with

the icy breath of the grave! Chant no more that dirge of sorrow,

through the long and silent watches of the night!"

Mournful voices from afar seemed to answer, "Treuenfels!" and he

remembered how others had suffered, and his heart grew still.

Slowly the landscape brightened. Down therushing stream came a boat,

with its white wings spread, and darted like a swallow through the

narrow pass of God's-Help. The boatmen were singing, but not the song

of Roland the Brave, which was heard of old by the weeping Hildegund,

as she sat within the walls of that cloister, which now looked forth in

the pale morning from amid the leafless linden trees. The dim

traditions of those gray old times rose in the traveller's memory; for

the ruined tower of Rolandseck was still looking down upon the Kloster

Nonnenwerth, as if the sound of the funeral bell had changed the

faithful Paladin to stone, and he were watching still to see the form

of his beloved one come forth, not from her cloister, but from her

grave. Thus the brazen clasps of the book of legends were opened, and,

on the page illuminated by the misty rays of the rising sun, he read

again the tales of Liba, and the mournful bride of Argenfels, and

Siegfried, the mighty slayer of the dragon. Meanwhile the mists had

risen from the Rhine, and the whole air was filled with golden vapor,

through which hebeheld the sun, hanging in heaven like a drop of blood.

Even thus shone the sun within him, amid the wintry vapors, uprising

from the valley of the shadow of death, through which flowed the stream

of his life,--sighing, sighing!

CHAPTER II. THE CHRIST OF ANDERNACH.

Paul Flemming resumed his solitary journey. The morning was still

misty, but not cold. Across the Rhine the sun came wading through the

reddish vapors; and soft and silver-white outspread the broad river,

without a ripple upon its surface, or visible motion of the ever-moving

current. A little vessel, with one loose sail, was riding at anchor,

keel to keel with another, that lay right under it, its own

apparition,--and all was silent, and calm, and beautiful.

The road was for the most part solitary; for there are few travellers

upon the Rhine in winter. Peasant women were at work in the vineyards;

climbing up the slippery hill-sides, like beasts of burden, with large

baskets of manureupon their backs. And once during the morning, a band

of apprentices, with knapsacks, passed by, singing, "The Rhine! The

Rhine! a blessing on the Rhine!"

O, the pride of the German heart in this noble river! And right it is;

for, of all the rivers of this beautiful earth, there is none so

beautiful as this. There is hardly a league of its whole course, from

its cradle in the snowy Alps to its grave in the sands of Holland,

which boasts not its peculiar charms. By heavens! If I were a German I

would be proud of it too; and of the clustering grapes, that hang about

its temples, as it reels onward through vineyards, in a triumphal

march, like Bacchus, crowned and drunken.

But I will not attempt to describe the Rhine; it would make this

chapter much too long. And to do it well, one should write like a god;

and his style flow onward royally with breaks and dashes, like the

waters of that royal river, and antique, quaint, and Gothic times, be

reflected in it. Alas! this evening my style flows not at all. Flow,

then, into this smoke-colored goblet, thou blood of the Rhine! out of

thy prison-house,--out of thy long-necked, tapering flask, in shape not

unlike a church-spire among thy native hills; and, from the crystal

belfry, loud ring the merry tinkling bells, while I drink a health to

my hero, in whose heart is sadness, and in whose ears the bells of

Andernach are ringing noon.

He is threading his way alone through a narrow alley, and now up a

flight of stone steps, and along the city wall, towards that old round

tower, built by the Archbishop Frederick of Cologne in the twelfth

century. It has a romantic interest in his eyes; for he has still in

his mind and heart that beautiful sketch of Carové, in which is

described a day on the tower of Andernach. He finds the old keeper and

his wife still there; and the old keeper closes the door behind him

slowly, as of old, lest he should jam too hard the poor souls in

Purgatory, whose fate it is to suffer in the cracks of doors and

hinges. But alas! alas! the daughter, the maiden with long, dark

eyelashes! she is asleep in her little grave, under the linden trees of

Feldkirche, with rosemary in her folded hands!

Flemming returned to the hotel disappointed. As he passed along the

narrow streets, he was dreaming of many things; but mostly of the

keeper's daughter, asleep in the churchyard of Feldkirche. Suddenly, on

turning the corner of an ancient, gloomy church, his attention was

arrested by a little chapel in an angle of the wall. It was only a

small thatched roof, like a bird's nest; under which stood a rude

wooden image of the Saviour on the Cross. A real crown of thorns was

upon his head, which was bowed downward, as if in the death agony; and

drops of blood were falling down his cheeks, and from his hands and

feet and side. The face was haggard and ghastly beyond all expression;

and wore a look of unutterable bodily anguish. The rude sculptor had

given it this, but his art could go no farther. The sublimity of death

in a dying Saviour, the expiring God-likeness of Jesus of Nazareth was

not there. The artist had caught no heavenly inspiration from his

theme. All was coarse, harsh, and revolting to a sensitive mind; and

Flemming turned away with a shudder, as he saw this fearful image

gazing at him, with its fixed and half-shut eyes.

He soon reached the hotel, but that face of agony still haunted him. He

could not refrain from speaking of it to a very old woman, who sat

knitting by the window of the dining-room, in a high-backed,

old-fashioned arm-chair. I believe she was the innkeeper's grandmother.

At all events she was old enough to be so. She took off her owl-eyed

spectacles, and, as she wiped the glasses with her handkerchief, said;

"Thou dear Heaven! Is it possible! Did you never hear of the Christ of

Andernach?"

Flemming answered in the negative.

"Thou dear Heaven!" continued the old woman. "It is a very wonderful

story; and a true one, as every good Christian in Andernach will tell

you. And it all happened before the deathof my blessed man, four years

ago, let me see,--yes, four years ago, come Christmas."

Here the old woman stopped speaking, but went on with her knitting.

Other thoughts seemed to occupy her mind. She was thinking, no doubt,

of her blessed man, as German widows call their dead husbands. But

Flemming having expressed an ardent wish to hear the wonderful story,

she told it, in nearly the following words.

"There was once a poor old woman in Andernach whose name was Frau

Martha, and she lived all alone in a house by herself, and loved all

the Saints and the blessed Virgin, and was as good as an angel, and

sold pies down by the Rheinkrahn. But her house was very old, and the

roof-tiles were broken, and she was too poor to get new ones, and the

rain kept coming in, and no Christian soul in Andernach would help her.

But the Frau Martha was a good woman, and never did anybody any harm,

but went to mass every morning, and sold pies by the Rheinkrahn. Now

one dark, windy night, when all the good Christians in Andernachwere

abed and asleep in the feathers, Frau Martha, who slept under the roof,

heard a great noise over her head, and in her chamber, drip! drip!

drip! as if the rain were dropping down through the broken tiles. Dear

soul! and sure enough it was. And then there was a pounding and

hammering overhead, as if somebody were at work on the roof; and she

thought it was Pelz-Nickel tearing the tiles off, because she had not

been to confession often enough. So she began to pray; and the faster

she said her Pater-noster and her Ave-Maria, the faster Pelz-Nickel

pounded and pulled; and drip! drip! drip! it went all round her in the

dark chamber, till the poor woman was frightened out of her wits, and

ran to the window to call for help. Then in a moment all was

still,--death-still. But she saw a light streaming through the mist and

rain, and a great shadow on the house opposite. And then somebody came

down from the top of her house by a ladder, and had a lantern in his

hand; and he took the ladder on his shoulder and went down thestreet.

But she could not see clearly, because the window was streaked with

rain. And in the morning the old broken tiles were found scattered

about the street, and there were new ones on the roof, and the old

house has never leaked to this blessed day.

"As soon as mass was over Frau Martha told the priest what had

happened, and he said it was not Pelz-Nickel, but, without doubt, St.

Castor or St. Florian. Then she went to the market and told Frau

Bridget all about it; and Frau Bridget said, that, two nights before,

Hans Claus, the cooper, had heard a great pounding in his shop, and in

the morning found new hoops on all his old hogsheads; and that a man

with a lantern and a ladder had been seen riding out of town at

midnight on a donkey, and that the same night the old windmill, at

Kloster St. Thomas, had been mended up, and the old gate of the

churchyard at Feldkirche made as good as new, though nobody knew how

the man got across the river. Then Frau Martha went down to the

Rheinkrahn and told all thesestories over again; and the old ferryman

of Fahr said he could tell something about it; for, the very night that

the churchyard-gate was mended, he was lying awake in his bed, because

he could not sleep, and he heard a loud knocking at the door, and

somebody calling to him to get up and set him over the river. And when

he got up, he saw a man down by the river with a lantern and a ladder;

but as he was going down to him, the man blew out the light, and it was

so dark he could not see who he was; and his boat was old and leaky,

and he was afraid to set him over in the dark; but the man said he must

be in Andernach that night; and so he set him over. And after they had

crossed the river, he watched the man, till he came to an image of the

Holy Virgin, and saw him put the ladder against the wall, and go up and

light his lamp, and then walk along the street. And in the morning he

found his old boat all caulked, and tight, and painted red, and he

could not for his blessed life tell who did it, unless it werethe man

with the lantern. Dear soul! how strange it was!

"And so it went on for some time; and, whenever the man with the

lantern had been seen walking through the street at night, so sure as

the morning came, some work had been done for the sake of some good

soul; and everybody knew he did it; and yet nobody could find out who

he was, nor where he lived;--for, whenever they came near him, he blew

out his light, and turned down another street, and, if they followed

him, he suddenly disappeared, nobody could tell how. And some said it

was Rübezahl; and some, Pelz-Nickel; and some, St.

