"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 "Ade! Ade! Ade!"



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 Bulach, 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 Bulach, 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

Far above singing; after you were gone

I grew acquainted with my heart, and searched

What stirred it so! Alas! I found it love."



CHAPTER IX. A TALK ON THE STAIRS.



No! I will not describe that scene; nor how pale the stately lady sat on the border of the green, sunny meadow! The hearts of some women tremble like leaves at every breath of love which reaches them, and then are still again. Others, like the ocean, are moved only by the breath of a storm, and not so easily lulled to rest. And such was the proud heart of Mary Ashburton. It had remained unmoved by the presence of this stranger; and the sound of his footsteps and his voice excited in it no emotion. He had deceived himself! Silently they walked homeward through the green meadow. The very sunshine was sad; and the rising wind, through the old ruin above them, sounded in his ears like a hollow laugh!

Flemming went straight to his chamber. On the way, he passed the walnut trees under which he had first seen the face of Mary Ashburton. Involuntarily he closed his eyes. They were full of tears. O, there are places in this fair world, which we never wish to see again, however dear they may be to us! The towers of the old Franciscan convent never looked so gloomily as then, though the bright summer sun was shining full upon them.

In his chamber he found Berkley. He was looking out of the window, whistling.

"This evening I leave Interlachen forever," said Flemming, rather abruptly. Berkley stared.

"Indeed! Pray what is the matter? You look as pale as a ghost!"

"And have good reason to look pale," replied Flemming bitterly. "Hoffmann says, in one of his note-books, that, on the eleventh of March, at half past eight o'clock, precisely, he was an ass. That is what I was this morning at half past ten o'clock, precisely, and am now, and I suppose always shall be."

He tried to laugh, but could not. He then related to Berkley the whole story, from beginning to end.

"This is a miserable piece of business!" exclaimed Berkley, when he had finished. "Strange enough! And yet I have long ceased to marvel at the caprices of women. Did not Pan captivate the chaste Diana? Did not Titania love Nick Bottom, with his ass's head? Do you think that maidens' eyes are no longer touched with the juice of love-in-idleness! Take my word for it, she is in love with somebody else. There must be some reason for this. No; women never have any reasons, except their will. But never mind. Keep a stout heart. Care killed a cat. After all,—what is she? Who is she? Only a—"

"Hush! hush," exclaimed Flemming, in great excitement. "Not one word more, I beseech you. Do not think to console me, by depreciating her. She is very dear to me still; a beautiful, high-minded, noble woman."

"Yes," answered Berkley; "that is the waywith you all, you young men. You see a sweet face, or a something, you know not what, and flickering reason says, Good night; amen to common sense. The imagination invests the beloved object with a thousand superlative charms; furnishes her with all the purple and fine linen, all the rich apparel and furniture, of human nature. I did the same when I was young. I was once as desperately in love as you are now; and went through all the

'Delicious deaths, soft exhalations

Of soul; dear and divine annihilations,

A thousand unknown rites

Of joys, and rarified delights.'

I adored and was rejected. 'You are in love with certain attributes,' said the lady. 'Damn your attributes, Madam,' said I; 'I know nothing of attributes.' 'Sir,' said she, with dignity, 'you have been drinking.' So we parted. She was married afterwards to another, who knew something about attributes, I suppose. I have seen her once since, and only once. She had a baby in a yellow gown. I hate a baby in a yellow gown. How glad I am she did not marry me. One of these days, you will be glad you have been rejected. Take my word for it."

"All that does not prevent my lot from being a very melancholy one!" said Flemming sadly.

"O, never mind the lot," cried Berkley laughing, "so long as you don't get Lot's wife. If the cucumber is bitter, throw it away, as the philosopher Marcus Antoninus says, in his Meditations. Forget her, and all will be as if you had not known her."

"I shall never forget her," replied Flemming, rather solemnly. "Not my pride, but my affections, are wounded; and the wound is too deep ever to heal. I shall carry it with me always. I enter no more into the world, but will dwell only in the world of my own thoughts. All great and unusual occurrences, whether of joy or sorrow, lift us above this earth; and we should do well always to preserve this elevation. Hitherto I have not done so. But now I will no more descend; I will sit apart and above the world, with my mournful, yet holy thoughts."

"Whew! You had better go into society; the whirl and delirium will cure you in a week. If you find a lady, who pleases you very much, and you wish to marry her, and she will not listen to such a horrid thing, I see but one remedy, which is to find another, who pleases you more, and who will listen to it."

"No, my friend; you do not understand my character," said Flemming, shaking his head. "I love this woman with a deep, and lasting affection. I shall never cease to love her. This may be madness in me; but so it is. Alas and alas! Paracelsus of old wasted life in trying to discover its elixir, which after all turned out to be alcohol; and instead of being made immortal upon earth, he died drunk on the floor of a tavern. The like happens to many of us. We waste our best years in distilling the sweetest flowers of life into love-potions, which after all do not immortalize, butonly intoxicate us. By Heaven! we are all of us mad."

"But are you sure the case is utterly hopeless?"

"Utterly! utterly!"

"And yet I perceive you have not laid aside all hope. You still flatter yourself, that the lady's heart may change. The great secret of happiness consists not in enjoying, but in renouncing. But it is hard, very hard. Hope has as many lives as a cat or a king. I dare say you have heard the old Italian proverb, 'The King never dies.' But perhaps you have never heard, that, at the court of Naples, where the dead body of a monarch lies in state, his dinner is carried up to him as usual, and the court physician tastes it, to see that it be not poisoned, and then the servants bear it out again, saying 'The King does not dine to-day.' Hope in our souls is King; and we also say, 'The King never dies.' Even when in reality he lies dead within us, in a kind of solemn mockery we offer him his accustomed food, but are constrainedto say, 'The King does not dine to-day.' It must be an evil day, indeed, when a king of Naples has no heart for his dinner! but you yourself are a proof, that the King never dies. You are feeding your King, although you say he is dead."

"To show you, that I do not wish to cherish hope," replied Flemming, I shall leave Interlachen to-morrow morning. I am going to the Tyrol."

"You are right," said Berkley; "there is nothing so good for sorrow as rapid motion in the open air. I shall go with you; though probably your conversation will not be very various; nothing but Edward and Kunigunde."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Go to Berlin, and you will find out. However, jesting apart, I will do all I can to cheer you, and make you forget the Dark Ladie, and this untoward accident."

"Accident!" said Flemming. "This is no accident, but God's Providence, which brought us together, to punish me for my sins."

"O, my friend," interrupted Berkley, "if you see the finger of Providence so distinctly in every act of your life, you will end by thinking yourself an Apostle and Envoy Extraordinary. I see nothing so very uncommon in what has happened to you."

"What! not when our souls are so akin to each other! When we seemed so formed to be together,—to be one!"

"I have often observed," replied Berkley coldly, "that those who are of kindred souls, rarely wed together; almost as rarely as those who are akin by blood. There seems, indeed, to be such a thing as spiritual incest. Therefore, mad lover, do not think to persuade thyself and thy scornful lady, that you have kindred souls; but rather the contrary; that you are much unlike; and each wanting in those qualities which most mark and distinguish the other. Trust me, thy courtship will then be more prosperous. But good morning. I must prepare for this sudden journey."

On the following morning, Flemming and Berkleystarted on their way to Innsbruck, like Huon of Bordeaux and Scherasmin on their way to Babylon. Berkley's self-assumed duty was to console his companion; a duty which he performed like an old Spanish Matadora, a woman whose business was to attend the sick, and put her elbow into the stomach of the dying to shorten their agony.



