CHAPTER X. THE PARTING.

It was now that season of the year, which an old English writer calls

the amiable month of June, and at that hour of the day, when, face to

face, the rising moon beholds the setting sun. As yet the stars were

few in heaven. But, after the heat of the day, the coolness and the

twilight descended like a benediction upon the earth, by all those

gentle sounds attended, which are the meek companions of the night.

Flemming and the Baron had passed the afternoon at the Castle. They had

rambled once more together, and for the last time, over the magnificent

ruin. On the morrow they were to part, perhaps forever. The Baron was

going to Berlin, to join his sister; and Flemming, drivenforward by the

restless spirit within him, longed once more for a change of scene, and

was going to the Tyrol and Switzerland. Alas! he never said to the

passing hour; "Stay, for thou art fair!" but reached forward into the

dark future, with unsatisfied longings and aimless desires, that were

never still.

As the day was closing, they sat down on the terrace of Elisabeth's

Garden. The sun had set beyond the blue Alsatian hills; and on the

valley of the Rhine fell the purple mist, like the mantle of the

departing prophet from his fiery chariot. Over the castle walls, and

the trees of the garden, rose the large moon; and between the

contending daylight and moonlight there were as yet no shadows. But at

length the shadows came; transparent and faint outlines, that deepened

into form. In the valley below only the river gleamed, like steel; and

here and there the lamps were lighted in the town. Solemnly stood the

leafy lindentrees in the garden near them, their trunks in darkness and

their summits bronzed with moonlight; and in his niche in the great

round tower, overhung with ivy, like a majestic phantom, stood the gray

statue of Louis, with his venerable beard, and shirt of mail, and

flowing mantle; and the mild, majestic countenance looked forth into

the silent night, as the countenance of a seer, who reads the stars. At

intervals the wind of the summer night passed through the ruined castle

and the trees, and they sent forth a sound as if nature were sighing in

her dreams; and for a moment overhead the broad leaves gently clashed

together, like brazen cymbals, with a tinkling sound; and then all was

still, save the sweet, passionate song of nightingales, that nowhere

upon earth sing more sweetly than in the gardens of Heidelberg Castle.

The hour, the scene, and the near-approaching separation of the two

young friends, had filled their hearts with a pleasant, though at the

same time not painless excitement. They had been conversing about the

magnificent old ruin, and the ages in which it had been built, and the

vicissitudesof time and war, that had battered down its walls, and left

it "tenantless, save to the crannying wind."

"How sorrowful and sublime is the face of that statue yonder," said

Flemming. "It reminds me of the old Danish hero Beowulf; for careful,

sorrowing, he seeth in his son's bower the wine-hall deserted, the

resort of the wind, noiseless; the knight sleepeth; the warrior lieth

in darkness; there is no noise of the harp, no joy in the dwellings, as

there was before."

"Even as you say," replied the Baron; "but it often astonishes me,

that, coming from that fresh green world of yours beyond the sea, you

should feel so much interest in these old things; nay, at times, seem

so to have drunk in their spirit, as really to live in the times of

old. For my part, I do not see what charm there is in the pale and

wrinkled countenance of the Past, so to entice the soul of a young man.

It seems to me like falling in love with one's grandmother. Give me the

Present;--warm, glowing, palpitating with life. She is my mistress; and

the Future stands waiting like my wife that is to be, for whom, to tell

the truth, I care very little just now. Indeed, my friend, I wish you

would take more heed of this philosophy of mine; and not waste the

golden hours of youth in vain regrets for the past, and indefinite, dim

longings for the future. Youth comes but once in a lifetime."

"Therefore," said Flemming; "let us so enjoy it as to be still young

when we are old. For my part, I grow happier as I grow older. When I

compare my sensations and enjoyments now, with what they were ten years

ago, the comparison is vastly in favor of the present. Much of the

fever and fretfulness of life is over. The world and I look each other

more calmly in the face. My mind is more self-possessed. It has done me

good to be somewhat parched by the heat and drenched by the rain of

life."

"Now you speak like an old philosopher," answered the Baron, laughing.

"But you deceive yourself. I never knew a more restless, feverishspirit

than yours. Do not think you have gained the mastery yet. You are only

riding at anchor here in an eddy of the stream; you will soon be swept

away again in the mighty current and whirl of accident. Do not trust

this momentary calm. I know you better than you know yourself. There is

something Faust-like in you; you would fain grasp the highest and the

deepest; and `reel from desire to enjoyment, and in enjoyment languish

for desire.' When a momentary change of feeling comes over you, you

think the change permanent, and thus live in constant self-deception."

"I confess," said Flemming, "there may be some truth in what you say.

There are times when my soul is restless; and a voice sounds within me,

like the trump of the archangel, and thoughts that were buried, long

ago, come out of their graves. At such times my favorite occupations

and pursuits no longer charm me. The quiet face of Nature seems to mock

me."

"There certainly are seasons," replied the Baron, "when Nature seems

not to sympathizewith her beloved children. She sits there so eternally

calm and self-possessed, so very motherly and serene, and cares so

little whether the heart of her child breaks or not, that at times I

almost lose my patience. About that, too, she cares so little, that,

out of sheer obstinacy, I become good-humored again, and then she

smiles."

"I think we must confess, however," continued Flemming, "that all this

springs from our own imperfection, not from hers. How beautiful is this

green world, which we inhabit! See yonder, how the moonlight mingles

with the mist! What a glorious night is this! Truly every man has a

Paradise around him until he sins, and the angel of an accusing

conscience drives him from his Eden. And even then there are holy

hours, when this angel sleeps, and man comes back, and, with the

innocent eyes of a child, looks into his lost Paradise again,--into the

broad gates and rural solitudes of Nature. I feel this often. We have

much to enjoy in the quiet and retirement of ourown thoughts.

Boisterous mirth and loud laughter are not my mood. I love that

tranquillity of soul, in which we feel the blessing of existence, and

which in itself is a prayer and a thanksgiving. I find, however, that,

as I grow older, I love the country less, and the city more."

"Yes," interrupted the Baron; "and presently you will love the city

less and the country more. Say at once, that you have an undefined

longing for both; and prefer town or country, according to the mood you

are in. I think a man must be of a very quiet and happy nature, who can

long endure the country; and, moreover, very well contented with his

own insignificant person, very self-complacent, to be continually

occupied with himself and his own thoughts. To say the least, a city

life makes one more tolerant and liberal in his judgment of others. One

is not eternally wrapped up in self-contemplation; which, after all, is

only a more holy kind of vanity."

In conversation like this, the hours glided away; till at length, from

the Giant's Tower, the Castleclock struck twelve, with a sound that

seemed to come from the Middle Ages. Like watchmen from their belfries

the city clocks answered it, one by one. Then distant and muffled

sounds were heard. Inarticulate words seemed to blot the foggy air, as

if written on wet paper. These were the bells of Handschuhsheimer, and

of other villages on the broad plain of the Rhine, and among the hills

of the Odenwald; mysterious sounds, that seemed not of this world.

Beneath them, in the shadow of the hills, lay the valley, like a

fathomless, black gulf; and above were the cloistered stars, that,

nun-like, walk the holy aisles of heaven. The city was asleep in the

valley below; all asleep and silent, save the clocks, that had just

struck twelve, and the veering, golden weathercocks, that were swimming

in the moonshine, like golden fishes, in a glass vase. And again the

wind of the summer night passed through the old Castle, and the trees,

and the nightingales recorded under the dark, shadowy leaves, and the

heart of Flemming was full.

When he had retired to his chamber, a feeling of utter loneliness came

over him. The night before one begins a journey is always a dismal

night; for, as Byron says,

"In leaving even the most unpleasant people

And places, one keeps looking at the steeple!"

And how much more so when the place and people are pleasant; as was the

case with those, that Flemming was now leaving. No wonder he was sad

and sleepless. Thoughts came and went, and bright and gloomy fancies,

and dreams and visions, and sweet faces looked under his closed

eyelids, and vanished away, and came again, and again departed. He

heard the clock strike from hour to hour, and said, "Another hour is

gone." At length the birds began to sing; and ever and anon the cock

crew. He arose, and looked forth into the gray dawn; and before him lay

the city he was so soon to leave, all white and ghastly, like a city

that had arisen from its grave.

"All things must change," said he to the Baron, as he embraced him, and

held him by the hand."Friends must be torn asunder, and swept along in

the current of events, to see each other seldom, and perchance no more.

For ever and ever in the eddies of time and accident we whirl away.

Besides which, some of us have a perpetual motion in our wooden heads,

as Wodenblock had in his wooden leg; and like him we travel on, without

rest or sleep, and have hardly time to take a friend by the hand in

passing; and at length are seen hurrying through some distant land,

worn to a skeleton, and all unknown."

BOOK III.

Epigraph

"Take away the lights, too;

The moon lends me too much to find my fears;

And those devotions I am now to pay,

Are written in my heart, not in thy book;

And I shall read them there without a taper."

CHAPTER I. SUMMER-TIME.

They were right,--those old German Minnesingers,--to sing the pleasant

summer-time! What a time it is! How June stands illuminated in the

Calendar! The windows are all wide open; only the Venetian blinds

closed. Here and there a long streak of sunshine streams in through a

crevice. We hear the low sound of the wind among the trees; and, as it

swells and freshens, the distant doors clap to, with a sudden sound.

The trees are heavy with leaves; and the gardens full of blossoms, red

and white. The whole atmosphere is laden with perfume and sunshine. The

birds sing. The cock struts about, and crows loftily. Insects chirp in

the grass. Yellow butter-cups stud the green carpet like golden

buttons, and the red blossoms of the clover like rubies. The elm-trees

reach their long, pendulous branches almost to the ground. White clouds

sail aloft; and vapors fret the blue sky with silver threads. The white

village gleams afar against the dark hills. Through the meadow winds

the river,--careless, indolent. It seems to love the country, and is in

no haste to reach the sea. The bee only is at work,--the hot and angry

bee. All things else are at play; he never plays, and is vexed that any

one should.

People drive out from town to breathe, and to be happy. Most of them

have flowers in their hands; bunches of apple-blossoms, and still

oftener lilacs. Ye denizens of the crowded city, how pleasant to you is

the change from the sultry streets to the open fields, fragrant with

clover-blossoms! how pleasant the fresh, breezy country air, dashed

with brine from the meadows! howpleasant, above all, the flowers, the

manifold, beautiful flowers!