Anthony-on-the-Health.

"Now one stormy night a poor, sinful creature was wandering about the

streets, with her babe in her arms, and she was hungry, and cold, and

no soul in Andernach would take her in. And when she came to the

church, where the great crucifix stands, she saw no light in the little

chapel at the corner; but she sat down on a stone at the foot of the

cross and began to pray, and prayed, till she fell asleep, with her

poor little babe on her bosom. But she did not sleep long; for a bright

light shone full in her face; and, when she opened her eyes, she saw a

pale man, with a lantern, standing right before her. He was almost

naked; and there was blood upon his hands and body, and great tears in

his beautiful eyes, and his face was like the face of the Saviour on

the cross. Not a single word did he say to the poor woman; but looked

at her compassionately, and gave her a loaf of bread, and took the

little babe in his arms, and kissed it. Then the mother looked up to

the great crucifix, but there was no image there; and she shrieked and

fell down as if she were dead. And there she was found with her child;

and a few days after they both died, and were buried together in one

grave. And nobody would have believed her story, if a woman, who lived

at the corner, had not gone to the window, when she heard the scream,

and seen the figure hang the lantern up in its place, and then set the

ladder against the wall, and go up and nailitself to the cross. Since

that night it has never moved again. Ach! Herr Je!"

Such was the legend of the Christ of Andernach, as the old woman in

spectacles told it to Flemming. It made a painful impression on his

sick and morbid soul; and he felt now for the first time in full force,

how great is the power of popular superstition.

The post-chaise was now at the door, and Flemming was soon on the road

to Coblentz, a city which stands upon the Rhine, at the mouth of the

Mosel, opposite Ehrenbreitstein. It is by no means a long drive from

Andernach to Coblentz; and the only incident which occurred to enliven

the way was the appearance of a fat, red-faced man on horseback,

trotting slowly towards Andernach. As they met, the mad little

postilion gave him a friendly cut with his whip, and broke out into an

exclamation, which showed he was from Münster;

"Jesmariosp! my friend! How is the Man in the Custom-House?"

Now to any candid mind this would seem a fair question enough; but not

so thought the red-faced man on horseback; for he waxed exceedingly

angry, and replied, as the chaise whirled by;

"The devil take you, and your Westphalian ham, and pumpernickel!"

Flemming called to his servant, and the servant to the postilion, for

an explanation of this short dialogue; and the explanation was, that on

the belfry of the Kaufhaus in Coblentz, is a huge head, with a brazen

helmet and a beard; and whenever the clock strikes, at each stroke of

the hammer, this giant's head opens its great jaws and smites its teeth

together, as if, like the brazen head of Friar Bacon, it would say;

"Time was; Time is; Time is past." This figure is known through all the

country round about, as "The Man in the Custom-House"; and, when a

friend in the country meets a friend from Coblentz, instead of saying,

"How are all the good people in Coblentz?"--he says, "How is the Man in

the Custom-House?" Thus the giant has a great partto play in the town;

and thus ended the first day of Flemming's Rhine-journey; and the only

good deed he had done was to give an alms to a poor beggar woman, who

lifted up her trembling hands and exclaimed;

"Thou blessed babe!"

CHAPTER III. HOMUNCULUS.

After all, a journey up the Rhine, in the mists and solitude of

December, is not so unpleasant as the reader may perhaps imagine. You

have the whole road and river to yourself. Nobody is on the wing;

hardly a single traveller. The ruins are the same; and the river, and

the outlines of the hills; and there are few living figures in the

landscape to wake you from your musings, distract your thoughts, and

cover you with dust.

Thus, likewise, thought our traveller, as he continued his journey on

the morrow. The day is overcast, and the clouds threaten rain or snow.

Why does he stop at the little village of Capellen? Because, right

above him on the high cliff, the glorious ruin of Stolzenfels is

looking at him with itshollow eyes, and beckoning to him with its

gigantic finger, as if to say; "Come up hither, and I will tell thee an

old tale." Therefore he alights, and goes up the narrow village lane,

and up the stone steps, and up the steep pathway, and throws himself

into the arms of that ancient ruin, and holds his breath, to hear the

quick footsteps of the falling snow, like the footsteps of angels

descending upon earth. And that ancient ruin speaks to him with its

hollow voice, and says;

"Beware of dreams! Beware of the illusions of fancy! Beware of the

solemn deceivings of thy vast desires! Beneath me flows the Rhine, and,

like the stream of Time, it flows amid the ruins of the Past. I see

myself therein, and I know that I am old. Thou, too, shalt be old. Be

wise in season. Like the stream of thy life, runs the stream beneath

us. Down from the distant Alps,--out into the wide world, it bursts

away, like a youth from the house of his fathers. Broad-breasted and

strong, and with earnest endeavours, like manhood, it makes itself a

way through these difficultmountain passes. And at length, in its old

age, its stops, and its steps are weary and slow, and it sinks into the

sand, and, through its grave, passes into the great ocean, which is its

eternity. Thus shall it be with thee.

"In ancient times there dwelt within these halls a follower of Jesus of

Jerusalem,--an Archbishop in the church of Christ. He gave himself up

to dreams; to the illusions of fancy; to the vast desires of the human

soul. He sought after the impossible. He sought after the Elixir of

Life,--the Philosopher's Stone. The wealth, that should have fed the

poor, was melted in his crucibles. Within these walls the Eagle of the

clouds sucked the blood of the Red Lion, and received the spiritual

Love of the Green Dragon, but alas! was childless. In solitude and

utter silence did the disciple of the Hermetic Philosophy toil from day

to day, from night to night. From the place where thou standest, he

gazed at evening upon hills, and vales, and waters spread beneath him;

and saw how the setting sun had changed them allto gold, by an alchymy

more cunning than his own. He saw the world beneath his feet; and said

in his heart, that he alone was wise. Alas! he read more willingly in

the book of Paracelsus, than in the book of Nature; and, believing that

`where reason hath experience, faith hath no mind,' would fain have

made unto himself a child, not as Nature teaches us, but as the

Philosopher taught,--a poor homunculus, in a glass bottle. And he died

poor and childless!"

Whether it were worth while to climb the Stolzenfels to hear such a

homily as this, some persons may perhaps doubt. But Paul Flemming

doubted not. He laid the lesson to heart; and it would have saved him

many an hour of sorrow, if he had learned that lesson better, and

remembered it longer.

In ancient times, there stood in the citadel of Athens three statues of

Minerva. The first was of olive wood, and, according to popular

tradition, had fallen from heaven. The second was of bronze,

commemorating the victory of Marathon; and the third of gold and

ivory,--a great miracle of art, in the age of Pericles. And thus in the

citadel of Time stands Man himself. In childhood, shaped of soft and

delicate wood, just fallen from heaven; in manhood, a statue of bronze,

commemorating struggle and victory; and lastly, in the maturity of age,

perfectly shaped in gold and ivory,--a miracle of art!

Flemming had already lived through the oliveage. He was passing into

the age of bronze, into his early manhood; and in his hands the flowers

of Paradise were changing to the sword and shield.

And this reminds me, that I have not yet described my hero. I will do

it now, as he stands looking down on the glorious landscape;--but in

few words. Both in person and character he resembled Harold, the

Fair-Hair of Norway, who is described, in the old Icelandic Death-Song

of Regner Hairy-Breeches, as "the young chief so proud of his flowing

locks; he who spent his mornings among the young maidens; he who loved

toconverse with the handsome widows." This was an amiable weakness; and

it sometimes led him into mischief. Imagination was the ruling power of

his mind. His thoughts were twin-born; the thought itself, and its

figurative semblance in the outer world. Thus, through the quiet, still

waters of his soul each image floated double, "swan and shadow."

These traits of character, a good heart and a poetic imagination, made

his life joyous and the world beautiful; till at length Death cut down

the sweet, blue flower, that bloomed beside him, and wounded him with

that sharp sickle, so that he bowed his head, and would fain have been

bound up in the same sheaf with the sweet, blue flower. Then the world

seemed to him less beautiful, and life became earnest. It would have

been well if he could have forgotten the past; that he might not so

mournfully have lived in it, but might have enjoyed and improved the

present. But this his heart refused to do; and ever, as he floated upon

the great sea of life, he looked down through thetransparent waters,

checkered with sunshine and shade, into the vast chambers of the mighty

deep, in which his happier days had sunk, and wherein they were lying

still visible, like golden sands, and precious stones, and pearls; and,

half in despair, half in hope, he grasped downward after them again,

and drew back his hand, filled only with seaweed, and dripping with

briny tears!--And between him and those golden sands, a radiant image

floated, like the spirit in Dante's Paradise, singing "Ave-Maria!" and

while it sang, down-sinking, and slowly vanishing away.

The truth is, that in all things he acted more from impulse than from

fixed principle; as is the case with most young men. Indeed, his

principles hardly had time to take root; for he pulled them all up,

every now and then, as children do the flowers they have planted,--to

see if they are growing. Yet there was much in him which was good; for

underneath the flowers and green-sward of poetry, and the good

principles which would have taken root, had he given them time,

therelay a strong and healthy soil of common sense,--freshened by

living springs of feeling, and enriched by many faded hopes, that had

fallen upon it like dead leaves.

CHAPTER IV. THE LANDLADY'S DAUGHTER.