BOOK IV.



Epigraph

"Mortal, they softly say,

Peace to thy heart!

We too, yes, mortal,

Have been as thou art;

Hope-lifted, doubt-depressed,

Seeing in part,

Tried, troubled, tempted,—

Sustained,—as thou art."



CHAPTER I. A MISERERE.



In the Orlando Innamorato, Malagigi, the necromancer, puts all the company to sleep by reading to them from a book. Some books have this power of themselves and need no necromancer. Fearing, gentle reader, that mine may be of this kind, I have provided these introductory chapters, from time to time, like stalls or Misereres in a church, with flowery canopies and poppy-heads over them, where thou mayest sit down and sleep.

No,—the figure is not a bad one. This book does somewhat resemble a minster, in the Romanesque style, with pinnacles, and flying buttresses, and roofs,

"Gargoyled with greyhounds, and with many lions

Made of fine gold, with divers sundry dragons."

You step into its shade and coolness out of the hot streets of life; a mysterious light streams through the painted glass of the marigold windows, staining the cusps and crumpled leaves of the window-shafts, and the cherubs and holy-water-stoups below. Here and there is an image of the Virgin Mary; and other images, "in divers vestures, called weepers, stand in housings made about the tomb"; and, above all, swells the vast dome of heaven, with its star-mouldings, and the flaming constellations, like the mosaics in the dome of St. Peter's. Have you not heard funeral psalms from the chauntry? Have you not heard the sound of church-bells, as I promised; mysterious sounds from the Past and Future, as from the belfries outside the cathedral; even such a mournful, mellow, watery peal of bells, as is heard sometimes at sea, from cities afar off below the horizon?

I know not how this Romanesque, and at times flamboyant, style of architecture may please thecritics. They may wish, perhaps, that I had omitted some of my many ornaments, my arabesques, and roses, and fantastic spouts, and Holy-Roods and Gallilee-steeples. But would it then have been Romanesque?

But perhaps, gentle reader, thou art one of those, who think the days of Romance gone forever. Believe it not! O, believe it not! Thou hast at this moment in thy heart as sweet a romance as was ever written. Thou art not less a woman, because thou dost not sit aloft in a tower, with a tassel-gentle on thy wrist! Thou art not less a man, because thou wearest no hauberk, nor mail-sark, and goest not on horseback after foolish adventures! Nay, nay! Every one has a Romance in his own heart. All that has blessed or awed the world lies there; and

"The oracle within him, that which lives,

He must invoke and question,—not dead books,

Not ordinances, not mould-rotten papers."

Sooner or later some passages of every one's romance must be written, either in words or actions. They will proclaim the truth; for Truth is thought, which has assumed its appropriate garments, either of words or actions; while Falsehood is thought, which, disguised in words or actions not its own, comes before the blind old world, as Jacob came before the patriarch Isaac, clothed in the goodly raiment of his brother Esau. And the world, like the patriarch, is often deceived; for, though the voice is Jacob's voice, yet the hands are the hands of Esau, and the False takes away the birth-right and the blessing from the True. Hence it is, that the world so often lifts up its voice and weeps.

That very pleasing and fanciful Chinese Romance, the Shadow in the Water, ends with the hero's marrying both the heroines. I hope my gentle reader feels curious to know the end of this Romance, which is a shadow upon the earth; and see whether there be any marriage at all in it.

That is the very point I am now thinking of, as I sit here at my pleasant chamber window, and enjoy the balmy air of a bright summer morning, and watch the motions of the golden robin, that sits on its swinging nest on the outermost, pendulous branch of yonder elm. The broad meadows and the steel-blue river remind me of the meadows of Unterseen, and the river Aar; and beyond them rise magnificent snow-white clouds, piled up like Alps. Thus the shades of Washington and William Tell seem to walk together on these Elysian Fields; for it was here, that in days long gone, our great Patriot dwelt; and yonder clouds so much resemble the snowy Alps, that they remind me irresistibly of the Swiss. Noble examples of a high purpose and a fixed will! Do they not move, Hyperion-like on high? Were they not, likewise, sons of Heaven and Earth?

Nothing can be more lovely than these summer mornings; nor than the southern window at which I sit and write, in this old mansion, which is like an Italian Villa. But O, this lassitude,—thisweariness,—when all around me is so bright! I have this morning a singular longing for flowers; a wish to stroll among the roses and carnations, and inhale their breath, as if it would revive me. I wish I knew the man, who called flowers "the fugitive poetry of Nature." From this distance, from these scholastic shades,—from this leafy, blossoming, and beautiful Cambridge, I stretch forth my hand to grasp his, as the hand of a poet!—Yes; this morning I would rather stroll with him among the gay flowers, than sit here and write. I feel so weary!

Old men with their staves, says the Spanish poet, are ever knocking at the door of the grave. But I am not old. The Spanish poet might have included the young also.—No matter! Courage, and forward! The Romance must be finished; and finished soon.

O thou poor authorling! Reach a little deeper into the human heart! Touch those strings,—touch those deeper strings, and more boldly, or the notes will die away like whispers, and no earshall hear them, save thine own! And, to cheer thy solitary labor, remember, that the secret studies of an author are the sunken piers upon which is to rest the bridge of his fame, spanning the dark waters of Oblivion. They are out of sight; but without them no superstructure can stand secure!

And now, Reader, since the sermon is over, and we are still sitting here in this Miserere, let us read aloud a page from the old parchment manuscript on the lettern before us; let us sing it through these dusky aisles, like a Gregorian Chant, and startle the sleeping congregation!

"I have read of the great river Euripus, which ebbeth and floweth seven times a day, and with such violence, that it carrieth ships upon it with full sail, directly against the wind. Seven times in an hour ebbeth and floweth rash opinion, in the torrent of indiscreet and troublesome apprehensions; carrying critic calumny and squint-eyed detraction mainly against the wind of wisdom and judgment."

In secula seculorum! Amen!



CHAPTER II. CURFEW BELLS.



Welcome Disappointment! Thy hand is cold and hard, but it is the hand of a friend! Thy voice is stern and harsh, but it is the voice of a friend! O, there is something sublime in calm endurance, something sublime in the resolute, fixed purpose of suffering without complaining, which makes disappointment oftentimes better than success!

The emperor Isaac Angelus made a treaty with Saladin, and tried to purchase the Holy Sepulchre with gold. Richard Lion-heart scorned such alliance, and sought to recover it by battle. Thus do weak minds make treaties with the passions they cannot overcome, and try to purchase happiness at the expense of principle. But the resolute will of a strong man scorns such means; and struggles nobly with his foe, to achieve great deeds. Therefore, whosoever thou art that sufferest, try not to dissipate thy sorrow by the breath of the world, nor drown its voice in thoughtless merriment. It is a treacherous peace that is purchased by indulgence. Rather take this sorrow to thy heart, and make it a part of thee, and it shall nourish thee till thou art strong again.

The shadows of the mind are like those of the body. In the morning of life they all lie behind us; at noon, we trample them under foot; and in the evening they stretch long, broad, and deepening before us. Are not, then, the sorrows of childhood as dark as those of age? Are not the morning shadows of life as deep and broad as those of its evening? Yes; but morning shadows soon fade away, while those of evening reach forward into the night and mingle with the coming darkness. Man is begotten in delight and born in pain; and in these are the rapture and labor of his life fore-shadowed from the beginning. But thelife of man upon this fair earth is made up for the most part of little pains and little pleasures. The great wonder-flowers bloom but once in a lifetime.