It is no longer day. Through the trees rises the red moon, and the

stars are scarcely seen. In the vast shadow of night, the coolness and

the dews descend. I sit at the open window to enjoy them; and hear only

the voice of the summer wind. Like black hulks, the shadows of the

great trees ride at anchor on the billowy sea of grass. I cannot see

the red and blue flowers, but I know that they are there. Far away in

the meadow gleams the silver Charles. The tramp of horses' hoofs sounds

from the wooden bridge. Then all is still, save the continuous wind of

the summer night. Sometimes I know not if it be the wind or the sound

of the neighbouring sea. The village clock strikes; and I feel that I

am not alone.

How different is it in the city! It is late, and the crowd is gone. You

step out upon the balcony, and lie in the very bosom of the cool, dewy

night, as if you folded her garments about you. The whole starry heaven

is spread out overhead. Beneath lies the public walk with trees, like a

fathomless, black gulf, into whose silent darkness the spirit plunges

and floats away, with some beloved spirit clasped in its embrace. The

lamps are still burning up and down the long street. People go by, with

grotesque shadows, now foreshortened and now lengthening away into the

darkness and vanishing, while a new one springs up behind the walker,

and seems to pass him on the sidewalk. The iron gates of the park shut

with a jangling clang. There are footsteps, and loud voices;--a

tumult,--a drunken brawl,--an alarm of fire;--then silence again. And

now at length the city is asleep, and we can see the night. The belated

moon looks over the roofs, and finds no one to welcome her. The

moonlight is broken. It lies here and there in the squares, and the

opening of streets,--angular, like blocks of white marble.

Under such a green, triumphal arch, O Reader! with the odor of flowers

about thee, and the song of birds, shalt thou pass onward into the

enchanted land, as through the Ivory Gate of dreams! And as a prelude

and majestic march, one sweet human voice, I know not whose, but coming

from the bosom of the Alps, sings this sublime ode, which the Alpine

echoes repeat afar.

"Come, golden Evening! In the west

Enthrone the storm-dispelling sun,

And let the triple rainbow rest

O'er all the mountain tops;--'t is done;

The tempest ceases; bold and bright,

The rainbow shoots from hill to hill;

Down sinks the sun; on presses night;

Mont Blanc is lovely still!

"There take thy stand, my spirit;--spread

The world of shadows at thy feet;

And mark how calmly overhead,

The stars, like saints in glory, meet.

While, hid in solitude sublime,

Methinks I muse on Nature's tomb,

And hear the passing foot of Time

Step through the silent gloom.

"All in a moment, crash on crash,

From precipice to precipice,

An avalanche's ruins dash

Down to the nethermost abyss,

Invisible; the ear alone

Pursues the uproar till it dies;

Echo to Echo, groan for groan,

From deep to deep, replies.

"Silence again the darkness seals,

Darkness that may be felt;--but soon

The silver-clouded east reveals

The midnight spectre of the moon;

In half-eclipse she lifts her horn,

Yet, o'er the host of heaven supreme,

Brings the faint semblance of a morn,

With her awakening beam.

"Ah! at her touch, these Alpine heights

Unreal mockeries appear;

With blacker shadows, ghastlier lights,

Emerging as she climbs the sphere;

A crowd of apparitions pale!

I hold my breath in chill suspense,

They seem so exquisitely frail,

Lest they should vanish hence.

"I breathe again, I freely breathe;

Thee, Leman's Lake, once more I trace,

Like Dian's crescent far beneath,

As beautiful as Dian's face:

Pride of the land that gave me birth!

All that thy waves reflect I love,

Where heaven itself, brought down to earth,

Looks fairer than above.

"Safe on thy banks again I stray;

The trance of poesy is o'er,

And I am here at dawn of day,

Gazing on mountains as before,

Where all the strange mutations wrought,

Were magic feats of my own mind;

For, in that fairy land of thought,

Whate'er I seek, I find."

CHAPTER II. FOOT-TRAVELLING.

Tell me, my soul, why art thou restless? Why dost thou look forward to

the future with such strong desire? The present is thine,--and the

past;--and the future shall be! O that thou didst look forward to the

great hereafter with half the longing wherewith thou longest for an

earthly future,--which a few days at most will bring thee! to the

meeting of the dead, as to the meeting of the absent! Thou glorious

spirit-land! O, that I could behold thee as thou art,--the region of

life, and light, and love, and the dwelling-place of those beloved

ones, whose being has flowed onward like a silver-clear stream into the

solemn-sounding main, into the ocean of Eternity.

Such were the thoughts that passed through thesoul of Flemming, as he

lay in utter solitude and silence on the rounded summit of one of the

mountains of the Furca Pass, and gazed, with tears in his eyes, and

ardent longing in his heart, up into the blue-swimming heaven overhead,

and at the glaciers and snowy mountain-peaks around him. Highest and

whitest of all, stood the peak of the Jungfrau, which seemed near him,

though it rose afar off from the bosom of the Lauterbrunner Thal. There

it stood, holy and high and pure, the bride of heaven, all veiled and

clothed in white, and lifted the thoughts of the beholder heavenward.

O, he little thought then, as he gazed at it with longing and delight,

how soon a form was to arise in his own soul, as holy, and high, and

pure as this, and like this point heavenward.

Thus lay the traveller on the mountain summit, reposing his weary limbs

on the short, brown grass, which more resembled moss than grass. He had

sent his guide forward, that he might be alone. His soul within him was

wild with a fierce and painful delight. The mountain air excited him;

the mountain solitudes enticed, yet maddened him. Every peak, every

sharp, jagged iceberg, seemed to pierce him. The silence was awful and

sublime. It was like that in the soul of a dying man, when he hears no

more the sounds of earth. He seemed to be laying aside his earthly

garments. The heavens were near unto him; but between him and heaven

every evil deed he had done arose gigantic, like those mountain-peaks,

and breathed an icy breath upon him. O, let not the soul that suffers,

dare to look Nature in the face, where she sits majestically aloft in

the solitude of the mountains; for her face is hard and stern, and

looks not in compassion upon her weak and erring child. It is the

countenance of an accusing archangel, who summons us to judgment. In

the valley she wears the countenance of a Virgin Mother, looking at us

with tearful eyes, and a face of pity and love!

But yesterday Flemming had come up the valley of the Saint Gothard

Pass, through Amsteg, where the Kerstelenbach comes dashing down the

Maderaner Thal, from its snowy cradle overhead. The road is steep, and

runs on zigzag terraces. The sides of the mountains are barren cliffs;

and from their cloud-capped summits, unheard amid the roar of the great

torrent below, come streams of snowwhite foam, leaping from rock to

rock, like the mountain chamois. As you advance, the scene grows wilder

and more desolate. There is not a tree in sight,--not a human

habitation. Clouds, black as midnight, lower upon you from the ravines

overhead; and the mountain torrent beneath is but a sheet of foam, and

sends up an incessant roar. A sudden turn in the road brings you in

sight of a lofty bridge, stepping from cliff to cliff with a single

stride. A fearful cataract howls beneath it, like an evil spirit, and

fills the air with mist; and the mountain wind claps its hands and

shrieks through the narrow pass, Ha! ha!--This is the Devil's Bridge.

It leads the traveller across the fearful chasm, and through a mountain

gallery into the broad, green, silent meadow of Andermath.

Even the sunny morning, which followed thisgloomy day, had not chased

the desolate impression from the soul of Flemming. His excitement

increased as he lost himself more and more among the mountains; and

now, as he lay all alone on the summit of the sunny hill, with only

glaciers and snowy peaks about him, his soul, as I have said, was wild

with a fierce and painful delight.

A human voice broke his reverie. He looked, and beheld at a short

distance from him, the athletic form of a mountain herdsman, who was

approaching the spot where he lay. He was a young man, clothed in a

rustic garb, and holding a long staff in his hand. When Flemming rose,

he stood still, and gazed at him, as if he loved the face of man, even

in a stranger, and longed to hear a human voice, though it might speak

in an unknown tongue. He answered Flemming's salutation in a rude

mountain dialect, and in reply to his questions said;

"I, with two others, have charge of two hundred head of cattle on these

mountains. Throughthe two summer months we remain here night and day;

for which we receive each a Napoleon."

Flemming gave him half his summer wages. He was glad to do a good deed

in secret, and yet so near heaven. The man received it as his due, like

a toll-keeper; and soon after departed, leaving the traveller alone.

And the traveller went his way down the mountain, as one distraught. He

stopped only to pluck one bright blue flower, which bloomed all alone

in the vast desert, and looked up at him, as if to say; "O take me with

you! leave me not here companionless!"

Ere long he reached the magnificent glacier of the Rhone; a frozen

cataract, more than two thousand feet in height, and many miles broad

at its base. It fills the whole valley between two mountains, running

back to their summits. At the base it is arched, like a dome; and

above, jagged and rough, and resembles a mass of gigantic crystals, of

a pale emerald tint, mingled with white. A snowy crust covers its

surface; but at every rent and crevice the pale green ice shines clear

in thesun. Its shape is that of a glove, lying with the palm downwards,

and the fingers crooked and close together. It is a gauntlet of ice,

which, centuries ago, Winter, the King of these mountains, threw down

in defiance to the Sun; and year by year the Sun strives in vain to

lift it from the ground on the point of his glittering spear. A feeling

of wonder and delight came over the soul of Flemming when he beheld it,

and he shouted and cried aloud;

"How wonderful! how glorious!"

After lingering a few hours in the cold, desolate valley, he climbed in

the afternoon the steep Mayen-Wand, on the Grimsel, passed the Lake of

the Dead, with its ink-black waters; and through the melting snow, and

over slippery stepping-stones in the beds of numberless shallow brooks,

descended to the Grimsel Hospital, where he passed the night, and

thought it the most lone and desolate spot, that man ever slept in.

On the morrow, he rose with the day; and the rising sun found him

already standing on the rusticbridge, which hangs over the verge of the

Falls of the Aar at Handeck, where the river pitches down a precipice

into a narrow and fearful abyss, shut in by perpendicular cliffs. At

right angles with it comes the beautiful Aerlenbach; and halfway down

the double cascade mingles into one. Thus he pursued his way down the

Hasli Thal into the Bernese Oberland, restless, impatient, he knew not

why, stopping seldom, and never long, and then rushing forward again,

like the rushing river whose steps he followed, and in whose ice-cold

waters ever and anon he bathed his wrists, to cool the fever in his

blood; for the noonday sun was hot.