"Allez Fuchs! allez lustig!" cried the impatient postilion to his

horses, in accents, which, like the wild echo of the Lurley Felsen,

came first from one side of the river, and then from the other,--that

is to say, in words alternately French and German. The truth is, he was

tired of waiting; and when Flemming had at length resumed his seat in

the post-chaise, the poor horses had to make up the time lost in dreams

on the mountain. This is far oftener the case, than most people

imagine. One half of the world has to sweat and groan, that the other

half may dream. It would have been a difficult task for the traveller

or his postilion to persuade the horses, that these dreams were all for

their good.

The next stopping-place was the little tavern of the Star, an

out-of-the-way corner in the town of Salzig. It stands on the banks of

the Rhine; and, directly in front of it, sheer from the water's edge,

rise the mountains of Liebenstein and Sternenfels, each with its ruined

castle. These are the Brothers of the old tradition, still gazing at

each other face to face; and beneath them in the valley stands a

cloister,--meek emblem of that orphan child, they both so passionately

loved.

In a small, flat-bottomed boat did the landlady's daughter row Flemming

"over the Rhine-stream, rapid and roaring wide." She was a beautiful

girl of sixteen; with black hair, and dark, lovely eyes, and a face

that had a story to tell. How different faces are in this particular!

Some of them speak not. They are books in which not a line is written,

save perhaps a date. Others are great family bibles, with all the Old

and New Testament written in them. Others are Mother Goose and nursery

tales;--others bad tragedies or pickle-herring farces; and others, like

that of the landlady's daughter at the Star, sweet love-anthologies,

and songs of the affections. It was on that account, that Flemming said

to her, as they glided out into the swift stream;

"My dear child! do you know the story of the Liebenstein?"

"The story of the Liebenstein," she answered, "I got by heart, when I

was a little child."

And here her large, dark, passionate eyes looked into Flemming's, and

he doubted not, that she had learned the story far too soon, and far

too well. That story he longed to hear, as if it were unknown to him;

for he knew that the girl, who had got it by heart when a child, would

tell it as it should be told. So he begged her to repeat the story,

which she was but too glad to do; for she loved and believed it, as if

it had all been written in the Bible. But before she began, she rested

a moment on her oars, and taking the crucifix, which hung suspended

from her neck, kissed it, and then let it sink down into her bosom, as

if it were an anchor she was letting down into her heart. Meanwhile her

moist, dark eyes were turned to heaven. Perhaps her soul was walking

with the souls of Cunizza, and Rahab, and Mary Magdalen. Or perhaps she

was thinking of that Nun, of whom St. Gregory says, in his Dialogues,

that, having greedily eaten a lettuce in a garden, without making the

sign of the cross, she found herself soon after possessed with a devil.

The probability, however, is, that she was looking up to the ruined

castles only, and not to heaven, for she soon began her story, and told

Flemming how, a great, great many years ago, an old man lived in the

Liebenstein with his two sons; and how both the young men loved the

Lady Geraldine, an orphan, under their father's care; and how the elder

brother went away in despair, and the younger was betrothed to the Lady

Geraldine; and how they were as happy as Aschenputtel and the Prince.

And then the holy Saint Bernard came and carried away all the young men

to the war, just as Napoleon did afterwards; and the young lord went to

the Holy Land, and the Lady Geraldine sat in her tower and wept, and

waited for her lover's return, while the old father built the

Sternenfels for them to live in when they were married. And when it was

finished, the old man died; and the elder brother came back and lived

in the Liebenstein, and took care of the gentle Lady. Ere long there

came news from the Holy Land, that the war was over; and the heart of

the gentle Lady beat with joy, till she heard that her faithless lover

was coming back with a Greek wife,--the wicked man! and then she went

into a convent and became a holy nun. So the young lord of Sternenfels

came home, and lived in his castle in great splendor with the Greek

woman, who was a wicked woman, and did what she ought not to do. But

the elder brother was angry for the wrong done the gentle Lady, and

challenged the lord of Sternenfels to single combat. And, while they

were fighting with their great swords in the valley of Bornhofen behind

the castle, the convent bells began to ring, and the Lady Geraldine

came forth with a train of nuns alldressed in white, and made the

brothers friends again, and told them she was the bride of Heaven, and

happier in her convent than she could have been in the Liebenstein or

the Sternenfels. And when the brothers returned, they found that the

false Greek wife had gone away with another knight. So they lived

together in peace, and were never married. And when they died--"

"Lisbeth! Lisbeth!" cried a sharp voice from the shore, "Lisbeth! Where

are you taking the gentleman?"

This recalled the poor girl to her senses; and she saw how fast they

were floating down stream. For in telling the story she had forgotten

every thing else, and the swift current had swept them down to the tall

walnut trees of Kamp. They landed in front of the Capucin Monastery.

Lisbeth led the way through the little village, and turning to the

right pointed up the romantic, lonely valley which leads to the

Liebenstein, and even offered to go up. But Flemming patted her cheek

and shook his head. He went up the valley alone.

CHAPTER V. JEAN PAUL, THE ONLY-ONE.

The man in the play, who wished for `some forty pounds of lovely beef,

placed in a Mediterranean sea of brewis,' might have seen his ample

desires almost realized at the table d'hôte of the Rheinischen Hof, in

Mayence, where Flemming dined that day. At the head of the table sat a

gentleman, with a smooth, broad forehead, and large, intelligent eyes.

He was from Baireuth in Franconia; and talked about poetry and Jean

Paul, to a pale, romantic-looking lady on his right. There was music

all dinner-time, at the other end of the hall; a harp and a horn and a

voice; so that a great part of the fat gentleman's conversation with

the pale lady was lost to Flemming, who sat opposite to her, and could

look right into her large, melancholy eyes. But what heheard, so much

interested him,--indeed, the very name of the beloved Jean Paul would

have been enough for this,--that he ventured to join in the

conversation, and asked the German if he had known the poet personally.

"Yes; I knew him well," replied the stranger. "I am a native of

Baireuth, where he passed the best years of his life. In my mind the

man and the author are closely united. I never read a page of his

writings without hearing his voice, and seeing his form before me.

There he sits, with his majestic, mountainous forehead, his mild blue

eyes, and finely cut nose and mouth; his massive frame clad loosely and

carelessly in an old green frock, from the pockets of which the corners

of books project, and perhaps the end of a loaf of bread, and the nose

of a bottle;--a straw hat, lined with green, lying near him; a huge

walking-stick in his hand, and at his feet a white poodle, with pink

eyes and a string round his neck. You would sooner have taken him for a

master-carpenter than for a poet. Is he a favorite author of yours?"

Flemming answered in the affirmative.

"But a foreigner must find it exceedingly difficult to understand him,"

said the gentleman. "It is by no means an easy task for us Germans."

"I have always observed," replied Flemming, "that the true

understanding and appreciation of a poet depend more upon individual,

than upon national character. If there be a sympathy between the minds

of writer and reader, the bounds and barriers of a foreign tongue are

soon overleaped. If you once understand an author's character, the

comprehension of his writings becomes easy."

"Very true," replied the German, "and the character of Richter is too

marked to be easily misunderstood. Its prominent traits are tenderness

and manliness,--qualities, which are seldom found united in so high a

degree as in him. Over all he sees, over all he writes, are spread the

sunbeams of a cheerful spirit,--the light of inexhaustible human love.

Every sound of human joy and of human sorrow finds a

deep-resoundingecho in his bosom. In every man, he loves his humanity

only, not his superiority. The avowed object of all his literary labors

was to raise up again the down-sunken faith in God, virtue, and

immortality; and, in an egotistical, revolutionary age, to warm again

our human sympathies, which have now grown cold. And not less boundless

is his love for nature,--for this outward, beautiful world. He embraces

it all in his arms."

"Yes," answered Flemming, almost taking the words out of the stranger's

mouth, "for in his mind all things become idealized. He seems to

describe himself when he describes the hero of his Titan, as a child,

rocking in a high wind upon the branches of a full-blossomed

apple-tree, and, as its summit, blown abroad by the wind, now sunk him

in deep green, and now tossed him aloft in deep blue and glancing

sunshine,--in his imagination stood that tree gigantic;--it grew alone

in the universe, as if it were the tree of eternal life; its roots

struck down into the abyss; the white and red clouds hung as blossoms

upon it; the moon asfruit; the little stars sparkled like dew, and

Albano reposed in its measureless summit; and a storm swayed the summit

out of Day into Night, and out of Night into Day."

"Yet the spirit of love," interrupted the Franconian, "was not

weakness, but strength. It was united in him with great manliness. The

sword of his spirit had been forged and beaten by poverty. Its temper

had been tried by a thirty years' war. It was not broken, not even

blunted; but rather strengthened and sharpened by the blows it gave and

received. And, possessing this noble spirit of humanity, endurance, and

self-denial, he made literature his profession; as if he had been

divinely commissioned to write. He seems to have cared for nothing

else, to have thought of nothing else, than living quietly and making

books. He says, that he felt it his duty, not to enjoy, nor to acquire,

but to write; and boasted, that he had made as many books as he had

lived years."

"And what do you Germans consider the prominent characteristics of his

genius?"