A week had already elapsed since the events recorded in the last chapter. Paul Flemming went his way, a melancholy man, "drinking the sweet wormwood of his sorrow." He did not rail at Providence and call it fate, but suffered and was silent. It is a beautiful trait in the lover's character, that he thinks no evil of the object loved. What he suffered was no swift storm of feeling, that passes away with a noise, and leaves the heart clearer; but a dark phantom had risen up in the clear night, and, like that of Adamastor, hid the stars; and if it ever vanished away for a season, still the deep sound of the moaning main would be heard afar, through many a dark and lonely hour. And thus he journeyed on, wrapped in desponding gloom, and mainly heedless of all things around him. His mind was distempered. That one face was always before him; that one voice forever saying;

"You are not the Magician."

Painful, indeed, it is to be misunderstood and undervalued by those we love. But this, too, in our life, must we learn to bear without a murmur; for it is a tale often repeated.

There are persons in this world to whom all local associations are naught. The genius of the place speaks not to them. Even on battle-fields, where the voice of this genius is wont to be loudest, they hear only the sound of their own voices; they meet there only their own dull and pedantic thoughts, as the old grammarian Brunetto Latini met on the plain of Roncesvalles a poor student riding on a bay mule. This was not always the case with Paul Flemming, but it had become so now. He felt no interest in the scenery around him. He hardly looked at it. Even the difficult mountain-passes, where, from his rocky eyrie the eagle-eyed Tyrolese peasant had watched his foe, and the roaring, turbid torrent underneath, which had swallowed up the bloody corse, that fell from the rocks like a crushed worm, awakened no lively emotion in his breast. All around him seemed dreamy and vague; all within dim, as in a sun's eclipse. As the moon, whether visible or invisible, has power over the tides of the ocean, so the face of that lady, whether present or absent, had power over the tides of his soul; both by day and night, both waking and sleeping. In every pale face and dark eye he saw a resemblance to her; and what the day denied him in reality, the night gave him in dreams.

"This is a strange, fantastic world," said Berkley, after a very long silence, during which the two travellers had been sitting each in his corner of the travelling carriage, wrapped in his own reflections. "A very strange, fantastic world; where each one pursues his own golden bubble, and laughs at his neighbour for doing the same. I have been thinking how a moral Linneus would classify our race. I think he would divide it, not as Lord Byron did, into two great classes, the bores and those who are bored, but into three, namely; Happy Men, Lucky Dogs, and Miserable Wretches. This is more true and philosophical, though perhaps not quite so comprehensive. He is the Happy Man, who, blessed with modest ease, a wife and children,—sits enthroned in the hearts of his family, and knows no other ambition, than that of making those around him happy. But the Lucky Dog is he, who, free from all domestic cares, saunters up and down his room, in morning gown and slippers; drums on the window of a rainy day; and, as he stirs his evening fire, snaps his fingers at the world, and says, 'I have no wife nor children, good or bad, to provide for.' I had a friend, who is now no more. He was taken away in the bloom of life, by a very rapid—widow. He was by birth and by profession a beau,—born with a quizzing-glass and a cane. Cock of the walk, he flapped his wings, and crowed among the feathered tribe. But alas! a fair, white partlet has torn his crest out, and he shall crow no more. You will generally find him of a morning, smelling round a beef-cart, with domestic felicity written in every line of his countenance; and sometimes meet him in a cross-street at noon, hurrying homeward, with a beef-steak on a wooden skewer, or a fresh fish, with a piece of tarred twine run through its gills. In the evening he rocks the cradle, and gets up in the night when the child cries. Like a Goth, of the Dark Ages, he consults his wife on all mighty matters, and looks upon her as a being of more than human goodness and wisdom. In short, the ladies all say he is a very domestic man, and makes a good husband; which, under the rose, is only a more polite way of saying he is hen-pecked. He is a Happy Man. I have another dear friend, who is a sexagenary bachelor. He has one of those well-oiled dispositions, which turn upon the hinges of the world without creaking. The hey-day of life is over with him; but his old age is sunny and chirping; and a merry heart still nestles in his tottering frame, like a swallow that builds in a tumble-down chimney. He is a professed Squire of Dames. The rustle of a silk gown is music to his ears, and his imagination is continuallylantern-led by some will-with-a-wisp in the shape of a lady's stomacher. In his devotion to the fair sex,—the muslin, as he calls it,—he is the gentle flower of chivalry. It is amusing to see how quick he strikes into the scent of a lady's handkerchief. When once fairly in pursuit, there is no such thing as throwing him out. His heart looks out at his eye; and his inward delight tingles down to the tail of his coat. He loves to bask in the sunshine of a smile; when he can breathe the sweet atmosphere of kid gloves and cambric handkerchiefs, his soul is in its element; and his supreme delight is to pass the morning, to use his own quaint language, 'in making dodging calls, and wiggling round among the ladies!' He is a lucky dog!"

"And as a specimen of the class of Miserable Wretches, I suppose you will take me," said Flemming, making an effort to enter into his friend's humor. "Certainly I am wretched enough. You may make me the stuffed bear,—the specimen of this class."

"By no means," replied Berkley; "you are not reduced so low. He only is utterly wretched, who is the slave of his own passions, or those of others. This, I trust, will never be your condition. Why so wan and pale, fond lover? Do you remember Sir John Suckling's Song?

'Why so wan and pale, fond lover;

Pr'ythee why so pale?

Will, if looking well can't move her,

Looking ill prevail?

Pr'ythee why so pale?

'Why so dull and mute, young sinner;

Pr'ythee why so mute?

Will, if speaking well can't win her,

Saying nothing do 't?

Pr'ythee why so mute?

'Quit, quit, for shame! this cannot move,

This cannot take her!

If of herself she do not love,

Nothing will make her!

The devil take her!'

How do you like that?"

"To you I say quit, quit for shame;" replied Flemming. "Why quote the songs of that witty and licentious age? Have you no better consolation to offer me? How many, many times must I tell you, that I bear the lady no ill-will. I do not blame her for not loving me. I desire her happiness, even at the sacrifice of my own."

"That is generous in you, and deserves a better fate. But you are so figurative in all you say, that a stranger would think you had no real feeling,—and only fancied yourself in love."

"Expression of feeling is different with different minds. It is not always simple. Some minds, when excited, naturally speak in figures and similitudes. They do not on that account feel less deeply. This is obvious in our commonest modes of speech. It depends upon the individual."

"Kyrie Eleeson!"

"Well, abuse my figures of speech as much as you please. What I insist upon is, that you shall not abuse the lady. When did you ever hear me breathe a whisper against her?"

"Oho! Now you speak like Launce to his dog!"

Their conversation, which had begun so merrily, was here suddenly interrupted by a rattling peal of thunder, that announced a near-approaching storm. It was late in the afternoon, and the whole heaven black with low, trailing clouds. Still blacker the storm came sailing up majestically from the southwest, with almost unbroken volleys of distant thunder. The wind seemed to be storming a cloud redoubt; and marched onward with dust, and the green banners of the trees flapping in the air, and heavy cannonading, and occasionally an explosion, like the blowing up of a powder-wagon. Mingled with this was the sound of thunder-bells from a village not far off. They were all ringing dolefully to ward off the thunderbolt. At the entrance of the village stood a large wooden crucifix; around which was a crowd of priests and peasants, kneeling in the wet grass, by the roadside, with their hands and eyes lifted toheaven, and praying for rain. Their prayer was soon answered.