His heart dilated in the dilating valley, that grew broader and greener

at every step. The sight of human faces and human dwellings soothed

him; and through the fields of summer grain, in the broad meadows of

Imgrund, he walked with a heart that ached no more, but trembled only,

as our eyelids when we have done weeping. As he climbed the opposite

hill, which hems in this romanticvalley, and, like a heavy yoke, chafes

the neck of the Aar, he believed the ancient tradition, which says,

that once the valley was a lake. From the summit of the hill he looked

southward upon a beautiful landscape of gardens, and fields of grain,

and woodlands, and meadows, and the ancient castle of Resti, looking

down upon Meyringen. And now all around him were the singing of birds,

and grateful shadows of the leafy trees; and sheeted waterfalls

dropping from the woodland cliffs, seen only, but unheard, the fluted

columns breaking into mist, and fretted with frequent spires and

ornaments of foam, and not unlike the towers of a Gothic church

inverted. There, in one white sheet of foam, the Riechenbach pours down

into its deep beaker, into which the sun never shines. Face to face it

beholds the Alpbach falling from the opposite hill, "like a downward

smoke." When Flemming saw the innumerable runnels, sliding down the

mountain-side, and leaping, all life and gladness, he would fain have

clasped them in his arms and been their playmate, and revelled withthem

in their freedom and delight. Yet he was weary with the day's journey,

and entered the village of Meyringen, embowered in cherry-trees, which

were then laden with fruit, more like a way-worn traveller than an

enthusiastic poet. As he went up the tavern steps he said in his heart,

with the Italian Aretino; "He who has not been at a tavern, knows not

what a paradise it is. O holy tavern! O miraculous tavern! holy,

because no carking cares are there, nor weariness, nor pain; and

miraculous, because of the spits, which of themselves turn round and

round! Of a truth all courtesy and good manners come from taverns, so

full of bows, and Signor, sì! and Signor, nò!"

But even in the tavern he could not rest long. The same evening at

sunset he was floating on the lake of Brienz, in an open boat, close

under the cascade of the Giessbach, hearing the peasants sing the Ranz

des Vaches. He slept that night at the other extremity of the lake, in

a large house, which, like Saint Peter's at Joppa, stood by the water's

side. The next day he wasted inwriting letters, musing in this green

nest, and paddling about the lake again; and in the evening went across

the beautiful meadows to Interlachen, where many things happened to

him, and detained him long.

CHAPTER III. INTERLACHEN.

Interlachen! How peacefully, by the margin of the swift-rushing Aar,

thou liest, on the broad lap of those romantic meadows, all

overshadowed by the wide arms of giant trees! Only the round towers of

thine ancient cloister rise above their summits; the round towers

themselves, but a child's playthings under the great church-towers of

the mountains. Close beside thee are lakes, which the flowing band of

the river ties together. Before thee opens the magnificent valley of

Lauterbrunn, where the cloud-hooded Monk and pale Virgin stand like

Saint Francis and his Bride of Snow; and all around thee are fields,

and orchards, and hamlets green, from which the church-bells answer

each other at evening! The eveningsun was setting when I first beheld

thee! The sun of life will set ere I forget thee! Surely it was a scene

like this, that inspired the soul of the Swiss poet, in his Song of the

Bell!

"Bell! thou soundest merrily,

When the bridal party

To the church doth hie!

Bell! thou soundest solemnly,

When, on Sabbath morning,

Fields deserted lie!

"Bell! thou soundest merrily;

Tellest thou at evening,

Bed-time draweth nigh!

Bell! thou soundest mournfully;

Tellest thou the bitter

Parting hath gone by!

"Say! how canst thou mourn?

How canst thou rejoice?

Art but metal dull!

And yet all our sorrowings,

And all our rejoicings,

Thou dost feel them all!

"God hath wonders many,

Which we cannot fathom,

Placed within thy form!

When the heart is sinking,

Thou alone canst raise it,

Trembling in the storm!"

Paul Flemming alighted at one of the principal hotels. The landlord

came out to meet him. He had great eyes and a green coat; and reminded

Flemming of the innkeeper mentioned in the Golden Ass, who had been

changed by magic into a frog, and croaked to his customers from the

lees of a wine-cask. His house, he said, was full; and so was every

house in Interlachen; but, if the gentleman would walk into the

parlour, he would procure a chamber for him, in the neighbourhood.

On the sofa sat a gentleman, reading; a stout gentleman of perhaps

forty-five, round, ruddy, and with a head, which, being a little bald

on the top, looked not unlike a crow's nest, with one egg in it. A

good-humored face turned from the book as Flemming entered; and a

good-humored voice exclaimed;

"Ha! ha! Mr. Flemming! Is it you, or your apparition! I told you we

should meet again! though you were for taking an eternal farewell of

your fellow-traveller."

Saying these words, the stout gentleman rose and shook Flemming

heartily by the hand. And Flemming returned the shake as heartily,

recognising in this ruddy personage, a former travelling companion, Mr.

Berkley, whom he had left, a week or two previous, toiling up the

Righi. Mr. Berkley was an Englishman of fortune; a good-humored, humane

old bachelor; remarkable alike for his common sense and his

eccentricity. That is to say, the basis of his character was good,

sound common sense, trodden down and smoothed by education; but this

level groundwork his strange and whimsical fancy used as a

dancing-floor, whereon to exhibit her eccentric tricks. His ruling

passion was cold-bathing; and he usually ate his breakfast sitting in a

tub of cold water, and reading a newspaper. He kissed every child he

met; and to every old man, said in passing, "God bless you!" with such

an expression of voice and countenance, that no one could doubt his

sincerity. He reminded one of Roger Bontemps, or the Little Man in

Gray; though with a difference.

"The last time I had the pleasure of seeing you, Mr. Berkley," said

Flemming, "was at Goldau, just as you were going up the Righi. I hope

you were gratified with a fine sunrise on the mountain top."

"No, Sir, I was not!" replied Mr. Berkley. "It is all a humbug! a

confounded humbug! They made such a noise about their sunrise, that I

determined I would not see it. So I lay snug in bed; and only peeped

through the window curtain. That was enough. Just above the house, on

the top of the hill, stood some fifty half-dressed, romantic

individuals, shivering in the wet grass; and, a short distance from

them, a miserable wretch, blowing a long, wooden horn. That's your

sunrise on the Righi, is it? said I; and went to sleep again. The best

thing I saw at the Culm, was the advertisement on the bed-room doors,

saying, that, if the ladies would wear the quilts and blankets for

shawls, when they went out to see the sunrise, they must pay for the

washing. Take my word for it, the Righi is a great humbug!"

"Where have you been since?"

"At Zurich and Schaffhausen. If you go to Zurich, beware how you stop

at the Raven. They will cheat you. They cheated me; but I had my

revenge, for, when we reached Schaffhausen, I wrote in the Traveller's

Book;

Beware of the Raven of Zurich!

'T is a bird of omen ill;

With a noisy and an unclean nest,

And a very, very long bill.

If you go to the Golden Falken you will find it there. I am the author

of those lines!"

"Bitter as Juvenal!" exclaimed Flemming.

"Not in the least bitter," said Mr. Berkley. "It is all true. Go to the

Raven and see. But this Interlachen! this Interlachen! It is the

loveliest spot on the face of the earth," he continued, stretching out

both arms, as if to embrace the objectof his affection. "There,--only

look out there!"

Here he pointed to the window. Flemming looked, and beheld a scene of

transcendent beauty. The plain was covered already by the brown shade

of the summer twilight. From the cottage roofs in Unterseen rose here

and there a thin column of smoke over the tops of the trees and mingled

with the evening shadows. The Valley of Lauterbrunnen was filled with a

blue haze. Far above, in the clear, cloudless heaven, the white

forehead of the Jungfrau blushed at the last kiss of the departing sun.

It was a glorious Transfiguration of Nature! And when the village bells

began to ring, and a single voice at a great distance was heard yodling

forth a ballad, it rather broke than increased the enchantment of a

scene, where silence was more musical than sound.

For a long time they gazed at the gloaming landscape, and spake not. At

length people came into the parlour, and laid aside their shawls and

hats, and exchanged a word or two with Berkley to Flemming they were

all unknown. To him it was all Mr. Brown and Mrs. Johnson, and nothing

more. The conversation turned upon the various excursions of the day.

Some had been at the Staubbach, others at the Grindelwald; others at

the Lake of Thun; and nobody before had ever experienced half the

rapture, which they had experienced that day. And thus they sat in the

twilight, as people love to do, at the close of a summer day. As yet

the lamps had not been lighted; and one could not distinguish faces;

but voices only, and forms, like shadows.

Presently a female figure, clothed in black, entered the room and sat

down by the window. She rather listened to the conversation, than

joined in it; but the few words she said were spoken in a voice so

musical and full of soul, that it moved the soul of Flemming, like a

whisper from heaven.

O, how wonderful is the human voice! It is indeed the organ of the

soul! The intellect of man sits enthroned visibly upon his forehead and

in his eye; and the heart of man is written uponhis countenance. But

the soul reveals itself in the voice only; as God revealed himself to

the prophet of old in the still, small voice; and in a voice from the

burning bush. The soul of man is audible, not visible. A sound alone

betrays the flowing of the eternal fountain, invisible to man!

Flemming would fain have sat and listened for hours to the sound of

that unknown voice. He felt sure, in his secret heart, that the being

from whom it came was beautiful. His imagination filled up the faint

outline, which the eye beheld in the fading twilight, and the figure

stood already in his mind, like Raphael's beautiful Madonna in the

Dresden gallery. He was never more mistaken in his life. The voice

belonged to a beautiful being, it is true; but her beauty was different

from that of any Madonna which Raphael ever painted; as he would have

seen, had he waited till the lamps were lighted. But in the midst of

his reverie and saint-painting, the landlord came in, andtold him he

had found a chamber, which he begged him to go and look at.

Flemming took his leave and departed. Berkley went with him, to see, he

said, what kind of a nest his young friend was to sleep in.

"The chamber is not what I could wish," said the landlord, as he led

them across the street. "It is in the old cloister. But to-morrow or

next day, you can no doubt have a room at the house."

The name of the cloister struck Flemming's imagination pleasantly. He

was owl enough to like ruins and old chambers, where nuns or friars had

slept. And he said to Berkley;

"So, you perceive, my nest is to be in a cloister. It already makes me

think of a bird's-nest I once saw on an old tower of Heidelberg castle,

built in the jaws of a lion, which formerly served as a spout. But pray

tell me, who was that young lady, with the soft voice?"

"What young lady with the soft voice?"

"The young lady in black, who sat by the window."

"O, she is the daughter of an English officer, who died not long ago at

Naples. She is passing the summer here with her mother, for her

health."

"What is her name?"

"Ashburton."

"Is she beautiful?"

"Not in the least; but very intellectual. A woman of genius, I should

say."

And now they had reached the walls of the cloister, and passed under an

arched gateway, and close beneath the round towers, which Flemming had

already seen, rising with their cone-shaped roofs above the trees, like

tall tapers, with extinguishers upon them.

"It is not so bad, as it looks," said the landlord, knocking at a small

door, in the main building. "The Bailiff lives in one part of it."