"Most undoubtedly his wild imagination and his playfulness. He throws

over all things a strange and magic coloring. You are startled at the

boldness and beauty of his figures and illustrations, which are

scattered everywhere with a reckless prodigality;--multitudinous, like

the blossoms of early summer,--and as fragrant and beautiful. With a

thousand extravagances are mingled ten thousand beauties of thought and

expression, which kindle the reader's imagination, and lead it onward

in a bold flight, through the glow of sunrise and sunset, and the dewy

coldness and starlight of summer nights. He is difficult to

understand,--intricate,--strange,--drawing his illustrations from every

by-corner of science, art, and nature,--a comet, among the bright stars

of German literature. When you read his works, it is as if you were

climbing a high mountain, in merry company, to see the sun rise. At

times you are enveloped in mist,--the morning wind sweeps by you with a

shout,--you hear the far-off muttering thunders. Wide beneath you

spreads the landscape,--field, meadow, town, and winding river. The

ringing of distant church-bells, or the sound of solemn village clock,

reaches you;--then arises the sweet and manifold fragrance of

flowers,--the birds begin to sing,--the vapors roll away,--up comes the

glorious sun,--you revel like the lark in the sunshine and bright blue

heaven, and all is a delirious dream of soul and sense,--when suddenly

a friend at your elbow laughs aloud, and offers you a piece of Bologna

sausage. As in real life, so in his writings,--the serious and the

comic, the sublime and the grotesque, the pathetic and the ludicrous

are mingled together. At times he is sententious, energetic, simple;

then again, obscure and diffuse. His thoughts are like mummies embalmed

in spices, and wrapped about with curious envelopements; but within

these the thoughts themselves are kings. At times glad, beautiful

images, airy forms, move by you, graceful, harmonious;--at times the

glaring, wild-looking fancies, chained together by hyphens, brackets,

and dashes, brave and base, high and low, all in their motley dresses,

go sweeping down the dusty page, like the galley-slaves, that sweep the

streets of Rome, where you may chance to see the nobleman and the

peasant manacled together."

Flemming smiled at the German's warmth, to which the presence of the

lady, and the Laubenheimer wine, seemed each to have contributed

something, and then said;

"Better an outlaw, than not free!--These are his own words. And thus he

changes at his will. Like the God Thor, of the old Northern mythology,

he now holds forth the seven bright stars in the bright heaven above

us, and now hides himself in clouds, and pounds away with his great

hammer."

"And yet this is not affectation in him," rejoined the German. "It is

his nature, it is Jean Paul. And the figures and ornaments of his

style, wild, fantastic, and oft-times startling, like those in Gothic

cathedrals, are not merely what they seem, but massive coignes and

buttresses, which support the fabric. Remove them, and the roofand

walls fall in. And through these gurgoyles, these wild faces, carved

upon spouts and gutters, flow out, like gathered rain, the bright,

abundant thoughts, that have fallen from heaven.

"And all he does, is done with a kind of serious playfulness. He is a

sea-monster, disporting himself on the broad ocean; his very sport is

earnest; there is something majestic and serious about it. In every

thing there is strength, a rough good-nature, all sunshine overhead,

and underneath the heavy moaning of the sea. Well may he be called

`Jean Paul, the Only-One.' "

With such discourse the hour of dinner passed; and after dinner

Flemming went to the Cathedral. They were singing vespers. A beadle,

dressed in blue, with a cocked hat, and a crimson sash and collar, was

strutting, like a turkey, along the aisles. This important gentleman

conducted Flemming through the church, and showed him the choir, with

its heavy-sculptured stalls of oak, and the beautiful figures in brown

stone, over the bishops' tombs. He then led him, by a side-door, into

theold and ruined cloisters of St. Willigis. Through the low gothic

arches the sunshine streamed upon the pavement of tombstones, whose

images and inscriptions are mostly effaced by the footsteps of many

generations. There stands the tomb of Frauenlob, the Minnesinger. His

face is sculptured on an entablature in the wall; a fine,

strongly-marked, and serious countenance. Below it is a bas-relief,

representing the poet's funeral. He is carried to his grave by ladies,

whose praise he sang, and thereby won the name of Frauenlob.

"This then," said Flemming, "is the grave, not of Praise-God

Bare-bones, but of Praise-the-Ladies Meissen, who wrote songs `somewhat

of lust, and somewhat of love.' But where sleeps the dust of his rival

and foe, sweet Master Bartholomew Rainbow?"

He meant this for an aside; but the turkey-cock picked it up and

answered;

"I do not know. He did not belong to this parish."

It was already night, when Flemming crossedthe Roman bridge over the

Nahe, and entered the town of Bingen. He stopped at the White Horse;

and, before going to bed, looked out into the dim starlight from his

window towards the Rhine, and his heart leaped up to behold the bold

outline of the neighbouring hills crested with Gothic ruins;--which in

the morning proved to be only a high, slated roof with fantastic

chimneys.

The morning was bright and frosty; and the river tinged with gay colors

from the rising sun. A soft, thin vapor floated in the air. In the

sunbeams flashed the hoar-frost, like silver stars; and through a long

avenue of trees, whose dripping branches bent and scattered pearls

before him, Paul Flemming journeyed on in triumph.

I will not prolong this journey, for I am weary and way-worn, and would

fain be at Heidelberg with my readers, and my hero. It was already

night when he reached the Manheim gate, and drove down the long

Hauptstrasse so slowly, that it seemed to him endless. The shops

werelighted on each side of the street, and he saw faces at the windows

here and there, and figures passing in the lamp-light, visible for a

moment and then swallowed up in the darkness. The thoughts that filled

his mind were strange; as are always the thoughts of a traveller, who

enters for the first time a strange city. This little world had been

going on for centuries before he came; and would go on for centuries

after he was gone. Of all the thousands who inhabited it he knew

nothing; and what knew they, or thought, of the stranger, who, in that

close post-chaise, weary with travel, and chilled by the evening wind,

was slowly rumbling over the paved street! Truly, this world can go on

without us, if we would but think so. If it had been a hearse instead

of a post-chaise, it would have been all the same to the people of

Heidelberg,--though by no means the same to Paul Flemming.

But at the farther end of the city, near the Castle and the Carls-Thor,

one warm heart was waiting to receive him; and this was the German

heart of his friend, the Baron of Hohenfels, with whom he was to pass

the winter in Heidelberg. No sooner had the carriage stopped at the

irongrated gate, and the postilion blown his horn, to announce the

arrival of a traveller, than the Baron was seen among the servants at

the door; and, a few moments afterwards, the two long-absent friends

were in each other's arms, and Flemming received a kiss upon each

cheek, and another on the mouth, as the pledge and seal of the German's

friendship. They held each other long by the hand, and looked into each

other's faces, and saw themselves in each other's eyes, both literally

and figuratively; literally, inasmuch as the images were there; and

figuratively, inasmuch as each was imagining what the other thought of

him, after the lapse of some years. In friendly hopes and questionings

and answers, the evening glided away at the supper-table, where many

more things were discussed than the roasted hare, and the

Johannisberger; and they sat late into the night, conversing of the

thoughts and feelings and delights, which fill the hearts of young men,

who have already enjoyed and suffered, and hoped and been disappointed.

CHAPTER VI. HEIDELBERG AND THE BARON.

High and hoar on the forehead of the Jettenbühl stands the Castle of

Heidelberg. Behind it rise the oak-crested hills of the Geissberg and

the Kaiserstuhl; and in front, from the broad terrace of masonry, you

can almost throw a stone upon the roofs of the city, so close do they

lie beneath. Above this terrace rises the broad front of the chapel of

Saint Udalrich. On the left, stands the slender octagon tower of the

horologe, and, on the right, a huge round tower, battered and shattered

by the mace of war, shores up with its broad shoulders the beautiful

palace and garden-terrace of Elisabeth, wife of the Pfalzgraf

Frederick. In the rear are older palaces and towers, forming a vast,

irregular quadrangle;--Rodolph's ancientcastle, with its Gothic

gloriette and fantastic gables; the Giant's Tower, guarding the

drawbridge over the moat; the Rent Tower, with the linden-trees growing

on its summit, and the magnificent Rittersaal of Otho-Henry, Count

Palatine of the Rhine and grand seneschal of the Holy Roman Empire.

From the gardens behind the castle, you pass under the archway of the

Giant's Tower into the great court-yard. The diverse architecture of

different ages strikes the eye; and curious sculptures. In niches on

the wall of Saint Udalrich's chapel stand rows of knights in armour,

all broken and dismembered; and on the front of Otho's Rittersaal, the

heroes of Jewish history and classic fable. You enter the open and

desolate chambers of the ruin; and on every side are medallions and

family arms; the Globe of the Empire and the Golden Fleece, or the

Eagle of the Cæsars, resting on the escutcheons of Bavaria and the

Palatinate. Over the windows and door-ways and chimney-pieces, are

sculptures and mouldings of exquisite workmanship; and the eyeis

bewildered by the profusion of caryatides, and arabesques, and

rosettes, and fan-like flutings, and garlands of fruits and flowers and

acorns, and bullocks'-heads with draperies of foliage, and muzzles of

lions, holding rings in their teeth. The cunning hand of Art was busy

for six centuries, in raising and adorning these walls; the mailed

hands of Time and War have defaced and overthrown them in less than

two. Next to the Alhambra of Granada, the Castle of Heidelberg is the

most magnificent ruin of the Middle Ages.

In the valley below flows the rushing stream of the Neckar. Close from

its margin, on the opposite side, rises the Mountain of All Saints,

crowned with the ruins of a convent; and up the valley stretches the

mountain-curtain of the Odenwald. So close and many are the hills,

which eastward shut the valley in, that the river seems a lake. But

westward it opens, upon the broad plain of the Rhine, like the mouth of

a trumpet; and like the blast of a trumpet is at times the wintry wind

through this narrow mountain pass. The blue Alsatian hills rise beyond;

and, on a platform or strip of level land, between the Neckar and the

mountains, right under the castle, stands the city of Heidelberg; as

the old song says, "a pleasant city, when it has done raining."

