Camelot (Classics. 
 
 EDITED BY ERNEST BUYS. 
 
 LONGFELLOW S PROSE WORKS 
 
- 
 
LONGFELLOW S 
 
 "HYPERION," "KAVANAGH, 
 
 AND "THE TROU VERES" 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
 
 BY WILLIAM TIREBUCK 
 
 LONDON 
 WALTER SCOTT, 24 WARWICK LANE 
 
 PATERNOSTER ROW 
 I8S 7 
 
fSa.-2.73 
 
 ^ - 
 1*837 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION ...... . vii 
 
 HYPERION- 
 BOOK THE FIRST ...... i 
 
 BOOK THE SECOND ... . . 46 
 
 BOOK THE THIRD . . . . . .103 
 
 BOOK THE FOURTH . . . . . .156 
 
 KAVANAGH . . . . . .207 
 
 THE DEVOTIONAL POETRY OF SPAIN . . -306 
 
 THE TROUVERES . - . . -324 
 
 398 
 
LONGFELLOW S PROSE. 
 
 POET S prose may be likened to the portrait- 
 side of a coin, and his poetry to the reverse 
 the side symbolical. The one side depicts a 
 reality, the sovereign ; the other, an ideality, 
 such as Britannia or St, George and the 
 Dragon. 
 
 In this volume of prose we have chiefly to do with the 
 portrait-side of Longfellow ; but as on the coin the real has a 
 touch of the ideal and the ideal a basis on the real, so 
 Longfellow s prose has an underlying union with his verse. 
 His poems bind us as by a golden chain to his lovable 
 personality, and his prose completes the clasp. By his prose, 
 indeed, we can the clearer see our union with one who has 
 deepened our emotion, widened our spiritual range, and 
 broadened our hope. This is why Hyperion and Kavanagh are 
 now added to the Camelot Classics. They are auto-biographical. 
 They take us into confidence, allowing us to read between the 
 lines ; they take us behind the scenes, where we get peeps, 
 between the wings, at the production of The Village Blacksmith, 
 The Psalm of Life, The Reaper and the Flowers, and other 
 pieces in Longfellow s poetical repertoire. By his prose we see 
 what he was, what he longed for, what his aspirations were, and 
 how, toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing, he endeavoured to realise them 
 in the facts of life. 
 
 We are apt to always associate Longfellow with the heroic 
 daring of The Psalm of Life ; but we learn from Hyperion that 
 
viii LONGFELLOW S PROSE. 
 
 he passed through the valley of the shadow of something like 
 death to sing it. When Goethe wrote the Second Part of Faust, 
 he remarked that the man who wrote Part I. was dead. So it 
 was with the Longfellow of the period of The Psalm of Life. 
 He himself felt the need of it, he sang it, and by singing it he 
 became a changed man, a man with a more resolute bearing 
 towards the strife. We see, also, in Kavanagh, in the delinea 
 tion of Mr. Churchill by nature a poet, by destiny a school 
 master indications of Longfellow s early conflicts : his duties 
 battling with his desires, realities with his ideals, his airy 
 fancies with solid facts ; even love, even domesticity, occa 
 sionally declaring unconscious war against his longings. On 
 the other hand we must not look too closely, with too much 
 expectation for portraiture in every detail, at the schoolmaster 
 Churchill, or we may miss the likeness. The character is a 
 symbol rather than a portrait, the symbol of a man struggling 
 towards a larger and more resolute growth. With poor Mr. 
 Churchill, always dreaming instead of acting, always intending 
 instead of doing, the struggle was a vain one ; but with 
 Longfellow it ended in triumph. But not immediately. At the 
 very time he was depicting the procrastination of Mr. Churchill, 
 Longfellow himself had not been liberated from the law of 
 labouring and waiting. The poet at this period desired to 
 devote his nights and days entirely to literature ; and yet we 
 know that five more years were given to the professorship at 
 Harvard making a total service as a college professor of 
 twenty-five years. 
 