A servant girl, with a candle in her hand, opened the door, and

conducted Flemming and Berkley to the chamber which had been engaged.

It was a large room on the lower floor, wainscoted with pine, and

unpainted. Three lofty and narrowwindows, with leaden lattices and

small panes, looked southward towards the valley of Lauterbrunnen and

the mountains. In one corner was a large square bed, with a tester and

checked curtains. In another, a huge stove of painted tiles, reaching

almost to the ceiling. An old sofa, a few high-backed antique chairs,

and a table, completed the furniture of the room.

Thus Flemming took possession of his monkish cell and dormitory. He

ordered tea, and began to feel at home. Berkley passed the evening with

him. On going away he said;

"Good night! I leave you to the care of the Virgin and all the Saints.

If the ghost of any old monk comes back after his prayer-book, my

compliments to him. If I were a younger man, you certainly should see a

ghost. Good night!"

When he had departed, Flemming opened the lattice of one of the

windows. The moon had risen, and silvered the dark outline of the

nearest hills; while, afar off, the snowy summits of the Jungfrau and

the Silver-Horn shone like a white cloud in the sky. Close beneath the

windows was a flower-garden; and the breath of the summer night came to

him with dewy fragrance. There was a grateful seclusion about the

place. He blessed the happy accident, which gave him such a lodging,

and fell asleep that night thinking of the nuns, who once had slept in

the same quiet cells; but neither wimpled nun nor cowled monk appeared

to him in his dreams; not even the face of Mary Ashburton; nor did he

hear her voice.

CHAPTER IV. THE EVENING AND THE MORNING STAR.

Old Froissart tells us, in his Chronicles, that when King Edward beheld

the Countess of Salisbury at her castle gate, he thought he had never

seen before so noble nor so fair a lady; he was stricken therewith to

the heart with a sparkle of fine love, that endured long after; he

thought no lady in the world so worthy to be beloved, as she. And so

likewise thought Paul Flemming, when he beheld the English lady in the

fair light of a summer morning. I will not disguise the truth. She is

my heroine; and I mean to describe her with great truth and beauty, so

that all shall be in love with her, and I most of all.

Mary Ashburton was in her twentieth summer. Like the fair maiden

Amoret, she was sitting inthe lap of womanhood. They did her wrong, who

said she was not beautiful; and yet

"she was not fair,

Nor beautiful;--those words express her not.

But O, her looks had something excellent,

That wants a name!"

Her face had a wonderful fascination in it. It was such a calm, quiet

face, with the light of the rising soul shining so peacefully through

it. At times it wore an expression of seriousness,--of sorrow even; and

then seemed to make the very air bright with what the Italian poets so

beautifully call the lampeggiar dell' angelico riso,--the lightning of

the angelic smile.

And O, those eyes,--those deep, unutterable eyes, with "down-falling

eyelids, full of dreams and slumber," and within them a cold, living

light, as in mountain lakes at evening, or in the river of Paradise,

forever gliding,

"with a brown, brown current

Under the shade perpetual, that never

Ray of the sun lets in, nor of the moon."

I dislike an eye that twinkles like a star. Those only are beautiful

which, like the planets, have a steady, lambent light;--are luminous,

but not sparkling. Such eyes the Greek poets give to the Immortals. But

I forget myself.

The lady's figure was striking. Every step, every attitude was

graceful, and yet lofty, as if inspired by the soul within. Angels in

the old poetic philosophy have such forms; it was the soul itself

imprinted on the air. And what a soul was hers! A temple dedicated to

Heaven, and, like the Pantheon at Rome, lighted only from above. And

earthly passions in the form of gods were no longer there, but the

sweet and thoughtful faces of Christ, and the Virgin Mary, and the

Saints. Thus there was not one discordant thing in her; but a perfect

harmony of figure, and face, and soul, in a word of the whole being.

And he who had a soul to comprehend hers, must of necessity love her,

and, having once loved her, could love no other woman forevermore.

No wonder, then, that Flemming felt his heartdrawn towards her, as, in

her morning walk, she passed him, sitting alone under the great walnut

trees near the cloister, and thinking of Heaven, but not of her. She,

too, was alone. Her cheek was no longer pale; but glowing and bright,

with the inspiration of the summer air. Flemming gazed after her till

she disappeared, even as a vision of his dreams, he knew not whither.

He was not yet in love, but very near it; for he thanked God, that he

had made such beautiful beings to walk the earth.

Last night he had heard a voice to which his soul responded; and he

might have gone on his way, and taken no farther heed. But he would

have heard that voice afterwards, whenever at evening he thought of

this evening at Interlachen. To-day he had seen more clearly the

vision, and his restless soul calm. The place seemed pleasant to him;

and he could not go. He did not ask himself whence came this calm. He

felt it; and was happy in the feeling; and blessed thelandscape and the

summer morning, as if they possessed the wonder-working power.

"A pleasant morning dream to you;" said a friendly voice; and at the

same moment some one laid his hand upon Flemming's shoulder. It was

Berkley. He had approached unseen and unheard.

"I see by the smile on your countenance," he continued, "that it is no

day-incubus."

"You are right," replied Flemming. "It was a pleasant dream, which you

have put to flight."

"And I am glad to see, that you have also put to flight the gloomy

thoughts which used to haunt you. I like to see people cheerful and

happy. What is the use of giving way to sadness in this beautiful

world?"

"Ah! this beautiful world!" said Flemming, with a smile. "Indeed, I

know not what to think of it. Sometimes it is all gladness and

sunshine, and Heaven itself lies not far off. And then it changes

suddenly; and is dark and sorrowful, and clouds shut out the sky. In

the lives of the saddestof us, there are bright days like this, when we

feel as if we could take the great world in our arms and kiss it. Then

come the gloomy hours, when the fire will neither burn on our hearths

nor in our hearts; and all without and within is dismal, cold, and

dark. Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world

knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad."

"And who says we don't?" interrupted Berkley. "Come, come! Let us go to

breakfast. The morning air has given me a rude appetite. I long to say

grace over a fresh egg; and eat salt with my worst enemies; namely, the

Cockneys at the hotel. After breakfast you must give yourself up wholly

to me. I shall take you to the Grindelwald!"

"To-day, then, you do not breakfast like Diogenes, but consent to leave

your tub."

"Yes, for the pleasure of your company. I shall also blow out the light

in my lantern, having found you."

"Thank you."

The breakfast passed without any unusual occurrence. Flemming watched

the entrance of every guest; but she came not,--the guest he most

desired to see.

"And now for the Grindelwald!" said Berkley.

"Why such haste? We have the whole day before us. There is time

enough."

"Not a moment to loso, I assure you. The carriage is at the door."

They drove up the valley of Lauterbrunnen, and turned eastward among

the mountains of the Grindelwald. There they passed the day;

half-frozen by the icy breath of the Great Glacier, upon whose surface

stand pyramids and blocks of ice, like the tombstones of a cemetery. It

was a weary day to Flemming. He wished himself at Interlachen; and was

glad when, towards evening, he saw once more the cone-roofed towers of

the cloister rising above the walnut trees.

That evening is written in red letters in his history. It gave him

another revelation of thebeauty and excellence of the female character

and intellect; not wholly new to him, yet now renewed and fortified. It

was from the lips of Mary Ashburton, that the revelation came. Her form

arose, like a tremulous evening star, in the firmament of his soul. He

conversed with her; and with her alone; and knew not when to go. All

others were to him as if they were not there. He saw their forms, but

saw them as the forms of inanimate things. At length her mother came;

and Flemming beheld in her but another Mary Ashburton, with beauty more

mature;--the same forehead and eyes, the same majestic figure; and, as

yet, no trace of age. He gazed upon her with a feeling of delight, not

unmingled with holy awe. She was to him the rich and glowing Evening,

from whose bosom the tremulous star was born.

Berkley took no active part in the conversation, but did what was much

more to the purpose, that it is to say, arranged a drive for the next

day with the Ashburtons, and of course invited Flemming, who went home

that night with a halo round hishead; and wondering much at a dandy,

who stood at the door of the hotel, and said to his companion, as

Flemming passed;

"What do you call this place? I have been here two hours already, and

find it devilish dull!"

CHAPTER V. A RAINY DAY.

When Flemming awoke the next morning he saw the sky dark and lowering.

From the mountain tops hung a curtain of mist, whose heavy folds waved

to and fro in the valley below. Over all the landscape, the soft,

summer rain was falling. No admiring eyes would look up that day at the

Staubbach.

A rainy day in Switzerland puts a sudden stop to many diversions. The

coachman may drive to the tavern and then back to the stable; but no

farther. The sunburnt guide may sit at the ale-house door, and welcome;

and the boatman whistle and curse the clouds, at his own sweet will;

but no foot stirs abroad for all that; no traveller moves, if he has

time to stay. The rainy daygives him time for reflection. He has

leisure now to take cognizance of his impressions, and make up his

account with the mountains. He remembers, too, that he has friends at

home; and writes up the Journal, neglected for a week or more; and

letters neglected longer; or finishes the rough pencil-sketch, begun

yesterday in the open air. On the whole he is not sorry it rains;

though disappointed.

Flemming was both sorry and disappointed; but he did not on that

account fail to go over to the Ashburtons at the appointed hour. He

found them sitting in the parlour. The mother was reading, and the

daughter retouching a sketch of the Lake of Thun. After the usual

salutations, Flemming seated himself near the daughter, and said;

"We shall have no Staubbach to-day, I presume; only this Giessbach from

the clouds."

"Nothing more, I suppose. So we must be content to stay in-doors; and

listen to the soundof the eves-dropping rain. It gives me time to

finish some of these rough sketches."

"It is a pleasant pastime," said Flemming; "and I perceive you are very

skilful. I am delighted to see, that you can draw a straight line. I

never before saw a lady's sketch-book, in which all the towers did not

resemble the leaning Tower of Pisa. I always tremble for the little men

under them."

"How absurd!" exclaimed Mary Ashburton, with a smile that passed

through the misty air of Flemming's thoughts, like a sunbeam; "For one,

I succeed much better in straight lines than in any others. Here I have

been trying a half-hour to make this water-wheel round; and round it

never will be."

"Then let it remain as it is. It looks uncommonly picturesque, and may

pass for a new invention."

The lady continued to sketch, and Flemming to gaze at her beautiful

face; often repeating to himself those lines in Marlow's Faust;

"O thou art fairer than the evening air,

Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars!"

He certainly would have betrayed himself to the maternal eye of Mrs.

Ashburton, had she not been wholly absorbed in the follies of a

fashionable novel. Ere long the fair sketcher had paused for a moment;

and Flemming had taken her sketch-book in his hands and was looking it

through from the beginning with ever-increasing delight, half of which

he dared not express, though he favored her with some comments and

bursts of admiration.