The travellers drove on with the driving wind and rain. They had come from Landeck, and hoped to reach Innsbruck before midnight. Night closed in, and Flemming fell asleep with the loud storm overhead, and at his feet the roaring Inn, a mountain torrent leaping onward as wild and restless, as when it first sprang from its cradle in the solitudes of Engaddin; meet emblem of himself, thus rushing through the night. His slumber was long, but broken; and at length he awoke in terror; for he heard a voice pronounce in his ear distinctly these words;

"They have brought the dead body."

They were driving by a churchyard at the entrance of a town; and among the tombs a dim lamp was burning before an image of the Virgin. It had a most unearthly appearance. Flemming almost feared to see the congregation of the dead go into the church and sing their midnight mass. He spoke to Berkley; but received no answer; he was in a deep sleep.

"Then it was only a dream," said he to himself; "yet how distinct the voice was! O, if we had spiritual organs, to see and hear things now invisible and inaudible to us, we should behold the whole air filled with the departing souls of that vast multitude which every moment dies,—should behold them streaming up like thin vapors heaven-ward, and hear the startling blast of the archangel's trump sounding incessant through the universe and proclaiming the awful judgment day. Truly the soul departs not alone on its last journey, but spirits of its kind attend it, when not ministering angels; and they go in families to the unknown land! Neither in life nor in death are we alone."

He slept again at intervals; and at length, though long after midnight, reached Innsbruck between sleeping and waking; his mind filled with dim recollections of the unspeakably dismal night-journey;—the climbing of hills, and plunging into dark ravines;—the momentary rattling of the wheels over paved streets of towns, and the succeeding hollow rolling and tramping on the wetearth;—the blackness of the night;—the thunder and lightning and rain; the roar of waters, leaping through deep chasms by the road-side, and the wind through the mountain-passes, sounding loud and long, like the irrepressible laughter of the gods.

The travellers on the morrow lingered not long in Innsbruck. They did not fail, however, to visit the tomb of Maximilian in the Franciscan Church of the Holy Cross, and gaze with some admiration upon the twenty-eight gigantic bronze statues of Godfrey of Bouillon, and King Arthur and Ernest the Iron-man, and Frederick of the Empty Pockets, kings and heroes, and others, which stand leaning on their swords between the columns of the church, as if guarding the tomb of the dead. These statues reminded Flemming of the bronze giants, which strike the hours on the belfry of San Basso, in Venice, and of the flail-armed monsters, that guarded the gateway of Angulaffer's castle in Oberon. After gazing awhile at these motionless sentinels, they went forth, and strolled throughthe public gardens, with the jagged mountains right over their heads, and all around them tall, melancholy pines, like Tyrolese peasants, with shaggy hair; and at their feet the mad torrent of the Inn, sweeping with turbid waves through the midst of the town. In the afternoon they drove on towards Salzburg through the magnificent mountain-passes of Waidering and Unken.



CHAPTER III. SHADOWS ON THE WALL.



On the following morning Flemming awoke in a chamber of the Golden Ship at Salzburg, just as the clock in the Dome-church opposite was striking ten. The window-shutters were closed, and the room nearly dark. He was lying on his back, with his hands crossed upon his breast, and his eyes looking up at the white curtains overhead. He thought them the white marble canopy of a tomb, and himself the marble statue, lying beneath. When the clock ceased striking, the eight and twenty gigantic bronze statues from the Church of Holy Rood in Innsbruck stalked into the chamber, and arranged themselves along the walls, which spread into dimly-lighted aisles and arches. On the painted windows he saw Interlachen, withits Franciscan cloister, and the Square Tower of the ruins. In a pendent, overhead, stood the German student, as Saint Vitus; and on a lavatory, or basin of holy-water, below, sat a cherub, with the form and features of Berkley. Then the organ-pipes began to blow, and he heard the voices of an invisible choir chanting. And anon the gilded gates in the bronze screen before the chancel opened, and a bridal procession passed through. The bride was clothed in the garb of the Middle Ages; and held a book in her hand, with velvet covers, and golden clasps. It was Mary Ashburton. She looked at him as she passed. Her face was pale; and there were tears in her sweet eyes. Then the gates closed again; and one of the oaken poppy-heads over a carved stall, in the shape of an owl, flapped its broad wings, and hooted, "Towhit! to-whoo!" Then the whole scene changed; and he thought himself a monk's-head on a gutterspout; and it rained dismally; and Berkley was standing under with an umbrella, laughing!

In other words, Flemming was in a ragingfever, and delirious. He remained in this state for a week. The first thing he was conscious of was hearing the doctor say to Berkley;

"The crisis is passed. I now consider him out of danger."

He then fell into a sweet sleep; the wild fever had swept away like an angry, red cloud, and the refreshing summer rain began to fall like dew upon the parched earth. Still another week; and Flemming was, "sitting clothed, and in his right mind." Berkley had been reading to him; and still held the book in his hand, with his fore-finger between the leaves. It was a volume of Hoffmann's writings.

"How very strange it is," said he, "that you can hardly open the biography of any German author, but you will find it begin with an account of his grandfather. It will tell you how the venerable old man walked up and down the garden among the gay flowers, wrapped in his morning gown, which is likewise covered with flowers, and perhaps wearing on his head a little velvet cap. Oryou will find him sitting by the chimney-corner in the great chair, smoking his ancestral pipe, with shaggy eyebrows and eyes like birdsnests under the eaves of a house, and a mouth like a Nuremberg nutcracker's. The future poet climbs upon the old man's knees. His genius is not recognised yet. He is thought for the most part a dull boy. His father is an austere man, or perhaps dead. But the mother is still there, a sickly, saint-like woman, with knitting-work, and an elder sister, who has already been in love, and wears rings on her fingers;—

'Death's heads, and such mementos,

Her grandmother and worm-eaten aunts left to her,

To tell her what her beauty must arrive at.'"

"But this is not the case with the life of Hoffmann, if I recollect right."

"No, not precisely. Instead of the grandfather we have the grandmother, a stately dame, who has long since shaken hands with the vanities of life. The mother, separated from her husband, is sick in mind and body, and flits to and fro, like a shadow. Then there is an affectionate maiden aunt; and an uncle, a retired judge, the terror of little boys,—the Giant Despair of this Doubting Castle in Koenigsberg; and occasionally the benign countenance of a venerable grand-uncle, whom Lamotte Fouque called a hero of the olden time in morning gown and slippers, looks in at the door and smiles. In the upper story of the same house lived a poor boy with his mother, who was so far crazed as to believe herself to be the Virgin Mary, and her son the Saviour of the world. Wild fancies, likewise, were to sweep through the brain of that child. He was to meet Hoffmann elsewhere and be his friend in after years, though as yet they knew nothing of each other. This was Werner, who has made some noise in German literature as the author of many wild Destiny-Dramas."

"Hoffmann died, I believe, in Berlin."

"Yes. He left Koenigsberg at twenty years of age, and passed the next eight years of his life in the Prussian-Polish Provinces, where he held some petty office under government; and took to himselfmany bad habits and a Polish wife. After this he was Music-Director at various German theatres, and led a wandering, wretched life for ten years. He then went to Berlin as Clerk of the Exchange, and there remained till his death, which took place some seven or eight years afterward."

"Did you ever see him?"