 Hyperion was published when Longfellow was thirty-two ; and 
 Kavanagh at forty-two. The period of Hyperion was one of 
 bursting spontaneity. Enthusiasm bubbled, and emotion flowed, 
 requiring, it would appear, frequent notes of exclamation, like so 
 many stakes to keep the flow within reasonable bounds. It 
 was the period of longing, of intense desire to merge in some 
 way his being in the vaster being of the Universe ; it was the 
 period of The Prelude, The Psalm of Life, Flowers, The Reaper 
 and the Flowers, and Footsteps of Angels, some of the most 
 haunting passages of his pathos, some of the most inspiriting 
 
LONGFELLOW S PROSE. be 
 
 phrases of his ennobling impulse. Perused in this connection, 
 Hyperion and Kavanagh become reminiscent of poems, and 
 the poems in turn respond with re-echoes of prose. The impulses 
 towards the higher goal, the destined end or way, throb both in 
 paragraph and verse. In the prose and in Hyperion especially 
 there.are passages of such an elevated emotional strain, with 
 such yearning after the higher possibilities of life at its highest 
 and best, and they are so tinged with the glow by which a poet 
 makes romance commonplace, and commonplace romance, that 
 they seem born of the very inspiration that gave us 
 
 " Let us then be up and doing, 
 
 With a heart for any fate," etc. 
 
 as though, indeed, the man Longfellow were there and then 
 realising beyond scruple, beyond doubt, that he also was needed, 
 that he also had a high purpose destined to be self-accomplished 
 if the still small voice within him were only heeded. We feel at 
 the conclusion of Hyperion that the voice was heeded, that Paul 
 Flemming, otherwise Longfellow, went from Europe back to 
 America with a calmer and clearer perception of how the world 
 could profit by him. 
 
 " Glorious indeed is the world of God around us," says Long 
 fellow in the early part of Hyperion, " but more glorious is the 
 world of God within us. There lies the land of song, there lies the 
 poet s native land." This is interesting as a note, in his own hand 
 as it were, of his changed attitude towards the world. Nature was 
 undoubtedly beautiful ; but there was something more to be done 
 in the world than sit in musing dalliance with its charms, and 
 a striking echo of this passage from Hyperion is to be found in 
 The Prelude. This change was the result of a natural response 
 to the change that was taking place around him. A man of his 
 conscience and affection could not resist it. To respond was to 
 have peace, satisfaction, inspiration : the union with the world 
 which his nature required. He could not recline under the 
 greenwood tree singing of woods and winds, when, by the laws 
 of the world and its work, the migrating thousands from Europe 
 were transforming the poetic woods into the very practical prose 
 
x LONGFELLOW S PROSE. 
 
 not devoid of poetry, however of villages and towns. No, 
 Nature was beautiful, but human nature, human nature strug 
 gling, was far more pressing with its call. The result was that 
 by responding to the call Longfellow gave himself a wider and 
 loftier flight. 
 
 It is thus evident that Longfellow s prose is of a psychological 
 and therefore a biographical value, of a biographical and there 
 fore a psychological value. In a true and faithful account of a 
 man and especially a man of letters these two acting and 
 inter-acting values are inseparable. A man becomes changed 
 to the extent of his thoughts and deeds. His thoughts and 
 deeds re-act upon him. Given Hyperion as a result, Longfellow 
 himself does not remain uninfluenced. He is Longfellow, and 
 in addition Hyperion ; he is a step in advance, he has added 
 another deed to himself; and hence the union between psycho 
 logical and biographical facts. There is the strongest evidence 
 for supposing that had not Longfellow lost his first wife, who 
 died when with him at Rotterdam in 1835, an ^ had ne not met 
 four years later, when he was thirty-two, a beautiful creature of 
 twenty, named Fanny Elizabeth Appleton Hyperion would 
 have been cast in a different mould, and would have shed a 
 different hue. Paul Flemming s severe loss of a dear friend, 
 bemoaned in the early chapters of the story, was Longfellow s 
 own loss of his wife ; and Paul Flemming s meeting with 
 Mary Ashburton was really Longfellow s meeting with Fanny 
 Appleton. It is understood that the lady was more offended 
 than flattered by her portrait in book-form ; and was inclined, 
 like the heroine in the story, to keep the poet at bay. But time 
 and the poet prevailed, as, no doubt, time and the poets always 
 will, for after a wooing of four years Fanny Appleton became 
 the wife of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, or, to continue the 
 story of Hyperion, Mary Ashburton became the spouse of Paul 
 Flemming. There is, however, something more to add. After a 
 sweet fellowship of over eighteen years, an end more tragic than 
 most written tragedies befell the wife of Longfellow. Sealing 
 within a letter a lock of hair of one of her children, a taper set 
 her light dress in flames, and as in the fiery flash of a moment 
 
LONGFELLOW S PROSE. xi 
 
 Longfellow s wife was burned to death. Longfellow clasped her 
 within his arms, but even the embrace of Love could not oust 
 the Angel of Death the Angel, indeed, touched Longfellow 
 also ; turned his hair grey, wrinkled his face, and hastily took 
 him a few years nearer the grave, for his friends found him an 
 old man. 
 