"This is truly a very beautiful sketch of Murten and the battle-field!

How quietly the land-scape sleeps there by the lake, after the battle!

Did you ever read the ballad of Veit Weber, the shoe-maker, on this

subject? He says, the routed Burgundians jumped into the lake, and the

Swiss Leaguers shot them down like wild ducks among the reeds. He

fought in the battle and wrote the ballad afterwards;--

'He had himself laid hand on sword,

He who this rhyme did write;

Till evening mowed he with the sword,

And sang the song at night.' "

"You must give me the whole ballad," said Miss Ashburton; "it will

serve to illustrate the sketch."

"And the sketch to illustrate the ballad. And now we suddenly slide

down the Alps into Italy, and are even in Rome, if I mistake not. This

is surely a head of Homer?"

"Yes," replied the lady, with a little enthusiasm. "Do you not remember

the marble bust at Rome? When I first beheld that bust, it absolutely

inspired me with awe. It is not the face of a man, but of a god!"

"And you have done it no injustice in your copy," said Flemming,

catching a new enthusiasm from hers. "With what a classic grace the

fillet, passing round the majestic forehead, confines his flowing

locks, which mingle with his beard! The countenance, too, is calm,

majestic, godlike! Even the fixed and sightless eyeballs do not mar the

imageof the seer! Such were the sightless eyes of the blind old man of

Chios. They seem to look with mournful solemnity into the mysterious

future; and the marble lips to repeat that prophetic passage in the

Hymn to Apollo; 'Let me also hope to be remembered in ages to come. And

when any one, born of the tribes of men, comes hither, a weary

traveller, and inquires, who is the sweetest of the Singing Men, that

resort to your feasts, and whom you most delight to hear, do you make

answer for me. It is the Blind Man, who dwells in Chios; his songs

excel all that can ever be sung!' But do you really believe, that this

is a portrait of Homer?"

"Certainly not! It is only an artist's dream. It was thus, that Homer

appeared to him in his visions of the antique world. Every one, you

know, forms an image in his fancy of persons and things he has never

seen; and the artist reproduces them in marble or on canvass."

"And what is the image in your fancy? Is it like this?"

"No; not entirely. I have drawn my impressions from another source.

Whenever I think of Homer, which is not often, he walks before me,

solemn and serene, as in the vision of the great Italian; in

countenance neither sorrowful nor glad, followed by other bards, and

holding in his right hand a sword!"

"That is a finer conception, than even this," said Flemming. "And I

perceive from your words, as well as from this book, that you have a

true feeling for art, and understand what it is. You have had bright

glimpses into the enchanted land."

"I trust," replied the lady modestly, "that I am not wholly without

this feeling. Certainly I have as strong and passionate a love of Art

as of Nature."

"But does it not often offend you to hear people speaking of Art and

Nature as opposite and discordant things? Surely nothing can be more

false. Nature is a revelation of God; Art a revelation of man. Indeed,

Art signifies no more than this. Art is Power. That is the original

meaning of the word. It is the creative power by which the soul of man

makes itself known, through some external manifestation or outward

sign. As we can always hear the voice of God, walking in the garden, in

the cool of the day, or under the star-light, where, to quote one of

this poet's verses, 'high prospects and the brows of all steep hills

and pinnacles thrust up themselves for shows';--so, under the twilight

and the starlight of past ages, do we hear the voice of man, walking

amid the works of his hands, and city walls and towers and the spires

of churches, thrust up themselves for shows."

The lady smiled at his warmth; and he continued;

"This, however, is but a similitude; and Art and Nature are more nearly

allied than by similitudes only. Art is the revelation of man; and not

merely that, but likewise the revelation of Nature, speaking through

man. Art preëxists in Nature, and Nature is reproduced in Art. As

vaporsfrom the ocean, floating landward and dissolved in rain, are

carried back in rivers to the ocean, so thoughts and the semblances of

things that fall upon the soul of man in showers, flow out again in

living streams of Art, and lose themselves in the great ocean, which is

Nature. Art and Nature are not, then, discordant, but ever harmoniously

working in each other."

Enthusiasm begets enthusiasm. Flemming spake with such evident interest

in the subject, that Miss Ashburton did not fail to manifest some

interest in what he said; and, encouraged by this, he proceeded;

"Thus in this wondrous world wherein we live, which is the World of

Nature, man has made unto himself another world hardly less wondrous,

which is the World of Art. And it lies infolded and compassed about by

the other,

'And the clear region where 't was born,

Round in itself incloses.'

Taking this view of art, I think we understand more easily the skill of

the artist, and the differencebetween him and the mere amateur. What we

call miracles and wonders of art are not so to him who created them.

For they were created by the natural movements of his own great soul.

Statues, paintings, churches, poems, are but shadows of

himself;--shadows in marble, colors, stone, words. He feels and

recognises their beauty; but he thought these thoughts and produced

these things as easily as inferior minds do thoughts and things

inferior. Perhaps more easily. Vague images and shapes of beauty

floating through the soul, the semblances of things as yet indefinite

or ill-defined, and perfect only when put in art,--this Possible

Intellect, as the Scholastic Philosophers have termed it,--the artist

shares in common with us all. The lovers of art are many. But the

Active Intellect, the creative power,--the power to put these shapes

and images in art, to imbody the indefinite, and render perfect, is his

alone. He shares the gift with few. He knows not even whence nor how

this is. He knows only that it is; that God has given him the power,

which has been denied to others."

"I should have known you were just from Germany," said the lady, with a

smile, "even if you had not told me so. You are an enthusiast for the

Germans. For my part I cannot endure their harsh language."

"You would like it better, if you knew it better," answered Flemming.

"It is not harsh to me; but homelike, hearty, and full of feeling, like

the sound of happy voices at a fireside, of a winter's night, when the

wind blows, and the fire crackles, and hisses, and snaps. I do indeed

love the Germans; the men are so hale and hearty, and the Fräuleins so

tender and true!"

"I always think of men with pipes and beer, and women with

knittingwork."

"O, those are English prejudices," exclaimed Flemming. "Nothing can be

more--"

"And their very literature presents itself to my imagination under the

same forms."

"I see you have read only English criticisms; and have an idea, that

all German books smell, as it were, 'of groceries, of brown papers,

filled withgreasy cakes and slices of bacon; and of fryings in frowzy

back-parlours; and this shuts you out from a glorious world of poetry,

romance, and dreams!"

Mary Ashburton smiled, and Flemming continued to turn over the leaves

of the sketch-book, with an occasional criticism and witticism. At

length he came to a leaf which was written in pencil. People of a

lively imagination are generally curious, and always so when a little

in love.

"Here is a pencil-sketch," said he, with an entreating look, "which I

would fain examine with the rest."

"You may do so, if you wish; but you will find it the poorest sketch in

the book. I was trying one day to draw the picture of an artist's life

in Rome, as it presented itself to my imagination; and this is the

result. Perhaps it may awaken some pleasant recollection in your mind."

Flemming waited no longer; but read with the eyes of a lover, not of a

critic, the following description, which inspired him with a new

enthusiasm for Art, and for Mary Ashburton.

"I often reflect with delight upon the young artist's life in Rome. A

stranger from the cold and gloomy North, he has crossed the Alps, and

with the devotion of a pilgrim journeyed to the Eternal City. He dwells

perhaps upon the Pincian Hill; and hardly a house there, which is not

inhabited by artists from foreign lands. The very room he lives in has

been their abode from time out of mind. Their names are written all

over the walls; perhaps some further record of them left in a rough

sketch upon the window-shutter, with an inscription and a date. These

things consecrate the place, in his imagination. Even these names,

though unknown to him, are not without associations in his mind.

"In that warm latitude he rises with the day. The night-vapors are

already rolling away over the Campagna sea-ward. As he looks from his

window, above and beyond their white folds he recognises the tremulous

blue sea at Ostia. Over Soracte rises the sun,--over his own beloved

mountain; though no longer worshipped there, asof old. Before him, the

antique house, where Raphael lived, casts its long, brown shadow down

into the heart of modern Rome. The city lies still asleep and silent.

But above its dark roofs, more than two hundred steeples catch the

sunshine on their gilded weather-cocks. Presently the bells begin to

ring, and, as the artist listens to their pleasant chimes, he knows

that in each of those churches over the high altar, hangs a painting by

some great master's hand, whose beauty comes between him and heaven, so

that he cannot pray, but wonder only.

"Among these works of art he passes the day; but oftenest in St.

Peter's and the Vatican. Up the vast marble stair-case,--through the

Corridor Chiaramonti,--through vestibules, galleries, chambers,--he

passes, as in a dream. All are filled with busts and statues; or

painted in daring frescoes. What forms of strength and beauty! what

glorious creations of the human mind! and in that last chamber of all,

standing alone upon his pedestal, the Apollo found at Actium,--in such

a majestic attitude,--with such a noble countenance, life-like,

god-like!

"Or perhaps he passes into the chambers of the painters; but goes no

further than the second. For in the middle of that chamber a large

painting stands upon the heavy easel, as if unfinished, though more

than three hundred years ago the great artist completed it, and then

laid his pencil away forever, leaving this last benediction to the

world. It is the Transfiguration of Christ by Raphael. A child looks

not at the stars with greater wonder, than the artist at this painting.

He knows how many studious years are in that picture. He knows the

difficult path that leads to perfection, having himself taken some of

the first steps.--Thus he recalls the hour, when that broad canvass was

first stretched upon its frame, and Raphael stood before it, and laid

the first colors upon it, and beheld the figures one by one born into

life, and 'looked upon the work of his own hands with a smile, that it

should have succeeded so well.' He recalls too, the hour, when, the

task accomplished, the pencil dropped from the master's dying hand, and

his eyes closed to open on a more glorious transfiguration, and at

length the dead Raphael lay in his own studio, before this wonderful

painting, more glorious than any conqueror under the banners and

armorial hatchments of his funeral!

"Think you, that such sights and thoughts as these do not move the

heart of a young man and an artist! And when he goes forth into the

open air, the sun is going down, and the gray ruins of an antique world

receive him. From the Palace of the Cæsars he looks down into the

Forum, or towards the Coliseum; or westward sees the last sunshine

strike the bronze Archangel, which stands upon the Tomb of Adrian. He

walks amid a world of Art in ruins. The very street-lamps, that light

him homeward, burn before some painted or sculptured image of the

Madonna! What wonder is it, if dreams visit him in his sleep,--nay, if

his whole life seem to him a dream! What wonder, if, with a feverish

heart and quick hand, he strive to reproduce those dreams in marble or

on canvass."