"I was in Berlin during his lifetime, and saw him frequently. I shall never forget the first time. It was at one of the esthetic Teas, given by a literary lady Unter den Linden, where the lions were fed with convenient food, from tea and bread and butter, up to oysters and Rhine-wine. During the evening my attention was arrested by the entrance of a strange little figure, with a wild head of brown hair. His eyes were bright gray; and his thin lips closely pressed together with an expression of not unpleasing irony. This strangelooking personage began to bow his way through the crowd, with quick, nervous, hinge-like motions, much resembling those of a marionette. He had a hoarse voice, and such a rapid utterance, that although I understood German well enough for ordinary purposes, I could not understand one half he said. Ere long he had seated himself at the piano-forte, and was improvising such wild, sweet fancies, that the music of one's dreams is not more sweet and wild. Then suddenly some painful thought seemed to pass over his mind, as if he imagined, that he was there to amuse the company. He rose from the piano-forte, and seated himself in another part of the room; where he began to make grimaces, and talk loud while others were singing. Finally he disappeared, like a hobgoblin, laughing, 'Ho! ho! ho!' I asked a person beside me who this strange being was. 'That was Hoffmann,' was the answer. 'The Devil!' said I. 'Yes,' continued my informant; 'and if you should follow him now, you would see him plunge into an obscure and unfrequented wine-cellar, and there, amid boon companions, with wine and tobacco-smoke, and quirks and quibbles, and quaint, witty sayings, turn the dim night into glorious day.'"

"What a strange being!"

"I once saw him at one of his night-carouses. He was sitting in his glory, at the head of the table; not stupidly drunk, but warmed with wine, which made him madly eloquent, as the Devil's Elixir did the Monk Medardus. There, in the full tide of witty discourse, or, if silent, his gray, hawk eye flashing from beneath his matted hair, and taking note of all that was grotesque in the company round him, sat this unfortunate genius, till the day began to dawn. Then he found his way homeward, having, like the souls of the envious in Purgatory, his eyelids sewed together with iron wire;—though his was from champagne bottles. At such hours he wrote his wild, fantastic tales. To his excited fancy everything assumed a spectral look. The shadows of familiar things about him stalked like ghosts through the haunted chambers of his soul; and the old portraits on the walls winked at him, and seemed stepping down from their frames; till, aghast at the spectral throng about him, he would call his wife from her bed, to sit by him while he wrote."

"No wonder he died in the prime of life!"

"No. The only wonder is, that he could have followed this course of life for six years. I am astonished that it did not kill him sooner."

"But death came at last in an appalling shape."

"Yes; his forty-sixth birth day found him sitting at home in his arm-chair, with his friends around him. But the rare old wine,—he always drank the best,—touched not the sick-man's lips that night. His wonted humor was gone. Of all his 'jibes, his gambols, his songs, his flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar, not one now, to mock his own grinning!—quite chap-fallen.'—The conversation was of death and the grave. And when one of his friends said, that life was not the highest good, Hoffmann interrupted him, exclaiming with a startling earnestness; 'No, no! Life, life, only life! on any condition whatsoever!' Five months after this he had ceased to suffer, because he had ceased to live. He died piecemeal. His feet and hands, his legs and arms, gradually, and in succession, became motionless, dead. But his spirit was not dead, nor motionless; and, through the solitary day or sleepless night, lying in his bed, he dictated to an amanuensis his last stories. Strange stories, indeed, were they for a dying man to write! Yet such delight did he take in dictating them, that he said to his friend Hitzig, that, upon the whole, he was willing to give up forever the use of his hands, if he could but preserve the power of writing by dictation. Such was his love of life,—of what he called the sweet habitude of being!"

"Was it not he, who in his last hours expressed such a longing to behold the green fields once more; and exclaimed; 'Heaven! it is already summer, and I have not yet seen a single green tree!'"

"Yes, that was Hoffmann. Soon afterwards he died. The closing scene was striking. He gradually lost all sensation, though his mind remained vigorous. Feeling no more pain, he said to his physician; 'It will soon be over now. I feel no more pain.' He thought himself well again; but the physician knew that he was dying, and said; 'Yes, it will soon be over!' The next morning he called his wife to his bed-side; and begged her to fold his motionless hands together. Then, as he raised his eyes to heaven, she heard him say, 'We must, then, think of God, also!' More sorrowful words than these have seldom fallen from the lips of man. Shortly afterwards the flame of life glared up within him; he said he was well again; that in the evening he should go on with the story he was writing; and wished that the last sentence might be read over to him. Shortly after this they turned his face to the wall, and he died."

"And thus passed to its account a human soul, after much self-inflicted suffering. Let us tread lightly upon the poet's ashes. For my part, I confess, that I have not the heart to take him from the general crowd of erring, sinful men, and judge him harshly. The little I have seen of the world, and know of the history of mankind, teaches me to look upon the errors of others in sorrow, not inanger. When I take the history of one poor heart that has sinned and suffered, and represent to myself the struggles and temptations it has passed,—the brief pulsations of joy,—the feverish inquie-tude of hope and fear,—the tears of regret,—the feebleness of purpose,—the pressure of want,—the desertion of friends,—the scorn of a world that has little charity,—the desolation of the soul's sanctuary,—and threatening voices within,—health gone,—happiness gone,—even hope, that stays longest with us, gone,—I have little heart for aught else than thankfulness, that it is not so with me, and would fain leave the erring soul of my fellow-man with Him, from whose hands it came,

'even as a little child,

Weeping and laughing in its childish sport.'"

"You are right. And it is worth a student's while to observe calmly how tobacco, wine, and midnight did their work like fiends upon the delicate frame of Hoffmann; and no less thoroughly upon his delicate mind. He who drinks beer, thinks beer; and he who drinks wine, thinks wine;—and he who drinks midnight, thinks midnight. He was a man of rare intellect. He was endowed with racy humor and sarcastic wit, and a glorious imagination. But the fire of his genius burned not peacefully, and with a steady flame, upon the hearth of his home. It was a glaring and irregular flame;—for the branches that he fed it with, were not branches from the Tree of Life,—but from another tree that grew in Paradise,—and they were wet with the unhealthy dews of night, and more unhealthy wine; and thus, amid smoke and ashes the fire burned fitfully, and went out with a glare, which leaves the beholder blind."

"This fire within him was a Meleager's fire-brand; and, when it burned out, he died. And, as you say, marks of all this are clearly visible in Hoffmann's writings. Indeed, when I read his strange fancies, it is with me, as when in the summer night I hear the rising wind among the trees, and the branches bow, and beckon with their long fingers, and voices go gibbering and mockingthrough the air. A feeling of awe and mysterious dread comes over me. I wish to hear the sound of living voice or footstep near me,—to see a friendly and familiar face. In truth, if it be late at night, the reader as well as the writer of these unearthly fancies, would fain have a patient, meek-eyed wife, with her knitting-work, at his elbow."

Berkley smiled; but Flemming continued without noticing the smile, though he knew what was passing in the mind of his friend;

"The life and writings of this singular being interest me in a high degree. Oftentimes one may learn more from a man's errors, than from his virtues. Moreover, from the common sympathies of our nature, souls that have struggled and suffered are dear to me. Willingly do I recognise their brotherhood. Scars upon their foreheads do not so deform them, that they cease to interest. They are always signs of struggle; though alas! too often, likewise, of defeat. Seasons of unhealthy, dreamy, vague delight, are followed by seasons ofweariness and darkness. Where are then the bright fancies, that, amid the great stillness of the night, arise like stars in the firmament of our souls? The morning dawns, the light of common day shines in upon us, and the heavens are without a star! From the lives of such men we learn, that mere pleasant sensations are not happiness;—that sensual pleasures are to be drunk sparingly, and, as it were, from the palm of the hand; and that those who bow down upon their knees to drink of these bright streams that water life, are not chosen of God either to overthrow or to overcome!"