Something of this did Paul Flemming behold, when he rose the next

morning and looked from his window. It was a warm, vapory morning, and

a struggle was going on between the mist and the rising sun. The sun

had taken the hill-tops, but the mist still kept possession of the

valley and the town. The steeple of the great church rose through a

dense mass of snow-white clouds; and eastward, on the hills, the dim

vapors were rolling across the windows of the ruined castle, like the

fiery smoke of a great conflagration. It seemed to him an image of the

rising of the sun of Truth on a benighted world; its light streamed

through the ruins of centuries; and, down in the valley of Time, the

cross on the Christian church caught its rays, though the priests were

singing in mist and darkness below.

In the warm breakfast-parlour he found the Baron, waiting for him. He

was lying upon a sofa, in morning gown and purple-velvet slippers, both

with flowers upon them. He had a guitar in his hand, and a pipe in his

mouth, at the same time smoking, playing, and humming his favorite song

from Goethe;

"The water rushed, the water swelled,

A fisher sat thereby."

Flemming could hardly refrain from laughing at the sight of his friend;

and told him it reminded him of a street-musician he once saw in

Aix-la-Chapelle, who was playing upon six instruments at once; having a

helmet with bells on his head, a Pan's-reed in his cravat, a fiddle in

his hand, a triangle on his knee, cymbals on his heels, and on his back

a bass-drum, which he played with his elbows. To tell the truth, the

Baron of Hohenfels was rather a miscellaneous youth, rather a universal

genius. He pursued all things with eagerness, but for a short time

only; music, poetry, painting, pleasure, even the study of the

Pandects. Hisfeelings were keenly alive to the enjoyment of life. His

great defect was, that he was too much in love with human nature. But

by the power of imagination, in him, the bearded goat was changed to a

bright Capricornus:--no longer an animal on earth, but a constellation

in heaven. An easy and indolent disposition made him gentle and

childlike in his manners; and, in short, the beauty of his character,

like that of the precious opal, was owing to a defect in its

organization. His person was tall and slightly built; his hair light;

and his eyes blue, and as beautiful as those of a girl. In the tones of

his voice, there was something indescribably gentle and winning; and he

spoke the German language, with the soft, musical accent of his native

province of Curland. In his manners, if he had not `Antinous' easy

sway,' he had at least an easy sway of his own. Such, in few words, was

the bosom friend of Flemming.

"And what do you think of Heidelberg and the old castle up there?" said

he, as they seated themselves at the breakfast-table.

"Last night the town seemed very long to me," replied Flemming; "and as

to the castle, I have as yet had but a glimpse of it through the mist.

They tell me there is nothing finer in its way, excepting the Alhambra

of Granada; and no doubt I shall find it so. Only I wish the stone were

gray and not red. But, red or gray, I foresee that I shall waste many a

long hour in its desolate halls. Pray, does anybody live up there

now-a-days?"

"Nobody," answered the Baron, "but the man, who shows the Heidelberg

Ton, and Monsieur Charles de Grainberg, a Frenchman, who has been there

sketching ever since the year eighteen-hundred and ten. He has,

moreover, written a super-magnificent description of the ruin, in which

he says, that during the day only birds of prey disturb it with their

piercing cries, and at night, screech-owls, and other fallow deer.

These are his own words. You must buy his book and his sketches."

"Yes, the quotation and the tone of your voice will certainly persuade

me so to do."

"Take his or none, my friend, for you will find no others. And

seriously, his sketches are very good. There is one on the wall there,

which is beautiful, save and except that straddle-bug figure among the

bushes in the corner."

"But is there no ghost, no haunted chamber in the old castle?" asked

Flemming, after casting a hasty glance at the picture.

"Oh, certainly," replied the Baron; "there are two. There is the ghost

of the Virgin Mary in Ruprecht's Tower, and the Devil in the Dungeon."

"Ha! that is grand!" exclaimed Flemming, with evident delight. "Tell me

the whole story, quickly! I am as curious as a child."

"It is a tale of the times of Louis the Debonnaire," said the Baron,

with a smile; "a mouldy tradition of a credulous age. His brother

Frederick lived here in the castle with him, and had a flirtation with

Leonore von Luzelstein, a lady of the court, whom he afterwards

despised, and was consequently most cordially hated by her.

Frompolitical motives he was equally hateful to certain petty German

tyrants, who, in order to effect his ruin, accused him of heresy. But

his brother Louis would not deliver him up to their fury, and they

resolved to effect by stratagem, what they could not by intrigue.

Accordingly, Leonore von Luzelstein, disguised as the Virgin Mary, and

the father confessor of the Elector, in the costume of Satan, made

their appearance in the Elector's bed-chamber at midnight, and

frightened him so horribly, that he consented to deliver up his brother

into the hands of two Black Knights, who pretended to be ambassadors

from the Vehm-Gericht. They proceeded together to Frederick's chamber;

where luckily old Gemmingen, a brave soldier, kept guard behind the

arras. The monk went foremost in his Satanic garb; but, no sooner had

he set foot in the prince's bed-chamber, than the brave Gemmingen drew

his sword, and said quaintly, `Die, wretch!' and so he died. The rest

took to their heels, and were heard of no more. And now the souls of

Leonore and the monk haunt the scene of their midnight crime. You will

find the story in Grainberg's book, worked up with a kind of

red-morocco and burnt-cork sublimity, and great melo-dramatic clanking

of chains, and hooting of owls, and other fallow deer!"

"After breakfast," said Flemming, "we will go up to the castle. I must

get acquainted with this mirror of owls, this modern Till Eulenspiegel.

See what a glorious morning we have! It is truly a wondrous winter!

what summer sunshine; what soft Venetian fogs! How the wanton,

treacherous air coquets with the old gray-beard trees! Such weather

makes the grass and our beards grow apace! But we have an old saying in

English, that winter never rots in the sky. So he will come down at

last in his old-fashioned, mealy coat. We shall have snow in spring;

and the blossoms will be all snow-flakes. And afterwards a summer,

which will be no summer, but, as Jean Paul says, only a winter painted

green. Is it not so?"

"Unless I am much deceived in the climate of Heidelberg," replied the

Baron, "we shall not have to wait long for snow. We have sudden changes

here, and I should not marvel much if it snowed before night."

"The greater reason for making good use of the morning sunshine, then.

Let us hasten to the castle, after which my heart yearns."

CHAPTER VII. LIVES OF SCHOLARS.

The forebodings of the Baron proved true. In the afternoon the weather

changed. The western wind began to blow, and its breath drew a

cloud-veil over the face of heaven, as a breath does over the human

face in a mirror. Soon the snow began to fall. Athwart the distant

landscape it swept like a white mist. The storm-wind came from the

Alsatian hills, and struck the dense clouds aslant through the air. And

ever faster fell the snow, a roaring torrent from those mountainous

clouds. The setting sun glared wildly from the summit of the hills, and

sank like a burning ship at sea, wrecked in the tempest. Thus the

evening set in; and winter stood at the gate wagging his white and

shaggy beard, like an old harper, chanting an old rhyme:--"How cold it

is! how cold it is!"

"I like such a storm as this," said Flemming, who stood at the window,

looking out into the tempest and the gathering darkness. "The silent

falling of snow is to me one of the most solemn things in nature. The

fall of autumnal leaves does not so much affect me. But the driving

storm is grand. It startles me; it awakens me. It is wild and woful,

like my own soul. I cannot help thinking of the sea; how the waves run

and toss their arms about,--and the wind plays on those great harps,

made by the shrouds and masts of ships. Winter is here in earnest!

Whew! How the old churl whistles and threshes the snow! Sleet and rain

are falling too. Already the trees are bearded with icicles; and the

two broad branches of yonder pine look like the white mustache of some

old German Baron."

"And to-morrow it will look more wintry still," said his friend. "We

shall wake up and find that the frost-spirit has been at work all night

building Gothic Cathedrals on our windows, just as the devil built the

Cathedral of Cologne. Sodraw the curtains, and come sit here by the

warm fire."

"And now," said Flemming, having done as his friend desired, "tell me

something of Heidelberg and its University. I suppose we shall lead

about as solitary and studious a life here as we did of yore in little

Göttingen, with nothing to amuse us, save our own day-dreams."

"Pretty much so," replied the Baron; "which cannot fail to please you,

since you are in pursuit of tranquillity. As to the University, it is,

as you know, one of the oldest in Germany. It was founded in the

fourteenth century by the Count Palatine Ruprecht, and had in the first

year more than five hundred students, all busily committing to memory,

after the old scholastic wise, the rules of grammar versified by

Alexander de Villa Dei, and the extracts made by Peter the Spaniard

from Michel Psellus's Synopsis of Aristotle's Organon, and the

Categories, with Porphory's Commentaries. Truly, I do not much wonder,

that Eregina Scotus should have been put to death byhis scholars with

their penknives. They must have been pushed to the very verge of

despair."