Foolish Paul Flemming! who both admired and praised this little sketch,

and yet was too blind to see, that it was written from the heart, and

not from the imagination! Foolish Paul Flemming! who thought, that a

girl of twenty could write thus, without a reason! Close upon this

followed another pencil sketch, which he likewise read, with the lady's

permission. It was this.

"The whole period of the Middle Ages seems very strange to me. At times

I cannot persuade myself that such things could have been, as history

tells us; that such a strange world was a part of our world,--that such

a strange life was a part of the life, which seems to us who are living

it now, so passionless and commonplace. It is only when I stand amid

ruined castles, that look at me so mournfully, and behold the heavy

armour of old knights, hanging upon the wainscot of Gothic chambers; or

when I walk amid the aisles of some dusky minster, whose walls are

narrative ofhoar antiquity, and whose very bells have been baptized,

and see the carved oaken stalls in the choir, where so many generations

of monks have sat and sung, and the tombs, where now they sleep in

silence, to awake no more to their midnight psalms;--it is only at such

times, that the history of the Middle Ages is a reality to me, and not

a passage in romance.

"Likewise the illuminated manuscripts of those ages have something of

this power of making the dead Past a living Present in my mind. What

curious figures are emblazoned on the creaking parchment, making its

yellow leaves laugh with gay colors! You seem to come upon them

unawares. Their faces have an expression of wonder. They seem all to be

just startled from their sleep by the sound you made when you unloosed

the brazen clasps, and opened the curiously-carved oaken covers, that

turn on hinges, like the great gates of a city. To the building of that

city some diligent monk gave the whole of a long life. With what

strange denizens he peopled it! Adam and Eve standing under a tree,

she, with the apple in her hand;--the patriarch Abraham, with a tree

growing out of his body, and his descendants sitting owl-like upon its

branches;--ladies with flowing locks of gold; knights in armour, with

most fantastic, long-toed shoes; jousts and tournaments; and

Minnesingers, and lovers, whose heads reach to the towers, where their

ladies sit;--and all so angular, so simple, so childlike,--all in such

simple attitudes, with such great eyes, and holding up such long, lank

fingers!--These things are characteristic of the Middle Ages, and

persuade me of the truth of history."

At this moment Berkley entered, with a Swiss cottage, which he had just

bought as a present for somebody's child in England; and a cane with a

chamois-horn on the end of it, which he had just bought for himself.

This was the first time, that Flemming had been sorry to see the

good-natured man. His presence interrupted the delightful conversation

he was carrying on "under four eyes," with Mary Ashburton. He

reallythought Berkley a bore, and wondered it had never occurred to him

before. Mrs. Ashburton, too, must needs lay down her book; and the

conversation became general. Strange to say, the Swiss dinner-hour of

one o'clock, did not come a moment too soon for Flemming. It did not

even occur to him that it was early; for he was seated beside Mary

Ashburton, and at dinner one can say so much, without being overheard.

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

When the learned Thomas Diafoirus wooed the fair Angélique, he drew

from his pocket a medical thesis, and presented it to her, as the

first-fruits of his genius; and at the same time, invited her, with her

father's permission, to attend the dissection of a woman, upon whom he

was to lecture. Paul Flemming did nearly the same thing; and so often,

that it had become a habit. He was continually drawing, from his pocket

or his memory, some scrap of song or story; and inviting some fair

Angélique, either with her father's permission or without, to attend

the dissection of anauthor, upon whom he was to discourse. He soon gave

proofs of this to Mary Ashburton.

"What books have we here for afternoon reading?" said Flemming, taking

a volume from the parlour table, when they had returned from the

dining-room. "O, it is Uhland's Poems. Have you read any thing of his?

He and Tieck are the best living poets of Germany. They dispute the

palm of superiority. Let me give you a lesson in German, this

afternoon, Miss Ashburton; so that no one may accuse you of 'omitting

the sweet benefit of time, to clothe your age with angel-like

perfection.' I have opened at random upon the ballad of the Black

Knight. You repeat the German after me, and I will translate to you.

Pfingsten war, das Fest der Freude!"

"I should never persuade my unwilling lips to pronounce such sounds. So

I beg you not to perplex me with your German, but read me the ballad in

English."

"Well, then, listen. I will improvise a translation for your own

particular benefit.

"'T was Pentecost, the Feast of Gladness,

When woods and fields put off all sadness.

Thus began the King and spake;

'So from the halls

Of ancient Hofburg's walls,

A luxuriant Spring shall break.'

"Drums and trumpets echo loudly,

Wave the crimson banners proudly.

From balcony the King looked on;

In the play of spears,

Fell all the cavaliers,

Before the monarch's stalwart son.

"To the barrier of the fight,

Rode at last a sable Knight.

'Sir Knight! your name and scutcheon, say!'

'Should I speak it here,

Ye would stand aghast with fear;

Am a Prince of mighty sway!'

"When he rode into the lists,

The arch of heaven grew black with mists,

And the castle 'gan to rock.

At the first blow,

Fell the youth from saddle-bow,

Hardly rises from the shock.

"Pipe and viol call the dances,

Torch-light through the high halls glances;

Waves a mighty shadow in.

With manner bland

Doth ask the maiden's hand,

Doth with her the dance begin.

"Danced in sable iron sark,

Danced a measure weird and dark,

Coldly clasped her limbs around.

From breast and hair

Down fall from her the fair

Flowerets wilted to the ground.

"To the sumptuous banquet came

Every Knight and every Dame.

'Twixt son and daughter all distraught,

With mournful mind

The ancient King reclined,

Gazed at them in silent thought.

"Pale the children both did look,

But the guest a beaker took;

'Golden wine will make you whole!"

The children drank,

Gave many a courteous thank;

'O that draught was very cool!'

"Each the father's breast embraces,

Son and daughter; and their faces

Colorless grow utterly.

Whichever way

Looks the fear-struck father gray,

He beholds his children die.

" 'Woe! the blessed children both,

Takest thou in the joy of youth;

Take me, too, the joyless father!'

Spake the Grim Guest,

From his hollow, cavernous breast;

'Roses in the spring I gather!' "

"That is indeed a striking ballad!" said Miss Ashburton, "but rather

too grim and ghostly for this dull afternoon."

"It begins joyously enough with the feast of Pentecost, and the crimson

banners at the old castle. Then the contrast is well managed. The

Knight in black mail, and the waving in of the mighty shadow in the

dance, and the dropping of the faded flowers, are all strikingly

presented to the imagination. However, it tellsits own story, and needs

no explanation. Here is something in a different vein, though still

melancholy. The Castle by the Sea. Shall I read it?"

"Yes, if you like."

Flemming read;

"Hast thou seen that lordly castle,

That Castle by the Sea?

Golden and red above it

The clouds float gorgeously.

"And fain it would stoop downward

To the mirrored wave below;

And fain it would soar upward

In the evening's crimson glow.

" 'Well have I seen that castle,

That Castle by the Sea,

And the moon above it standing,

And the mist rise solemnly.'

"The winds and the waves of ocean,

Had they a merry chime?

Didst thou hear, from those lofty chambers,

The harp and the minstrel's rhyme?

" 'The winds and the waves of ocean,

They rested quietly,

But I heard on the gale a sound of wail,

And tears came to my eye.'

"And sawest thou on the turrets

The King and his royal bride?

And the wave of their crimson mantles?

And the golden crown of pride?

"Led they not forth in rapture

A beauteous maiden there?

Resplendent as the morning sun,

Beaming with golden hair?

" 'Well saw I the ancient parents,

Without the crown of pride;

They were moving slow, in weeds of woe,

No maiden was by their side!'

How do you like that?"

"It is very graceful, and pretty. But Uhland seems to leave a great

deal to his reader's imagination. All his readers should be poets

themselves, or they will hardly comprehend him. I confess, Ihardly

understand the passage where he speaks of the castle's stooping

downward to the mirrored wave below, and then soaring upward into the

gleaming sky. I suppose, however, he wishes to express the momentary

illusion we experience at beholding a perfect reflection of an old

tower in the sea, and look at it as if it were not a mere shadow in the

water; and yet the real tower rises far above, and seems to float in

the crimson evening clouds. Is that the meaning?"

"I should think it was. To me it is all a beautiful cloud landscape,

which I comprehend and feel, and yet should find some difficulty

perhaps in explaining."

"And why need one always explain? Some feelings are quite

untranslatable. No language has yet been found for them. They gleam

upon us beautifully through the dim twilight of fancy, and yet, when we

bring them close to us, and hold them up to the light of reason, lose

their beauty, all at once; just as glow-worms, which gleam with such a

spiritual light in the shadows of evening, when brought in where the

candlesare lighted, are found to be only worms, like so many others."

"Very true. We ought sometimes to be content with feeling. Here, now,

is an exquisite piece, which soothes one like the fall of evening

shadows,--like the dewy coolness of twilight after a sultry day. I

shall not give you a bald translation of my own, because I have laid up

in my memory another, which, though not very literal, equals the

original in beauty. Observe how finely it commences.

"Many a year is in its grave,

Since I crossed this restless wave;

And the evening, fair as ever,

Shines on ruin, rock, and river.

"Then, in this same boat, beside,

Sat two comrades old and tried;

One with all a father's truth,

One with all the fire of youth.

"One on earth in silence wrought,

And his grave in silence sought;

But the younger, brighter form

Passed in battle and in storm!

"So, whene'er I turn my eye

Back upon the days gone by,

Saddening thoughts of friends come o'er me,--

Friends, who closed their course before me.

"Yet what binds us, friend to friend,

But that soul with soul can blend?

Soul-like were those hours of yore;

Let us walk in soul once more!

"Take, O boatman, thrice thy fee;

Take,--I give it willingly;

For, invisibly to thee,

Spirits twain have crossed with me!"

"O, that is beautiful,--'beautiful exceedingly!' Who translated it?"

"I do not know. I wish I could find him out. It is certainly admirably

done; though in the measure of the original there is something like the

rocking motion of a boat, which is not preserved in the translation."

"And is Uhland always so soothing and spiritual?"

"Yes, he generally looks into the spirit-world. I am now trying to find

here a little poem on the Death of a Country Clergyman; in which he

introduces a beautiful picture. But I cannot turn to it. No matter. He

describes the spirit of the good old man, returning to earth on a

bright summer morning, and standing amid the golden corn and the red

and blue flowers, and mildly greeting the reapers as of old. The idea

is beautiful, is it not?"

"Yes, very beautiful!"

"But there is nothing morbid in Uhland's mind. He is always fresh and

invigorating, like a breezy morning. In this he differs entirely from

such writers as Salis and Matthisson."

"And who are they?"