"I think you are very lenient in your judgment. This is not the usual defect of critics. Like Shakspeare's samphire-gatherer, they have a dreadful trade! and, to make the simile complete, they ought to hang for it!"

"Methinks it would be hard to hang a man for the sake of a simile. But which of Hoffmann's works is it, that you have in your hand?"

"His Phatasy-Pieces in Callot's manner. Who was this Callot?"

"He was a Lorrain painter of the seventeenth century, celebrated for his wild and grotesque conceptions. These sketches of Hoffmann are imitations of his style. They are full of humor, poetry, and brilliant imagination."

"And which of them shall I read to you? The Ritter Gluck; or the Musical Sufferings of John Kreisler; or that very exquisite story of the Golden Jar, wherein is depicted the life of Poesy, in this common-place world of ours?"

"Read the shortest. Read Kreisler. That will amuse me. It is a picture of his own sufferings at the esthetic Teas in Berlin, supposed to be written in pencil on the blank leaves of a music-book."

Thereupon Berkley leaned back in his easychair, and read as follows.



CHAPTER IV. MUSICAL



SUFFERINGS OF JOHN KREISLER.

"They are all gone! I might have known it by the whispering, shuffling, coughing, buzzing through all the notes of the gamut. It was a true swarm of bees, leaving the old hive. Gottlieb has lighted fresh candles for me, and placed a bottle of Burgundy on the piano-forte. I can play no more, I am perfectly exhausted. My glorious old friend here on the music-stand is to blame for that. Again he has borne me away through the air, as Mephistopheles did Faust, and so high, that I took not the slightest notice of the little men under me, though I dare say they made noise enough. A rascally, worthless, wasted evening! But now I am well and merry! However, while I was playing, I took out my pencil, and on pagesixty-three, under the last system, noted down a couple of good flourishes in cipher with my right hand, while the left was struggling away in the torrent of sweet sounds. Upon the blank page at the end I go on writing. I leave all ciphers and sweet tones, and with true delight, like a sick man restored to health, who can never stop relating what he has suffered, I note down here circumstantially the dire agonies of this evening's tea-party. And not for myself alone, but likewise for all those who from time to time may amuse and edify themselves with my copy of John Sebastian Bach's Variations for the Piano-forte, published by Nageli in Zurich, and who find my marks at the end of the thirtieth variation, and, led on by the great Latin Verte, (I will write it down the moment I get through this doleful statement of grievances,) turn over the leaf and read.

"They will at once see the connexion. They know, that the Geheimerath Rodelein's house is a charming house to visit in, and that he has two daughters, of whom the whole fashionable world proclaims with enthusiasm, that they dance like goddesses, speak French like angels, and play and sing and draw like the Muses. The Geheimerath Rodelein is a rich man. At his quarterly dinners he brings on the most delicious wines and richest dishes. All is established on a footing of the greatest elegance; and whoever at his tea-parties does not amuse himself heavenly, has no ton, no esprit, and particularly no taste for the fine arts. It is with an eye to these, that, with the tea, punch, wine, ice-creams, etc., a little music is always served up, which, like the other refreshments, is very quietly swallowed by the fashionable world.

"The arrangements are as follows.—After every guest has had time enough to drink as many cups of tea as he may wish, and punch and ices have been handed round twice, the servants wheel out the card-tables for the elder and more solid part of the company, who had rather play cards than any musical instrument; and, to tell the truth, this kind of playing does not make such a useless noise as others, and you hear only the clink of money.

"This is a hint for the younger part of the company to pounce upon the Misses Rodelein. A great tumult ensues; in the midst of which you can distinguish these words,—

"'Schones Fraulein! do not refuse us the gratification of your heavenly talent! O, sing something! that's a good dear!—impossible,—bad cold,—the last ball! have not practised anything,—oh, do, do, we beg of you,' etc.

"Meanwhile Gottlieb has opened the piano-forte, and placed the well-known music-book on the stand; and from the card-table cries the respectable mamma,—

" 'Chantez donc, mes enfans!'

"That is the cue of my part. I place myself at the piano-forte, and the Rodeleins are led up to the instrument in triumph.

"And now another difficulty arises. Neither wishes to sing first.

"'You know, dear Nanette, how dreadful hoarse I am.'

"'Why, my dear Marie, I am as hoarse as you are.'

"'I sing so badly!—'

"'O, my dear child; do begin!'

"My suggestion, (I always make the same!) that they should both begin together with a duet, is loudly applauded;—the music-book is thumbed over, and the leaf, carefully folded down, is at length found, and away we go with Dolce dell' anima, etc.

"To tell the truth, the talent of the Misses Rodelein is not the smallest. I have been an instructer here only five years, and little short of two years in the Rodelein family. In this short time, Fraulein Nanette has made such progress, that a tune, which she has heard at the theatre only ten times, and has played on the piano-forte, at farthest, ten times more, she will sing right off, so that you know in a moment what it is. Fraulein Marie catches it at the eighth time; and if she is sometimes a quarter of a note lower than the piano-forte, after all it is very tolerable, considering her pretty little doll-face, and very passable rosy-lips.

"After the duet, a universal chorus of applause! And now arriettas and duettinos succeed each other, and right merrily I hammer away at the thousand-times-repeated accompaniment. During the singing, the Finanzrathin Eberstein, by coughing and humming, has given to understand that she also sings. Fraulein Nanette says;

"'But, my dear Finanzrathin, now you must let us hear your exquisite voice.'

"A new tumult arises. She has a bad cold in her head,—she does not know anything by heart! Gottlieb brings straightway two armfuls of music-books; and the leaves are turned over again and again. First she thinks she will sing Der Holle Rache, etc., then Hebe sich, etc., then Ach, Ich liebte, etc. In this embarrassment, I propose, Ein Veilchen auf der Wiese, etc. But she is for the heroic style; she wants to make a display, and finally selects the aria in Constantia.

"O scream, squeak, mew, gurgle, groan, agonize, quiver, quaver, just as much as you please, Madam,—I have my foot on the fortissimo pedal, and thunder myself deaf! O Satan, Satan! which of thy goblins damned has got into this throat, pinching, and kicking, and cuffing the tones about so! Four strings have snapped already, and one hammer is lamed for life. My ears ring again,—my head hums,—my nerves tremble! Have all the harsh notes from the cracked trumpet of a strolling-player been imprisoned in this little throat! (But this excites me,—I must drink a glass of Burgundy.)

"The applause was unbounded; and some one observed, that the Finanzrathin and Mozart had put me quite in a blaze. I smiled with downcast eyes, very stupidly. I could but acknowledge it. And now all talents, which hitherto had bloomed unseen, were in motion, wildly flitting to and fro. They were bent upon a surfeit of music; tuttis, finales, choruses must be performed. The Canonicus Kratzer sings, you know, a heavenly bass, as was observed by the gentleman yonder, with the head of Titus Andronicus, who modestly remarked also, that he himself was properly only a second-ratetenor; but, though he said it, who should not say it, was nevertheless member of several academies of music. Forthwith preparations are made for the first chorus in the opera of Titus. It went off gloriously. The Canonicus, standing close behind me, thundered out the bass over my head, as if he were singing with bass-drums and trumpet obbligato in a cathedral. He struck the notes gloriously; but in his hurry he got the tempo just about twice too slow. However, he was true to himself at least in this, that through the whole piece he dragged along just half a beat behind the rest. The others showed a most decided penchant for the ancient Greek music, which, as is well known, having nothing to do with harmony, ran on in unison or monotone. They all sang treble, with slight variations, caused by accidental rising and falling of the voice, say some quarter of a note.