"What a strange picture a University presents to the imagination. The

lives of scholars in their cloistered stillness;--literary men of

retired habits, and Professors who study sixteen hours a day, and never

see the world but on a Sunday. Nature has, no doubt, for some wise

purpose, placed in their hearts this love of literary labor and

seclusion. Otherwise, who would feed the undying lamp of thought? But

for such men as these, a blast of wind through the chinks and crannies

of this old world, or the flapping of a conqueror's banner, would blow

it out forever. The light of the soul is easily extinguished. And

whenever I reflect upon these things I become aware of the great

importance, in a nation's history, of the individual fame of scholars

and literary men. I fear, that it is far greater than the world is

willing to acknowledge; or, perhaps I should say, than the world has

thought of acknowledging. Blot out from England's history the names of

Chaucer, Shakspere, Spenser, and Milton only, and how much of her glory

would you blot out with them! Take from Italy such names as Dante,

Petrarch, Boccaccio, Michel Angelo, and Raphael, and how much would

still be wanting to the completeness of her glory! How would the

history of Spain look if the leaves were torn out, on which are written

the names of Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and Calderon! What would be the

fame of Portugal, without her Camoens; of France, without her Racine,

and Rabelais, and Voltaire; or Germany, without her Martin Luther, her

Goethe, and Schiller!--Nay, what were the nations of old, without their

philosophers, poets, and historians! Tell me, do not these men in all

ages and in all places, emblazon with bright colors the armorial

bearings of their country? Yes, and far more than this; for in all ages

and all places they give humanity assurance of its greatness; and say;

Call not this time or people wholly barbarous; for thus much, even then

and there, could the human mind achieve! But the boisterous world has

hardlythought of acknowledging all this. Therein it has shown itself

somewhat ungrateful. Else, whence the great reproach, the general

scorn, the loud derision, with which, to take a familiar example, the

monks of the Middle Ages are regarded! That they slept their lives away

is most untrue. For in an age when books were few,--so few, so

precious, that they were often chained to their oaken shelves with iron

chains, like galley-slaves to their benches, these men, with their

laborious hands, copied upon parchment all the lore and wisdom of the

past, and transmitted it to us. Perhaps it is not too much to say,

that, but for these monks, not one line of the classics would have

reached our day. Surely, then, we can pardon something to those

superstitious ages, perhaps even the mysticism of the scholastic

philosophy, since, after all, we can find no harm in it, only the

mistaking of the possible for the real, and the high aspirings of the

human mind after a long-sought and unknown somewhat. I think the name

of Martin Luther, the monk of Wittemberg, alone sufficient to redeem

all monkhoodfrom the reproach of laziness! If this will not, perhaps

the vast folios of Thomas Aquinas will;--or the countless manuscripts,

still treasured in old libraries, whose yellow and wrinkled pages

remind one of the hands that wrote them, and the faces that once bent

over them."

"An eloquent homily," said the Baron laughing, "a most touching appeal

in behalf of suffering humanity! For my part, I am no friend of this

entire seclusion from the world. It has a very injurious effect on the

mind of a scholar. The Chinese proverb is true; a single conversation

across the table with a wise man, is better than ten years' mere study

of books. I have known some of these literary men, who thus shut

themselves up from the world. Their minds never come in contact with

those of their fellow-men. They read little. They think much. They are

mere dreamers. They know not what is new nor what is old. They often

strike upon trains of thought, which stand written in good authors some

century or so back, and are even current in the mouths of men

aroundthem. But they know it not; and imagine they are bringing forward

something very original, when they publish their thoughts."

"It reminds me," replied Flemming, "of what Dr. Johnson said of

Goldsmith, when he proposed to travel abroad in order to bring home

improvements;--`He will bring home a wheelbarrow, and call that an

improvement.' It is unfortunately the same with some of these

scholars."

"And the worst of it is," said the Baron, "that, in solitude, some

fixed idea will often take root in the mind, and grow till it

overshadow all one's thoughts. To this must all opinions come; no

thought can enter there, which shall not be wedded to the fixed idea.

There it remains, and grows. It is like the watchman's wife, in the

tower of Waiblingen, who grew to such a size, that she could not get

down the narrow stair-case; and, when her husband died, his successor

was forced to marry the fat widow in the tower."

"I remember an old English comedy," said Flemming laughing, "in which a

scholar is described, as a creature, that can strike fire in the

morning at his tinder-box,--put on a pair of lined slippers,--sit

ruminating till dinner, and then go to his meat when the bell

rings;--one that hath a peculiar gift in a cough, and a license to

spit;--or, if you will have him defined by negatives, he is one that

cannot make a good leg;--one that cannot eat a mess of broth cleanly.

What think you of that?"

"That it is just as people are always represented in English comedy,"

said the Baron. "The portrait is over-charged,--caricatured."

"And yet," continued Flemming, "no longer ago than yesterday, in the

Preface of a work by Dr. Rosenkranz, Professor of Philosophy in the

University of Halle, I read this passage."

He opened a book and read.

"Here in Halle, where we have no public garden and no Tivoli, no London

Exchange, no Paris Chamber of Deputies, no Berlin nor Vienna Theatres,

no Strassburg Minster, nor Salzburg Alps,--no Grecian ruins nor

fantastic Catholicism, in fine, nothing, which after one's daily task

is finished, can divert and refresh him, without his knowing or caring

how,--I consider the sight of a proof-sheet quite as delightful as a

walk in the Prater of Vienna. I fill my pipe very quietly, take out my

ink-stand and pens, seat myself in the corner of my sofa, read,

correct, and now for the first time really set about thinking what I

have written. To see this origin of a book, this metamorphosis of

manuscript into print, is a delight to which I give myself up entirely.

Look you, this melancholy pleasure, which would have furnished the

departed Voss with worthy matter for more than one blessed Idyl--(the

more so, as on such occasions, I am generally arrayed in a morning

gown, though I am sorry to say, not a calamanco one, with great

flowers;) this melancholy pleasure was already grown here in Halle to a

sweet, pedantic habit. Since I began my hermit's life here, I have been

printing; and so long as I remain here, I shall keep on printing. In

all probability, I shall die with a proof-sheet in my hand."

"This," said Flemming, closing the book, "is no caricature by a writer

of comedy, but a portrait by a man's own hand. We can see by it how

easily, under certain circumstances, one may glide into habits of

seclusion, and in a kind of undress, slipshod hardihood, with a pipe

and a proof-sheet, defy the world. Into this state scholars have too

often fallen; thus giving some ground for the prevalent opinion, that

scholarship and rusticity are inseparable. To me, I confess, it is

painful to see the scholar and the world assume so often a hostile

attitude, and set each other at defiance. Surely, it is a

characteristic trait of a great and liberal mind, that it recognises

humanity in all its forms and conditions. I am a student;--and always,

when I sit alone at night, I recognise the divinity of the student, as

she reveals herself to me in the smoke of the midnight lamp. But,

because solitude and books are not unpleasant to me,--nay,

wished-for,--sought after,--shall I say to my brother, Thou fool! Shall

I take the world by the beard and say, Thou art old, and mad!--Shall I

look society in the face and say, Thou art heartless!--Heartless!

Beware of that word! Life, says very wisely the good Jean Paul, Life in

every shape, should be precious to us, for the same reason that the

Turks carefully collect every scrap of paper that comes in their way,

because the name of God may be written upon it. Nothing is more true

than this, yet nothing more neglected!"

"If it be painful to see this misunderstanding between scholars and the

world," said the Baron, "I think it is still more painful to see the

private sufferings of authors by profession. How many have languished

in poverty, how many died broken-hearted, how many gone mad with

over-excitement and disappointed hopes! How instructive and painfully

interesting are their lives! with so many weaknesses,--so much to

pardon,--so much to pity,--so much to admire! I think he was not so far

out of the way, who said, that, next to the Newgate Calendar, the

Biography of Authors is the most sickening chapter in the history of

man."

"It is indeed enough to make one's heart ache!" interrupted Flemming.

"Only think of Johnson and Savage, rambling about the streets of London

at midnight, without a place to sleep in; Otway starved to death;

Cowley mad, and howling like a dog, through the aisles of Chichester

Cathedral, at the sound of church music; and Goldsmith, strutting up

Fleet Street in his peach-blossom coat, to knock a bookseller over the

pate with one of his own volumes; and then, in his poverty, about to

marry his landlady in Green Arbour Court."

"A life of sorrow and privation, a hard life, indeed, do these poor

devil authors have of it," replied the Baron; "and then at last must

get them to the work-house, or creep away into some hospital to die."

"After all," said Flemming with a sigh, "poverty is not a vice."

"But something worse," interrupted the Baron; "as Dufresny said, when

he married his laundress, because he could not pay her bill. Hewas the

author, as you know, of the opera of Lot; at whose representation the

great pun was made;--I say the great pun, as we say the great ton of

Heidelberg. As one of the performers was singing the line, `L'amour a

vaincu Loth,' (vingt culottes,) a voice from the pit cried out, `Qu'il

en donne une à l'auteur!' "

Flemming laughed at the unseasonable jest; and then, after a short

pause, continued;

"And yet, if you look closely at the causes of these calamities of

authors, you will find, that many of them spring from false and

exaggerated ideas of poetry and the poetic character; and from disdain

of common sense, upon which all character, worth having, is founded.

This comes from keeping aloof from the world, apart from our

fellow-men; disdainful of society, as frivolous. By too much sitting

still the body becomes unhealthy; and soon the mind. This is nature's

law. She will never see her children wronged. If the mind, which rules

the body, ever forgets itself so far as to trample upon its slave, the

slave is never generousenough to forgive the injury; but will rise and

smite its oppressor. Thus has many a monarch mind been dethroned."

"After all," said the Baron, "we must pardon much to men of genius. A

delicate organization renders them keenly susceptible to pain and

pleasure. And then they idealize every thing; and, in the moonlight of

fancy, even the deformity of vice seems beautiful."