"Two melancholy gentlemen to whom life was only a Dismal Swamp, upon

whose margin they walked with cambric handkerchiefs in their hands,

sobbing and sighing, and making signals to Death, to come and ferry

them over the lake. And now their spirits stand in the green fields of

German song, like two weeping-willows, bending over agrave. To read

their poems, is like wandering through a village churchyard on a summer

evening, reading the inscription upon the grave-stones, and recalling

sweet images of the departed; while above you,

'Hark! in the holy grove of palms,

Where the stream of life runs free,

Echoes, in the angels' psalms,

'Sister spirit! hail to thee!' "

"How musically those lines flow! Are they Matthisson's!"

"Yes; and they do indeed flow musically. I wish I had his poems here. I

should like to read to you his Elegy on the Ruins of an Ancient Castle.

It is an imitation of Gray's Elegy. You have been at Baden-Baden?

"Yes; last summer."

"And have not forgotten--"

"The old castle? Of course not. What a magnificent ruin it is!"

"That is the scene of Matthisson's Poem, andseems to have filled the

melancholy bard with more than wonted inspiration."

"I should like very much to see the poem, I remember that old ruin with

so much delight."

"I am sorry I have not a translation of it for you. Instead of it I

will give you a sweet and mournful poem from Salis. It is called the

Song of the Silent Land.

"Into the Silent Land!

Ah! who shall lead us thither!

Clouds in the evening sky more darkly gather,

And shattered wrecks lie thicker on the strand.

Who leads us with a gentle hand,

Thither, oh, thither.

Into the Silent Land?

"Into the Silent Land!

To you, ye boundless regions

Of all perfection! Tender morning-visions

Of beauteous souls! Eternity's own band!

Who in Life's battle firm doth stand,

Shall bear Hope's tender blossoms

Into the Silent Land!

"O Land! O Land!

For all the broken-hearted

The mildest herald by our fate allotted,

Beckons, and with inverted torch doth stand

To lead us with a gentle hand

Into the land of the great departed,

Into the Silent Land!

Is not that a beautiful poem?"

Mary Ashburton made no answer. She had turned away to hide her tears.

Flemming wondered, that Berkley could say she was not beautiful. Still

he was rather pleased than offended at it. He felt at that moment how

sweet a thing it would be to possess one, who should seem beautiful to

him alone, and yet to him be more beautiful than all the world beside!

How bright the world became to him at that thought! It was like one of

those paintings in which all the light streams from the face of the

Virgin. O, there is nothing holier in this life of ours, than the first

consciousness of love,--the first fluttering of its silken wings; the

first rising sound and breath of thatwind, which is so soon to sweep

through the soul, to purify or to destroy!

Old histories tell us, that the great Emperor Charlemagne stamped his

edicts with the hilt of his sword. The greater Emperor, Death, stamps

his with the blade; and they are signed and executed with the same

stroke. Flemming received that night a letter from Heidelberg, which

told him, that Emma of Ilmenau was dead. The fate of this poor girl

affected him deeply; and he said in his heart;

"Father in Heaven! Why was the lot of this weak and erring child so

hard! What had she done, to be so tempted in her weakness, and perish?

Why didst thou suffer her gentle affections to lead her thus astray?"

And, through the silence of the awful midnight, the voice of an

avalanche answered from the distant mountains, and seemed to say;

"Peace! peace! Why dost thou question God's providence!"

CHAPTER VII. TAKE CARE!

Fair is the valley of Lauterbrunnen with its green meadows and

overhanging cliffs. The ruined castle of Unspunnen stands like an armed

warder at the gate of the enchanted land. In calm serenity the snowy

mountains rise beyond. Fairer than the Rock of Balmarusa, you frowning

precipice looks down upon us; and, from the topmost cliff, the white

pennon of the Brook of Dust shimmers and waves in the sunny air!

It was a bright, beautiful morning after nightrain. Every dewdrop and

raindrop had a whole heaven within it; and so had the heart of Paul

Flemming, as, with Mrs. Ashburton and her dark-eyed daughter, he drove

up the Valley of Lauter-brunnen,--the Valley of Fountains-Only.

"How beautiful the Jungfrau looks this morning!" exclaimed he, looking

at Mary Ashburton.

She thought he meant the mountain, and assented. But he meant her

likewise.

"And the mountains, beyond," he continued; "the Monk and the

Silver-horn, the Wetter-horn the Schreck-horn, and the Schwarz-horn,

all those sublime apostles of Nature, whose sermons are avalanches! Did

you ever behold anything more grand!"

"O yes. Mont Blanc is more grand, when you behold it from the hills

opposite. It was there that I was most moved by the magnificence of

Swiss scenery. It was a morning like this; and the clouds, that were

hovering about on their huge, shadowy wings, made the scene only the

more magnificent. Before me lay the whole panorama of the Alps; pine

forests standing dark and solemn at the base of the mountains; and

half-way up a veil of mist; above which rose the snowy summits, and

sharp needles of rock, which seemed to float in the air, like a fairy

world. Then the glaciersstood on either side, winding down through the

mountain ravines; and, high above all, rose the white, dome-like summit

of Mont Blanc. And ever and anon from the shroud of mist came the awful

sound of an avalanche, and a continual roar, as of the wind through a

forest of pines, filled the air. It was the roar of the Arve and

Aveiron, breaking from their icy fountains. Then the mists began to

pass away; and it seemed as if the whole firmament were rolling

together. It recalled to my mind that sublime passage in the

Apocalypse; 'I saw a great white throne; and him that sat thereon;

before whose face the heavens and the earth fled away, and found no

place!' O, I cannot believe that upon this earth there is a more

magnificent scene."

"It must be grand, indeed," replied Flemming. "And those mighty

glaciers,--huge monsters with bristling crests, creeping down into the

valley! for it is said they really move."

"Yes; it filled me with a strange sensation of awe to think of this.

They seemed to me like the dragons of Northern Romance, which come down

from the mountains and devour whole villages. A little hamlet in

Chamouni was once abandoned by its inhabitants, terrified at the

approach of the icy dragon. But is it possible you have never been at

Chamouni?

"Never. The great marvel still remains unseen by me."

"Then how can you linger here so long? Were I in your place I would not

lose an hour."

These words passed over the opening blossoms of hope in the soul of

Flemming, like a cold wind over the flowers in spring-time. He bore it

as best he could, and changed the subject.

I do not mean to describe the Valley of Lauterbrunnen, nor the bright

day passed there. I know that my gentle reader is blessed with the

divine gift of a poetic fancy; and can see already how the mountains

rise, and the torrents fall, and the sweet valley lies between; and

how, along the dusty road, the herdsman blows his horn, and travellers

come and go in charabans, like Punch and Judy in a show-box. He knows

already how romantic ladies sketch romantic scenes; while sweet

gentlemen gather sweet flowers; and how cold meat tastes under the

shadow of trees, and how time flies when we are in love, and the

beloved one near. One little incident I must, however, mention, lest

his fancy should not suggest it.

Flemming was still sitting with the ladies, on the green slope near the

Staubbach, or Brook of Dust, when a young man clad in green, came down

the valley. It was a German student, with flaxen ringlets hanging over

his shoulders, and a guitar in his hand. His step was free and elastic,

and his countenance wore the joyous expression of youth and health. He

approached the company with a courteous salutation; and, after the

manner of travelling students, asked charity with the confident air of

one unaccustomed to refusal. Nor was he refused in this instance. The

presence of those we love makes us compassionate and generous. Flemming

gave him a piece of gold; and after a short conversation he seated

himself, at alittle distance on the grass, and began to play and sing.

Wonderful and many were the sweet accords and plaintive sounds that

came from that little instrument, touched by the student's hand. Every

feeling of the human heart seemed to find an expression there, and

awaken a kindred feeling in the hearts of those who heard him. He sang

sweet German songs, so full of longing, and of pleasing sadness, and

hope and fear, and passionate desire, and soul-subduing sorrow, that

the tears came into Mary Ashburton's eyes, though she understood not

the words he sang. Then his countenance glowed with triumph, and he

beat the strings like a drum, and sang;

"O, how the drum beats so loud!

Close beside me in the fight,

My dying brother says, Good Night!

And the cannon's awful breath

Screams the loud halloo of Death!

And the drum,

And the drum,

Beats so loud!"

Many were the words of praise, when the young musician ended; and, as

he rose to depart, they still entreated for one song more. Whereupon he

played a lively prelude; and, looking full into Flemming's face, sang

with a pleasant smile, and still in German, this little song.

"I KNOW a maiden fair to see,

Take care!

She can both false and friendly be,

Beware! Beware!

Trust her not,

She is fooling thee!

"She has two eyes, so soft and brown,

Take care!

She gives a side-glance and looks down,

Beware! Beware!

Trust her not,

She is fooling thee!

"And she has hair of a golden hue,

Take care!

And what she says, it is not true,

Beware! Beware!

Trust her not,

She is fooling thee!

"She has a bosom as white as snow,

Take care!

She knows how much it is best to show,

Beware! Beware!

Trust her not,

She is fooling thee!

"She gives thee a garland woven fair,

Take care!

It is a fool's cap for thee to wear,

Beware! Beware!

Trust her not,

She is fooling thee!"

The last stanza he sung in a laughing, triumphant tone, which resounded

above the loud clang of his guitar, like the jeering laugh of Till

Eulenspiegel. Then slinging his guitar over his shoulder, he took off

his green cap, and made a leg to the ladies, in the style of Gil Blas;

waved his hand in the air, and walked quickly down the valley, singing

"Adé! Adé! Adé!"

CHAPTER VIII. THE FOUNTAIN OF OBLIVION.

The power of magic in the Middle Ages created monsters, who followed

the unhappy magician everywhere. The power of Love in all ages creates

angels, who likewise follow the happy or unhappy lover everywhere, even

in his dreams. By such an angel was Paul Flemming now haunted, both

when he waked and when he slept. He walked as in a dream; and was

hardly conscious of the presence of those around him. A sweet face

looked at him from every page of every book he read; and it was the

face of Mary Ashburton! a sweet voice spake to him in every sound he

heard; and it was the voice of Mary Ashburton! Day and night succeeded

each other, with pleasant interchange of light and darkness; but to him

thepassing of time was only as a dream. When he arose in the morning,

he thought only of her, and wondered if she were yet awake; and when he

lay down at night he thought only of her, and how, like the Lady

Christabel,

"Her gentle limbs she did undress,

And lay down in her loveliness."