"This somewhat noisy affair produced a universal tragic state of feeling, namely a kind of terror, even at the card-tables, which for the momentcould no longer, as before, chime in melodramatic, by weaving into the music sundry exclamations; as, for instance;

" 'O! I loved,—eight and forty,—was so happy,—I pass,—then I knew not,—whist,—pangs of love,—follow suit,' etc.—It has a very pretty effect. (I fill my glass.)

"That was the highest point of the musical exhibition this evening. 'Now it is all over,' thought I to myself. I shut the book, and got up from the piano-forte. But the baron, my ancient tenor, came up to me, and said;

" 'My dear Herr Capellmeister, they say you play the most exquisite voluntaries! Now do play us one; only a short one, I entreat you!'

"I answered very drily, that to-day my fantasies had all gone a wool-gathering; and, while we are talking about it, a devil, in the shape of a dandy, with two waistcoats, had smelt out Bach's Variations, which were lying under my hat in the next room. He thinks they are merely little variations, such as Nel cor mio non piu sento, or Ah, vous dirai-je, maman, etc., and insists upon it, that I shall play them. I try to excuse myself, but they all attack me. So then, 'Listen, and burst with ennui,' think I to myself,—and begin to work away.

"When I had got to variation number three, several ladies departed, followed by the gentleman with the Titus-Andronicus head. The Rodeleins, as their teacher was playing, stood it out, though not without difficulty, to number twelve. Number fifteen made the man with two waistcoats take to his heels. Out of most excessive politeness, the Baron stayed till number thirty, and drank up all the punch, which Gottlieb placed on the piano-forte for me.

"I should have brought all to a happy conclusion, but, alas! this number thirty,—the theme,—tore me irresistibly away. Suddenly the quarto leaves spread out to a gigantic folio, on which a thousand imitations and developments of the theme stood written, and I could not choose but play them. The notes became alive, and glimmered and hopped all round about me,—an electric firestreamed through the tips of my fingers into the keys,—the spirit, from which it gushed forth, spread his broad wings over my soul, the whole room was filled with a thick mist, in which the candles burned dim,—and through which peered forth now a nose, and anon a pair of eyes, and then suddenly vanished away again. And thus it came to pass, that I was left alone with my Sebastian Bach, by Gottlieb attended, as by a familiar spirit. (Your good health, Sir.)

"Is an honest musician to be tormented with music, as I have been to-day, and am so often tormented? Verily, no art is so damnably abused, as this same glorious, holy Musica, who, in her delicate being, is so easily desecrated. Have you real talent,—real feeling for art? Then study music;—do something worthy of the art,—and dedicate your whole soul to the beloved saint. If without this you have a fancy for quavers and demi-semi-quavers, practise for yourself and by yourself, and torment not therewith the Capellmeister Kreisler and others.

"Well, now I might go home, and put the finishing touch to my sonata for the piano-forte; but it is not yet eleven o'clock, and, withal, a beautiful summer night. I will lay any wager, that, at my next-door neighbour's, (the Oberjagermeister,) the young ladies are sitting at the window, screaming down into the street, for the twentieth time, with harsh, sharp, piercing voices, 'When thine eye is beaming love,'—but only the first stanza, over and over again. Obliquely across the way, some one is murdering the flute, and has, moreover, lungs like Rameau's nephew; and, in notes of 'linked sweetness long drawn out,' his neighbour is trying acoustic experiments on the French horn. The numerous dogs of the neighbourhood are growing unquiet, and my landlord's cat, inspired by that sweet duet, is making close by my window (for, of course, my musico-poetic laboratory is an attic,) certain tender confessions,—upward through the whole chromatic scale, soft complaining, to the neighbour's puss, with whom he has been in love since March last! Till this is all fairly over, II think will sit quietly here. Besides, there is still blank paper and Burgundy left, of which I forthwith take a sip.

"There is, as I have heard, an ancient law, forbidding those, who followed any noisy handicraft, from living near literary men. Should not then musical composers, poor, and hard beset, and who, moreover, are forced to coin their inspiration into gold, to spin out the thread of life withal, be allowed to apply this law to themselves, and banish out of the neighbourhood all ballad-singers and bagpipers? What would a painter say, while transferring to his canvass a form of ideal beauty, if you should hold up before him all manner of wild faces and ugly masks? He might shut his eyes, and in this way, at least, quietly follow out the images of fancy. Cotton, in one's ears, is of no use; one still hears the dreadful massacre. And then the idea,—the bare idea, 'Now they are going to sing,—now the horn strikes up,'—is enough to send one's sublimest conceptions to the very devil."



CHAPTER V. SAINT GILGEN.



It was a bright Sunday morning when Flemming and Berkley left behind them the cloud-capped hills of Salzburg, and journeyed eastward towards the lakes. The landscape around them was one to attune their souls to holy musings. Field, forest, hill and vale, fresh air, and the perfume of clover-fields and new-mown hay, birds singing, and the sound of village bells, and the moving breeze among the branches,—no laborers in the fields, but peasants on their way to church, coming across the green pastures, with roses in their hats,—the beauty and quiet of the holy day of rest,—all, all in earth and air, breathed upon the soul like a benediction.

They stopped to change horses at Hof, a handfulof houses on the brow of a breezy hill, the church and tavern standing opposite to each other, and nothing between them but the dusty road, and the churchyard, with its iron crosses, and the fluttering tinsel of the funeral garlands. In the churchyard and at the tavern-door, were groups of peasants, waiting for divine service to begin. They were clothed in their holiday dresses. The men wore breeches and long boots, and frock-coats with large metal buttons; the women, straw hats, and gay calico gowns, with short waists and scant folds. They were adorned with a profusion of great, trumpery ornaments, and reminded Flemming of the Indians in the frontier villages of America. Near the churchyard-gate was a booth, filled with flaunting calicos; and opposite sat an old woman behind a table, which was loaded with ginger-bread. She had a roulette at her elbow, where the peasants risked a kreutzer for a cake. On other tables, cases of knives, scythes, reaping-hooks, and other implements of husbandry were offered for sale.

The travellers continued their journey, without stopping to hear mass. In the course of the forenoon they came suddenly in sight of the beautiful Lake of Saint Wolfgang, lying deep beneath them in the valley. On its shore, under them, sat the white village of Saint Gilgen, like a swan upon its reedy nest. They seemed to have taken it unawares, and as it were clapped their hands upon it in its sleep, and almost expected to see it spread its broad, snow-white wings, and fly away. The whole scene was one of surpassing beauty.

They drove leisurely down the steep hill, and stopped at the village inn. Before the door was a magnificent, broad-armed tree, with benches and tables beneath its shadow. On the front of the house was written in large letters, "Post-Tavern by Franz Schoendorfer"; and over this was a large sun-dial, and a half-effaced painting of a bear-hunt, covering the whole side of the house, and mostly red. Just as they drove up, a procession of priests with banners, and peasants with their hats in their hands, passed by towards the church. They were singing a solemn psalm. At the same moment, a smart servant girl, with a black straw hat, set coquettishly on her flaxen hair, and a large silver spoon stuck in her girdle, came out of the tavern, and asked Flemming what he would please to order for breakfast.