"And this you think should be forgiven?"

"At all events it is forgiven. The world loves a spice of wickedness.

Talk as you will about principle, impulse is more attractive, even when

it goes too far. The passions of youth, like unhooded hawks, fly high,

with musical bells upon their jesses; and we forget the cruelty of the

sport in the dauntless bearing of the gallant bird."

"And thus doth the world and society corrupt the scholar!" exclaimed

Flemming.

Here the Baron rang, and ordered a bottle of Prince Metternich. He then

very slowly filled his pipe, and began to smoke. Flemming was lost in a

day-dream.

CHAPTER VIII. LITERARY FAME.

Time has a Doomsday-Book, upon whose pages he is continually recording

illustrious names. But, as often as a new name is written there, an old

one disappears. Only a few stand in illuminated characters, never to be

effaced. These are the high nobility of Nature,--Lords of the Public

Domain of Thought. Posterity shall never question their titles. But

those, whose fame lives only in the indiscreet opinion of unwise men,

must soon be as well forgotten, as if they had never been. To this

great oblivion must most men come. It is better, therefore, that they

should soon make up their minds to this; well knowing, that, as their

bodies must ere long be resolved into dust again, and their graves tell

no tales of them; so musttheir names likewise be utterly forgotten, and

their most cherished thoughts, purposes, and opinions have no longer an

individual being among men; but be resolved and incorporated into the

universe of thought. If, then, the imagination can trace the noble dust

of heroes, till we find it stopping a beer-barrel, and know that

"Imperial Cæsar, dead and turned to clay,

May stop a hole to keep the wind away;"

not less can it trace the noble thoughts of great men, till it finds

them mouldered into the common dust of conversation, and used to stop

men's mouths, and patch up theories, to keep out the flaws of opinion.

Such, for example, are all popular adages and wise proverbs, which are

now resolved into the common mass of thought; their authors forgotten,

and having no more an individual being among men.

It is better, therefore, that men should soon make up their minds to be

forgotten, and look about them, or within them, for some higher motive,

in what they do, than the approbation of men, which is Fame; namely,

their duty; that they should be constantly and quietly at work, each in

his sphere, regardless of effects, and leaving their fame to take care

of itself. Difficult must this indeed be, in our imperfection;

impossible perhaps to achieve it wholly. Yet the resolute, the

indomitable will of man can achieve much,--at times even this victory

over himself; being persuaded, that fame comes only when deserved, and

then is as inevitable as destiny, for it is destiny.

It has become a common saying, that men of genius are always in advance

of their age; which is true. There is something equally true, yet not

so common; namely, that, of these men of genius, the best and bravest

are in advance not only of their own age, but of every age. As the

German prose-poet says, every possible future is behind them. We cannot

suppose, that a period of time will ever come, when the world, or any

considerable portion of it shall have come up abreast with these great

minds, so as fully to comprehend them.

And oh! how majestically they walk in history; some like the sun, with

all his travelling glories round him; others wrapped in gloom, yet

glorious as a night with stars. Through the else silent darkness of the

past, the spirit hears their slow and solemn footsteps. Onward they

pass, like those hoary elders seen in the sublime vision of an earthly

Paradise, attendant angels bearing golden lights before them, and,

above and behind, the whole air painted with seven listed colors, as

from the trail of pencils!

And yet, on earth, these men were not happy,--not all happy, in the

outward circumstance of their lives. They were in want, and in pain,

and familiar with prison-bars, and the damp, weeping walls of dungeons!

Oh, I have looked with wonder upon those, who, in sorrow and privation,

and bodily discomfort, and sickness, which is the shadow of death, have

worked right on to the accomplishment of their great purposes; toiling

much, enduring much, fulfilling much;--and then, with shattered nerves,

and sinews all unstrung, have laid themselves down in the grave, and

slept the sleep of death,--and the world talks of them, while they

sleep!

It would seem, indeed, as if all their sufferings had but sanctified

them! As if the death-angel, in passing, had touched them with the hem

of his garment, and made them holy! As if the hand of disease had been

stretched out over them only to make the sign of the cross upon their

souls! And as in the sun's eclipse we can behold the great stars

shining in the heavens, so in this life eclipse have these men beheld

the lights of the great eternity, burning solemnly and forever!

This was Flemming's reverie. It was broken by the voice of the Baron,

suddenly exclaiming;

"An angel is flying over the house!--Here; in this goblet, fragrant as

the honey of Hymettus, fragrant as the wild flowers in the Angel's

Meadow, I drink to the divinity of thy dreams."

"This is all sunshine," said Flemming, as he drank. "The wine of the

Prince, and the Prince of wines. By the way, did you ever read that

brilliant Italian dithyrambic, Redi's Bacchus in Tuscany? an ode which

seems to have been poured out of the author's soul, as from a golden

pitcher,

`Filled with the wine

Of the vine

Benign,

That flames so red in Sansavine.'

He calls the Montepulciano the king of all wines."

"Prince Metternich," said the Baron, "is greater than any king in

Italy; and I wonder, that this precious wine has never inspired a

German poet to write a Bacchus on the Rhine. Many little songs we have

on this theme, but none very extraordinary. The best are Max

Schenkendorf's Song of the Rhine, and the Song of Rhine Wine, by

Claudius, a poet who never drank Rhenish without sugar. We will drink

for him a blessing on the Rhine."

And again the crystal lips of the goblets kissed each other, with a

musical chime, as of evening bells at vintage-time from the villages on

the Rhine. Of a truth, I do not much wonder, that the Germanpoet

Schiller loved to write by candle-light with a bottle of Rhine-wine

upon the table. Nor do I wonder at the worthy schoolmaster Roger

Ascham, when he says, in one of his letters from Germany to Mr. John

Raven, of John's College; `Tell Mr. Maden I will drink with him now a

carouse of wine; and would to God he had a vessel of Rhenish wine; and

perchance, when I come to Cambridge, I will so provide here, that every

year I will have a little piece of Rhenish wine.' Nor, in fine, do I

wonder at the German Emperor of whom he speaks in another letter to the

same John Raven, and says, `The Emperor drank the best that I ever saw;

he had his head in the glass five times as long as any of us, and never

drank less than a good quart at once of Rhenish wine.' These were

scholars and gentlemen.

"But to resume our old theme of scholars and their whereabout," said

the Baron, with an unusual glow, caught no doubt from the golden

sunshine, imprisoned, like the student Anselmus, in the glass bottle;

"where should the scholar live? In solitudeor in society? In the green

stillness of the country, where he can hear the heart of nature beat,

or in the dark, gray city, where he can hear and feel the throbbing

heart of man? I will make answer for him, and say, in the dark, gray

city. Oh, they do greatly err, who think, that the stars are all the

poetry which cities have; and therefore that the poet's only dwelling

should be in sylvan solitudes, under the green roof of trees.

Beautiful, no doubt, are all the forms of Nature, when transfigured by

the miraculous power of poetry; hamlets and harvest-fields, and

nut-brown waters, flowing ever under the forest, vast and shadowy, with

all the sights and sounds of rural life. But after all, what are these

but the decorations and painted scenery in the great theatre of human

life? What are they but the coarse materials of the poet's song?

Glorious indeed is the world of God around us, but more glorious the

world of God within us. There lies the Land of Song; there lies the

poet's native land. The river of life, that flows through streets

tumultuous, bearingalong so many gallant hearts, so many wrecks of

humanity;--the many homes and households, each a little world in

itself, revolving round its fireside, as a central sun; all forms of

human joy and suffering, brought into that narrow compass;--and to be

in this and be a part of this; acting, thinking, rejoicing, sorrowing,

with his fellow-men;--such, such should be the poet's life. If he would

describe the world, he should live in the world. The mind of the

scholar, also, if you would have it large and liberal, should come in

contact with other minds. It is better that his armour should be

somewhat bruised even by rude encounters, than hang forever rusting on

the wall. Nor will his themes be few or trivial, because apparently

shut in between the walls of houses, and having merely the decorations

of street scenery. A ruined character is as picturesque as a ruined

castle. There are dark abysses and yawning gulfs in the human heart,

which can be rendered passable only by bridging them over with iron

nerves and sinews, as Challey bridged the Savine in Switzerland, and

Telford the sea between Anglesea and England, with chain bridges. These

are the great themes of human thought; not green grass, and flowers,

and moonshine. Besides, the mere external forms of Nature we make our

own, and carry with us into the city, by the power of memory."

"I fear, however," interrupted Flemming, "that in cities the soul of

man grows proud. He needs at times to be sent forth, like the Assyrian

monarch, into green fields, `a wonderous wretch and weedless,' to eat

green herbs, and be wakened and chastised by the rain-shower and

winter's bitter weather. Moreover, in cities there is danger of the

soul's becoming wed to pleasure, and forgetful of its high vocation.

There have been souls dedicated to heaven from childhood and guarded by

good angels as sweet seclusions for holy thoughts, and prayers, and all

good purposes; wherein pious wishes dwelt like nuns, and every image

was a saint; and yet in life's vicissitudes, by the treachery of

occasion, by the thronging passionsof great cities, have become soiled

and sinful. They resemble those convents on the river Rhine, which have

been changed to taverns; from whose chambers the pious inmates have

long departed, and in whose cloisters the footsteps of travellers have

effaced the images of buried saints, and whose walls are written over

with ribaldry and the names of strangers, and resound no more with holy

hymns, but with revelry and loud voices."