 Thus Fate, Destiny, call it what you will, is author also. 
 Fate writes its stories in men, in lives ; and men, in turn, 
 re-write the stories by transcribing themselves into books. Such 
 interest as this is to be found in Hyperion and Kavanagh. 
 They tell us what manner of man the younger Longfellow was 
 what influenced, what touched, what delighted him. They 
 disclose his ruminations, his doubts, perplexities, his hopes, his 
 belief. They are like entries in a diary, written in a very 
 simple cipher, on love, duty, nature, art, literature, Carlyle, and 
 even ballet-dancing. They give, too, very broad hints at times 
 that Longfellow, poet though he was, had his prosaic moments, 
 and could see commonplace facts without the halo of sentiment. 
 They give us Longfellow s own views on the province of the poet, 
 as if he were replying with warmth to some taunt that even he 
 had failed to preserve America from the reproach of not having 
 produced, in the words of the melo-dramatic play-bill, a great, 
 new, and original national bard. It is also in his prose that we 
 come to consciously note Longfellow s susceptibility to the play 
 and plash of fountains, or the ticking of old-fashioned clocks, or 
 the chimes of bells, or the solemnity of midnight, or the mystic 
 effect of footsteps, or to his presiding Unity, Time, with its 
 Trinity of Past, Present, and Future, It is in his prose and 
 verse combined that we hear the echoes already alluded to. 
 Not merely as mccking sounds are these echoes interesting. 
 To readers who will compare and analyse they have a deeper 
 import, and we give without comment, for their relationship is 
 self-evident, the following examples : 
 
 "These traits of character . . . made his (Paul Flemming s) life 
 joyous, and the world beautiful ; till at length Death cut down the 
 sweet blue flower that bloomed beside him, and wounded him with 
 that sharp sickle." Hyperion, 
 
xii LONGFELLO W S PROS&. 
 
 " There is a Reaper, whose name is Death, 
 
 And, with his sickle keen, 
 He reaps the bearded grain at a breath 
 And the flowers that grow between." 
 
 The Reaper and the Flowers. 
 
 " Close on the right rose the mountains of the mysterious Odenwald, 
 and on the left lay the (river) Neckar like a steel bow in the meadow." 
 
 Hyperion. 
 
 t! And silver white the river gleams 
 As if Diana, in her dreams, 
 Had dropt her silver bow 
 Upon the meadows low." 
 
 Endymion. 
 
 " With these day-dreams mingled, confusedly, the pattering of little 
 feet, and the murmuring and cooing of his little children overhead." 
 
 Kavanagh. 
 " I hear in the chamber above me 
 
 The patter of little feet, 
 The sound of a door that is opened, 
 And voices soft and sweet." 
 
 The Children s Hour. 
 
 " The winter did not pass without its peculiar delights and 
 sensations. The singing of the great wood fires ; the blowing of the 
 wind over the chimney-tops as if they were organ-pipes." 
 
 Kavanagh, 
 
 " Sings the blackened log a tune 
 Learned in some forgotten June 
 
 From a school-boy at his play. . , . 
 And the night wind, rising, hark ! 
 How above there in the dark 
 
 In the midnight and the snow 
 Ever gilder, fiercer, grander, 
 Like the trumpets of Iskander 
 All the noisy chimneys blow ! " 
 
 The Wind over the Chimney. 
 
LONGFELLO WS PROSE. xiii 
 
 (( Thinking, rejoicing, sorrowing, with his fellow-men such, such 
 should be the poet s life." -^Hyperion. 
 
 This, of course, recalls the "Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing" of the 
 Village Blacksmith. 
 
 Many other examples could be given, but part of the reader s 
 enjoyment will be to come upon the responsive passages by 
 surprise. We therefore leave them in the silence of the book 
 for those who have ears to hear. 
 
 As stories, Hyperion and Kavanagh belong to the school of 
 meditative sensibility, Hyperion inclining towards the mystic 
 sentiment of the German school. They reveal thoughts rather 
 than passions, portray phases rather than individuals, and most 
 of the individuals tend to illuminate the central individuality, 
 the author. Paul Flemming, the idealist, his friend, the 
 philosophic young Baron, Mr. Churchill, the schoolmaster- 
 poet, and Kavanagh, the preacher, are so many side-lights on the 
 central figure of Longfellow. This meditative sensibility im 
 ported from Germany has almost passed away. As an exotic 
 it flourished in the hot-houses of culture ; but out in the open, 
 on the prairie, on the coast-line, in the thick of the cities, on the 
 new railroads and quays, it had little opportunity to take root. 
 It was too self-conscious, too literary, too professional, for busy 
 people who had to read, if they read at all, while they ran. The 
 more startling stories of mystery and wonder of Poe, such 
 as the thrilling adventures from the pens of Fenimore 
 Cooper and Gustave Aimard, and, in keeping with the slave 
 agitation of the day, the ethical pathos of Uncle Tom s Cabin, 
 were more after the spirit of the people ; while the quieter, 
 steadier, but more piercing light of Nathaniel Hawthorne 
 satisfied those who stood between the culture of Hyperion 
 and Kavanagh, and the wild Indianism of Aimard and 
 Cooper. Nevertheless, Hyperion and Kavanagh now have 
 their special value, a biographical value, because of the very 
 features that mar them as stories pure and simple. Now that 
 Longfellow is not with us, and the world is beginning to see 
 him as he was, the self-consciousness, the self-analysis, the 
 