Breakfast was soon ready, and was served up at the head of the stairs, on an old-fashioned oaken table in the great hall, into which the chambers opened. Berkley ordered at the same time a tub of cold water, in which he seated himself, with his coat on, and a bed-quilt thrown round his knees. Thus he sat for an hour; ate his breakfast, and smoked a pipe, and laughed a good deal. He then went to bed and slept till dinner time. Meanwhile Flemming sat in his chamber and read. It was a large room in the front of the house, looking upon the village and the lake. The windows were latticed, with small panes, and the window-sills filled with fragrant flowers.

At length the heat of the noon was over. Day, like a weary pilgrim, had reached the westerngate of Heaven, and Evening stooped down to unloose the latchets of his sandal-shoon. Flemming and Berkley sallied forth to ramble by the borders of the lake. Down the cool, green glades and alleys, beneath the illuminated leaves of the forest, over the rising grounds, in the glimmering fretwork of sunshine and leaf-shadow,—an exhilarating walk! The cool evening air by the lake was like a bath. They drank the freshness of the hour in thirsty draughts, and their breasts heaved rejoicing and revived, after the feverish, long confinement of the sultry summer day. And there, too, lay the lake, so beautiful and still! Did it not recall, think ye, the lake of Thun?

On their return homeward they passed near the village churchyard.

"Let us go in and see how the dead rest," said Flemming, as they passed beneath the belfry of the church; and they went in, and lingered among the tombs and the evening shadows.

How peaceful is the dwelling-place of those who inhabit the green hamlets, and populous cities of the dead! They need no antidote for care,—nor armour against fate. No morning sun shines in at the closed windows, and awakens them, nor shall until the last great day. At most a straggling sunbeam creeps in through the crumbling wall of an old neglected tomb,—a strange visiter, that stays not long. And there they all sleep, the holy ones, with their arms crossed upon their breasts, or lying motionless by their sides,—not carved in marble by the hand of man, but formed in dust, by the hand of God. God's peace be with them. No one comes to them now, to hold them by the hand, and with delicate fingers smooth their hair. They heed no more the blandishments of earthly friendship. They need us not, however much we may need them. And yet they silently await our coming.

Beautiful is that season of life, when we can say, in the language of Scripture, "Thou hast the dew of thy youth." But of these flowers Death gathers many. He places them upon his bosom, and his form becomes transformed into somethingless terrific than before. We learn to gaze and shudder not; for he carries in his arms the sweet blossoms of our earthly hopes. We shall see them all again, blooming in a happier land.

Yes, Death brings us again to our friends. They are waiting for us, and we shall not live long. They have gone before us, and are like the angels in heaven. They stand upon the borders of the grave to welcome us, with the countenance of affection, which they wore on earth; yet more lovely, more radiant, more spiritual! O, he spake well who said, that graves are the foot-prints of angels.

Death has taken thee, too, and thou hast the dew of thy youth. He has placed thee upon his bosom, and his stern countenance wears a smile. The far country, toward which we journey, seems nearer to us, and the way less dark; for thou hast gone before, passing so quietly to thy rest, that day itself dies not more calmly!

It was in an hour of blessed communion with the souls of the departed, that the sweet poet Henry Vaughan wrote those few lines, whichhave made death lovely, and his own name immortal!

"They are all gone into a world of light,

And I alone sit lingering here!

Their very memory is fair and bright,

And my sad thoughts doth clear.

"It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,

Like stars upon some gloomy grove,

Or those faint beams in which the hill is dressed,

After the sun's remove.

"I see them walking in an air of glory,

Whose light doth trample on my days,

My days, which are at best but dull and hoary,

Mere glimmerings and decays.

"O holy hope, and high humility,

High as the heavens above!

These are your walks, and ye have showed them me,

To kindle my cold love.

"Dear, beauteous Death! the jewel of the just!

Shining nowhere but in the dark!

What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,

Could man outlook that mark!

"He that hath found some fledged bird's nest, may know,

At first sight, if the bird be flown;

But what fair field or grove he sings in now,

That is to him unknown.

"And yet as angels, in some brighter dreams,

Call to the soul, when man doth sleep,

So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,

And into glory peep!"

Such were Flemming's thoughts, as he stood among the tombs at evening in the churchyard of Saint Gilgen. A holy calm stole over him. The fever of his heart was allayed. He had a moment's rest from pain; and went back to his chamber in peace. Whence came this holy calm, this long-desired tranquillity? He knew not; yet the place seemed consecrated. He resolved to linger there, beside the lake, which was a Pool of Bethesda for him; and let Berkley go on alone to the baths of Ischel. He would wait for him there in the solitude of Saint Gilgen. Long after they had parted for the night, he sat in his chamber, and thought of what he had suffered, and enjoyedthe silence within and without. Hour after hour, slipped by unheeded, as he sat lost in his reverie. At length, his candle sank in its socket, gave one flickering gleam, and expired with a sob. This aroused him.

He went to the window, and peered out into the dark night. It was very late. Twice already since midnight had the great pulpit-orator Time, like a preacher in the days of the Puritans, turned the hour-glass on his high pulpit, the church belfry, and still went on with his sermon, thundering downward to the congregation in the churchyard and in the village. But they heard him not. They were all asleep in their narrow pews, namely, in their beds and in their graves. Soon afterward the cock crew; and the cloudy heaven, like the apostle, who denied his Lord, wept bitterly.



CHAPTER VI. SAINT WOLFGANG.



The morning is lovely beyond expression. The heat of the sun is great; but a gentle wind cools the air. Birds never sang more loud and clear. The flowers, too, on the window-sill, and on the table, rose, geranium, and the delicate crimson cactus, are all so beautiful, that we think the German poet right, when he calls the flowers "stars in the firmament of the earth." Out of doors all is quiet. Opposite the window stands the village schoolhouse. There are two parasite trees, with their outspread branches nailed against the white walls, like the wings of culprit kites. There the rods grow. Under them, on a bench at the door, sit school-girls; and barefoot urchins in breeches are spelling out their lessons. The clock strikestwelve, and one by one they disappear, and go into the hive, like bees at the sound of a brass pan. At the door of the next house sits a poor woman, knitting in the shade; and in front of her is an aqueduct pouring its cool, clear water into a rough wooden trough. A travelling carriage without horses, stands at the inn-door, and a postilion in red jacket is talking with a blacksmith, who wears blue woollen stockings and a leather apron. Beyond is a stable, and still further a cluster of houses and the village church. They are repairing the belfry and the bulbous steeple. A little farther, over the roofs of the houses, you can see Saint Wolfgang's Lake. Water so bright and beautiful hardly flows elsewhere. Green, and blue, and silver-white run into each other, with almost imperceptible change, like the streaks on the sides of a mackerel. And above are the pinnacles of the mountains; some bald, and rocky, and cone-shaped, and others bold, and broad, and dark with pines.

Such was the scene, which Paul Flemming beheldfrom his window a few mornings after Berkley's departure. The quiet of the place had soothed him. He had become more calm. His heart complained less loudly in the holy village silence, as we are wont to lower our voices when those around us speak in whispers. He began to feel at times an interest in the lowly things around him. The face of the landscape pleased him, but more than this the face of the poor woman who sat knitting in the shade. It was a pale, meek countenance, with more delicacy in its features than is usual among peasantry. It wore also an expression of patient suffering. As he was looking at her, a deformed child came out of the door and hung upon her knees. She caressed him affectionately. It was her child; in whom she beheld her own fair features distorted and hardly to be recognised, as one sometimes sees his face reflected from the bowl of a spoon.