"Both town and country have their dangers," said the Baron; "and

therefore, wherever the scholar lives, he must never forget his high

vocation. Other artists give themselves up wholly to the study of their

art. It becomes with them almost religion. For the most part, and in

their youth, at least, they dwell in lands, where the whole atmosphere

of the soul is beauty; laden with it as the air may be with vapor, till

their very nature is saturated with the genius of their art. Such, for

example, is the artist's life in Italy."

"I agree with you," exclaimed Flemming; "and such should be the Poet's

everywhere; forhe has his Rome, his Florence, his whole glowing Italy

within the four walls of his library. He has in his books the ruins of

an antique world,--and the glories of a modern one,--his Apollo and

Transfiguration. He must neither forget nor undervalue his vocation;

but thank God that he is a poet; and everywhere be true to himself, and

to `the vision and the faculty divine' he feels within him."

"But, at any rate, a city life is most eventful," continued the Baron.

"The men who make, or take, the lives of poets and scholars, always

complain that these lives are barren of incidents. Hardly a literary

biography begins without some such apology, unwisely made. I confess,

however, that it is not made without some show of truth; if, by

incidents, we mean only those startling events, which suddenly turn

aside the stream of Time, and change the world's history in an hour.

There is certainly a uniformity, pleasing or unpleasing, in literary

life, which for the most part makes to-day seem twin-born with

yesterday. But if, byincidents, you mean events in the history of the

human mind, (and why not?) noiseless events, that do not scar the

forehead of the world as battles do, yet change it not the less, then

surely the lives of literary men are most eventful. The complaint and

the apology are both foolish. I do not see why a successful book is not

as great an event as a successful campaign; only different in kind, and

not easily compared."

"Indeed," interrupted Flemming, "in no sense is the complaint strictly

true, though at times apparently so. Events enough there are, were they

all set down. A life, that is worth writing at all, is worth writing

minutely. Besides, all literary men have not lived in silence and

solitude;--not all in stillness, not all in shadow. For many have lived

in troubled times, in the rude and adverse fortunes of the state and

age, and could say with Wallenstein,

`Our life was but a battle and a march;

And, like the wind's blast, never-resting, homeless,

We stormed across the war convulsed earth.'

Of such examples history has recorded many; Dante, Cervantes, Byron,

and others; men of iron; men who have dared to breast the strong breath

of public opinion, and, like spectre-ships, come sailing right against

the wind. Others have been puffed out by the first adverse wind that

blew; disgraced and sorrowful, because they could not please others.

Truly `the tears live in an onion, that should water such a sorrow.'

Had they been men, they would have made these disappointments their

best friends, and learned from them the needful lesson of

self-reliance."

"To confess the truth," added the Baron, "the lives of literary men,

with their hopes and disappointments, and quarrels and calamities,

present a melancholy picture of man's strength and weakness. On that

very account the scholar can make them profitable for

encouragement,--consolation,--warning."

"And after all," continued Flemming, "perhaps the greatest lesson,

which the lives of literary men teach us, is told in a single word;

Wait!--Every man must patiently bide his time. He must wait. More

particularly in lands, like my native land, where the pulse of life

beats with such feverish and impatient throbs, is the lesson needful.

Our national character wants the dignity of repose. We seem to live in

the midst of a battle,--there is such a din,--such a hurrying to and

fro. In the streets of a crowded city it is difficult to walk slowly.

You feel the rushing of the crowd, and rush with it onward. In the

press of our life it is difficult to be calm. In this stress of wind

and tide, all professions seem to drag their anchors, and are swept out

into the main. The voices of the Present say, Come! But the voices of

the Past say, Wait! With calm and solemn footsteps the rising tide

bears against the rushing torrent up stream, and pushes back the

hurrying waters. With no less calm and solemn footsteps, nor less

certainly, does a great mind bear up against public opinion, and push

back its hurrying stream. Therefore should every man wait;--should bide

his time. Not in listless idleness,--not in uselesspastime,--not in

querulous dejection; but in constant, steady, cheerful endeavours,

always willing and fulfilling, and accomplishing his task, that, when

the occasion comes, he may be equal to the occasion. And if it never

comes, what matters it? What matters it to the world whether I, or you,

or another man did such a deed, or wrote such a book, sobeit the deed

and book were well done! It is the part of an indiscreet and

troublesome ambition, to care too much about fame,--about what the

world says of us. To be always looking into the faces of others for

approval;--to be always anxious for the effect of what we do and say;

to be always shouting to hear the echo of our own voices! If you look

about you, you will see men, who are wearing life away in feverish

anxiety of fame, and the last we shall ever hear of them will be the

funeral bell, that tolls them to their early graves! Unhappy men, and

unsuccessful! because their purpose is, not to accomplish well their

task, but to clutch the `trick and fantasy of fame'; and they go to

their graveswith purposes unaccomplished and wishes unfulfilled. Better

for them, and for the world in their example, had they known how to

wait! Believe me, the talent of success is nothing more than doing what

you can do well; and doing well whatever you do,--without a thought of

fame. If it come at all, it will come because it is deserved, not

because it is sought after. And, moreover, there will be no

misgivings,--no disappointment,--no hasty, feverish, exhausting

excitement."

Thus endeth the First Book of Hyperion. I make no record of the winter.

Paul Flemming buried himself in books; in old, dusty books. He studied

diligently the ancient poetic lore of Germany, from Frankish Legends of

Saint George, and Saxon Rhyme-Chronicles, down through Nibelungen

Lieds, and Helden-Buchs, and Songs of the Minnesingers and

Mastersingers, and Ships of Fools, and Reinecke Foxes, and

Death-Dancesand Lamentations of Damned Souls, into the bright, sunny

land of harvests, where, amid the golden grain and the blue

corn-flowers, walk the modern bards, and sing.

BOOK II.

Epigraph

"Something the heart must have to cherish,

Must love, and joy, and sorrow learn;

Something with passion clasp, or perish,

And in itself to ashes burn."

CHAPTER I. SPRING.

It was a sweet carol, which the Rhodian children sang of old in Spring,

bearing in their hands, from door to door, a swallow, as herald of the

season;

"The Swallow is come!

The Swallow is come!

O fair are the seasons, and light

Are the days that she brings,

With her dusky wings,

And her bosom snowy white."

A pretty carol, too, is that, which the Hungarian boys, on the islands

of the Danube, sing to the returning stork in Spring;

"Stork! Stork! poor Stork!

Why is thy foot so bloody?

A Turkish boy hath torn it;

Hungarian boy will heal it,

With fiddle, fife, and drum."

But what child has a heart to sing in this capricious clime of ours,

where Spring comes sailing in from the sea, with wet and heavy

cloud-sails, and the misty pennon of the East-wind nailed to the mast!

Yet even here, and in the stormy month of March even, there are bright,

warm mornings, when we open our windows to inhale the balmy air. The

pigeons fly to and fro, and we hear the whirring sound of wings. Old

flies crawl out of the cracks, to sun themselves; and think it is

summer. They die in their conceit; and so do our hearts within us, when

the cold sea-breath comes from the eastern sea; and again,

"The driving hail

Upon the window beats with icy flail."

The red-flowering maple is first in blossom, its beautiful purple

flowers unfolding a fortnight before the leaves. The moose-wood

follows, with rose-colored buds and leaves; and the dog-wood, robed in

the white of its own pure blossoms. Thencomes the sudden rain-storm;

and the birds fly to and fro, and shriek. Where do they hide themselves

in such storms? at what firesides dry their feathery cloaks? At the

fireside of the great, hospitable sun, to-morrow, not before;--they

must sit in wet garments until then.

In all climates Spring is beautiful. In the South it is intoxicating,

and sets a poet beside himself. The birds begin to sing;--they utter a

few rapturous notes, and then wait for an answer in the silent woods.

Those green-coated musicians, the frogs, make holiday in the

neighbouring marshes. They, too, belong to the orchestra of Nature;

whose vast theatre is again opened, though the doors have been so long

bolted with icicles, and the scenery hung with snow and frost, like

cobwebs. This is the prelude, which announces the rising of the broad

green curtain. Already the grass shoots forth. The waters leap with

thrilling pulse through the veins of the earth; the sap through the

veins of the plants and trees; and the blood through the veins of man.

What a thrill of delight in spring-time! What a joy in being and

moving! Men are at work in gardens; and in the air there is an odor of

the fresh earth. The leaf-buds begin to swell and blush. The white

blossoms of the cherry hang upon the boughs like snow-flakes; and ere

long our next-door neighbours will be completely hidden from us by the

dense green foliage. The May-flowers open their soft blue eyes.

Children are let loose in the fields and gardens. They hold butter-cups

under each others' chins, to see if they love butter. And the little

girls adorn themselves with chains and curls of dandelions; pull out

the yellow leaves to see if the schoolboy loves them, and blow the down

from the leafless stalk, to find out if their mothers want them at

home.

And at night so cloudless and so still! Not a voice of living

thing,--not a whisper of leaf or waving bough,--not a breath of

wind,--not a sound upon the earth nor in the air! And overhead bends

the blue sky, dewy and soft, and radiant with innumerable stars, like

the inverted bellof some blue flower, sprinkled with golden dust, and

breathing fragrance. Or if the heavens are overcast, it is no wild

storm of wind and rain; but clouds that melt and fall in showers. One

does not wish to sleep; but lies awake to hear the pleasant sound of

the dropping rain.

It was thus the Spring began in Heidelberg.