And the livelong day he was with her, either in reality or in

day-dreams, hardly less real; for, in each delirious vision of his

waking hours, her beauteous form passed like the form of Beatrice

through Dante's heaven; and, as he lay in the summer afternoon, and

heard at times the sound of the wind in the trees, and the sound of

Sabbath bells ascending up to heaven, holy wishes and prayers ascended

with them from his inmost soul, beseeching that he might not love in

vain! And whenever, in silence and alone, he looked into the silent,

lonely countenance of Night, he recalled the impassioned lines of

Plato;--

"Lookest thou at the stars? If I were heaven,

With all the eyes of heaven would I look down on thee!"

O how beautiful it is to love! Even thou, that sneerest at this page,

and laughest in cold indifference or scorn if others are near thee,

thou, too, must acknowledge its truth when thou art alone; and confess,

that a foolish world is prone to laugh in public, at what in private it

reverences, as one of the highest impulses of our nature,--namely,

Love!

One by one the objects of our affection depart from us. But our

affections remain, and like vines stretch forth their broken, wounded

tendrils for support. The bleeding heart needs a balm to heal it; and

there is none but the love of its kind,--none but the affection of a

human heart! Thus the wounded, broken affections of Flemming began to

lift themselves from the dust and cling around this new object. Days

and weeks passed; and, like the Student Crisostomo, he ceased to love

because he began to adore. And with this adoration mingled the prayer,

that, in that hour when the world is still, and the voices that praise

are mute, and reflection cometh like twilight, and themaiden, in her

day-dreams, counted the number of her friends, some voice in the sacred

silence of her thoughts might whisper his name! And was it indeed so?

Did any voice in the sacred silence of her thoughts whisper his

name?--We shall soon learn.

They were sitting together one morning, on the green, flowery meadow,

under the ruins of Burg Unspunnen. She was sketching the ruins. The

birds were singing one and all, as if there were no aching hearts, no

sin nor sorrow, in the world. So motionless was the bright air, that

the shadow of the trees lay engraven on the grass. The distant

snow-peaks sparkled in the sun, and nothing frowned, save the square

tower of the old ruin above them.

"What a pity it is," said the lady, as she stopped to rest her weary

fingers; "what a pity it is, that there is no old tradition connected

with this ruin."

"I will make you one, if you wish," said Flemming.

"Can you make old traditions?"

"O yes; I made three the other day for the Rhine, and one very old one

for the Black Forest. A lady with dishevelled hair; a robber with a

horrible slouched hat; and a night-storm among the roaring pines."

"Delightful! Do make one for me."

"With the greatest pleasure. Where will you have the scene? Here, or in

the Black Forest?"

"In the Black Forest, by all means? Begin."

"First promise not to interrupt me. If you snap the golden threads of

thought, they will float away on the air like gossamer threads, and I

shall never be able to recover them."

"I promise."

"Listen, then, to the Tradition of 'The Fountain of Oblivion.' "

"Begin."

Flemming was reclining on the flowery turf, at the lady's feet, looking

up with dreamy eyes into her sweet face, and then into the leaves of

the linden-trees overhead.

"Gentle Lady! Dost thou remember the linden-trees of Bülach, those tall

and stately trees, with velvet down upon their shining leaves and

rustic benches underneath their overhanging eaves! A leafy dwelling,

fit to be the home of elf or fairy, where first I told my love to thee,

thou cold and stately Hermione! A little peasant girl stood near, and

listened all the while, with eyes of wonder and delight, and an

unconscious smile, to hear the stranger still speak on in accents deep

yet mild,--none else was with us in that hour, save God and that

peasant child!"

"Why, it is in rhyme!"

"No, no! the rhyme is only in your imagination. You promised not to

interrupt me, and you have already snapped asunder the gossamer threads

of as sweet a dream as was ever spun from a poet's brain."

"It certainly did rhyme!"

"This was the reverie of the Student Hieronymus, as he sat at midnight

in his chamber, with his hands clasped together, and resting upon

anopen volume, which he should have been reading. His pale face was

raised, and the pupils of his eyes dilated as if the spirit-world were

open before him, and some beauteous vision were standing there, and

drawing the student's soul through his eyes up into Heaven, as the

evening sun through parting summer-clouds, seems to draw into its bosom

the vapors of the earth. O, it was a sweet vision! I can see it before

me now!

"Near the student stood an antique bronze lamp, with strange figures

carved upon it. It was a magic lamp, which once belonged to the Arabian

astrologer El Geber, in Spain. Its light was beautiful as the light of

stars; and, night after night, as the lonely wight sat alone and read

in his lofty tower, through the mist, and mirk, and dropping rain, it

streamed out into the darkness, and was seen by many wakeful eyes. To

the poor Student Hieronymus it was a wonderful Aladdin's Lamp; for in

its flame a Divinity revealed herself unto him, and showed him

treasures. Whenever he opened a ponderous, antiquatedtome, it seemed as

if some angel opened for him the gates of Paradise; and already he was

known in the city as Hieronymus the Learned.

"But, alas! he could read no more. The charm was broken. Hour after

hour he passed with his hands clasped before him, and his fair eyes

gazing at vacancy. What could so disturb the studies of this melancholy

wight? Lady, he was in love! Have you ever been in love? He had seen

the face of the beautiful Hermione; and as, when we have thoughtlessly

looked at the sun, our dazzled eyes, though closed, behold it still; so

he beheld by day and by night the radiant image of her upon whom he had

too rashly gazed. Alas! he was unhappy; for the proud Hermione

disdained the love of a poor student, whose only wealth was a magic

lamp. In marble halls, and amid the gay crowd that worshipped her, she

had almost forgotten that such a being lived as the Student Hieronymus.

The adoration of his heart had been to her only as the perfume of a

wild flower, which she had carelessly crushedwith her foot in passing.

But he had lost all; for he had lost the quiet of his thoughts; and his

agitated soul reflected only broken and distorted images of things. The

world laughed at the poor student, who, in his torn and threadbare

cassock, dared to lift his eyes to the Lady Hermione; while he sat

alone, in his desolate chamber, and suffered in silence. He remembered

many things, which he would fain forget; but which, if he had forgotten

them, he would wish again to remember. Such were the linden-trees of

Bülach, under whose pleasant shade he had told his love to Hermione.

This was the scene which he wished most to forget, yet loved most to

remember; and of this he was now dreaming, with his hands clasped upon

his book, and that kind of music in his thoughts, which you, Lady,

mistook for rhyme.

"Suddenly the cathedral clock struck twelve with a melancholy clang. It

roused the Student Hieronymus from his dream; and rang in his ears,

like the iron hoofs of the steeds of Time. Themagic hour had come, when

the Divinity of the lamp most willingly revealed herself to her votary.

The bronze figures seemed alive; a white cloud rose from the flame and

spread itself through the chamber, whose four walls dilated into

magnificent cloud vistas; a fragrance, as of wild-flowers, filled the

air; and a dreamy music, like distant, sweetchiming bells, announced

the approach of the midnight Divinity. Through his streaming tears the

heart-broken Student beheld her once more descending a pass in the

snowy cloud-mountains, as, at evening, the dewy Hesperus comes from the

bosom of the mist, and assumes his station in the sky. At her approach,

his spirit grew more calm; for her presence was, to his feverish heart,

like a tropical night,--beautiful and soothing and invigorating. At

length she stood before him revealed in all her beauty; and he

comprehended the visible language of her sweet but silent lips; which

seemed to say;--'What would the Student Hieronymus to-night?'--'Peace!'

he answered, raising his clasped hands, and smiling through histears.

'The Student Hieronymus imploreth peace!' 'Then go,' said the spirit,

'go to the Fountain of Oblivion in the deepest solitude of the Black

Forest, and cast this scroll into its waters; and thou shalt be at

peace once more. Hieronymus opened his arms to embrace the Divinity,

for her countenance assumed the features of Hermione; but she vanished

away; the music ceased; the gorgeous cloud-land sank and fell asunder;

and the student was alone within the four bare walls of his chamber. As

he bowed his head downward, his eye fell upon a parchment scroll, which

was lying beside the lamp. Upon it was written only the name of

Hermione!

"The next morning Hieronymus put the scroll into his bosom, and went

his way in search of the Fountain of Oblivion. A few days brought him

to the skirts of the Black Forest. He entered, not without a feeling of

dread, that land of shadows; and passed onward under melancholy pines

and cedars, whose branches grew abroad and mingled together, and, as

they swayed up and down, filled the air with solemn twilight and a

sound of sorrow. As he advanced into the forest, the waving moss hung,

like curtains, from the branches overhead, and more and more shut out

the light of heaven; and he knew that the Fountain of Oblivion was not

far off. Even then the sound of falling waters was mingling with the

roar of the pines overhead; and ere long he came to a river, moving in

solemn majesty through the forest, and falling with a dull, leaden

sound into a motionless and stagnant lake, above which the branches of

the forest met and mingled, forming perpetual night. This was the

Fountain of Oblivion.

"Upon its brink the student paused, and gazed into the dark waters with

a steadfast look. They were limpid waters, dark with shadows only. And

as he gazed, he beheld, far down in their silent depths, dim and

ill-defined outlines, wavering to and fro, like the folds of a white

garment in the twilight. Then more distinct and permanent shapes

arose;--shapes familiar to his mind, yet forgotten and remembered

again, as the fragmentsof a dream; till at length, far, far below him

he beheld the great city of the Past, with silent marble streets, and

moss-grown walls, and spires uprising with a wave-like, flickering

motion. And amid the crowd that thronged those streets, he beheld faces

once familiar and dear to him; and heard sorrowful, sweet voices,

singing; 'O forget us not! forget us not!' and then the distant,

mournful sound of funeral bells, that were tolling below, in the city

of the Past. But in the gardens of that city, there were children

playing, and among them, one who wore his features, as they had been in

childhood. He was leading a little girl by the hand, and caressed her

often, and adorned her with flowers. Then, like a dream, the scene

changed, and the boy had grown older, and stood alone, gazing into the

sky; and, as he gazed, his countenance changed again, and Hieronymus

beheld him, as if it had been his own image in the clear water; and

before him stood a beauteous maiden, whose face was like the face of

Hermione, and he feared lest the scroll had fallen into the water, as

he bent overit. Starting as from a dream he put his hand into his bosom

and breathed freely again, when he found the scroll still there. He

drew it forth, and read the blessed name of Hermione, and the city

beneath him vanished away, and the air grew fragrant as with the breath

of May-flowers, and a light streamed through the shadowy forest and

gleamed upon the lake; and the Student Hieronymus pressed the dear name

to his lips and exclaimed with streaming eyes; 'O, scorn me as thou

wilt, still, still will I love thee; and thy name shall irradiate the

gloom of my life, and make the waters of Oblivion smile!' And the name

was no longer Hermione, but was changed to Mary; and the Student

Hieronymus--is lying at your feet! O, gentle Lady!

'I did hear you talk