xiv LONGFELLOW S PROSE. 
 
 literary element, are the very qualities we prize. They speak, 
 like strata-beds, of the remoter life we desire to know. By 
 the aid of these two stories, and the ordinary biographical 
 data, and by the special aid of his poems, Longfellow is made 
 visible ; and without doubt he stands out more massively than 
 any American writer of his period. He occupies more space 
 in the popular imagination than any other author. In connec 
 tion with literature his personality springs first to the minds of 
 the people ; moreover, he is the American author most quoted 
 without the label of his name. Emerson with friendly rivalry 
 may confront him in certain literary constituencies, but as both 
 were right men at the right hour for lives in different stages of 
 growth, the rivalry is no more than a generous comparison, 
 complimentary to both. The relationship, with a difference, is 
 remarkable. Emerson both in his work and his personality 
 stands out with the placid sharpness of a moon-lit statue, while 
 Longfellow excites the associations of a broad sun-lit canvas, a 
 canvas crowded with homely masculine forms, harmonised by 
 familiar warm tints dashed in to the accompaniment of choir 
 music, on a deep and mellow background. The chaste and 
 abstract serenity of Emerson gratifies the cultured, the superfine, 
 the self-conscious ; but the picturesque homeliness of Longfellow 
 appeals to the general sentiment, not failing at times to likewise 
 touch the calmer emotions of the souls of culture. Nor by 
 citing the names of Whittier and Bryant, sweet and plaintive 
 but select singers, or of Walt Whitman, a democratic singer 
 who strange to note appeals to the aristocracy of mind, are 
 disparaging comparisons intended. The names are mentioned 
 in this connection as simple facts to show that for the present 
 other writers have a circumscribed influence compared with the 
 influence of Longfellow. 
 
 The explanation is in Longfellow himself. He, to a greater 
 degree than any other writer, attuned his lyre to the immediate 
 feelings of the American people. He comprehended his day 
 and laboured in the night accordingly. The time was too 
 urgent for the calm nature-worship of Wordsworth, the egotism 
 of Shelley s ethereal idealism, or the egotism of Byron s feverish 
 
LONGFELLO WS PXOSE. xv 
 
 realism. He saw the condition, let us say without offence the 
 elementary condition of the people of his country, and he spoke 
 to them out of the first standard book of emotion. He induced 
 them to feel rather than to think, to deal with ethical fact rather 
 than to play with aesthetic fancy. He preached the essence of 
 the old watchwords of Faith, Hope, and Charity ; he sang new 
 psalms for the workers, rather than rythmic condonement for 
 people of leisure inspiring in the moment of impending defeat, 
 consoling in the hour of sorrow, urging continually to fresh 
 endeavour and renewed endurance. He was based, as natu 
 rally as the locomotive or telegraph, on the requirements and 
 the results of his time, acting upon in one direction, and being 
 acted upon in another, receiving and giving with that har 
 monious reciprocity which forms the mysterious harmony of the 
 Universe. 
 
 It is an oft-repeated platitude that America is young ; 
 that she is too much concerned with the practical arts 
 to produce anything truly representative of itself in the 
 fine arts. This is another way of saying that a nation like 
 an individual cannot give any more than for the time being 
 it has to give. America in the early part of this century gave 
 what it could. Among other remarkable results it gave 
 Longfellow a result such as no other country or period ever 
 gave in that precise form before : the poet of a new 
 continent and yet in necessary alliance with the old ; the 
 poet of the inauguration of one more mingling of mankind, but 
 this time on a scale of geographical and numerical grandeur 
 hitherto unknown. England may be said to have been the 
 preliminary scene of the first experiment of this blending 
 of the nations. It was in England that the influences of Italy, 
 Denmark, Norway, Germany, Spain, and France were first 
 concentrated. It was there that the influences, both through 
 literature and through men, became engrafted upon the original 
 stock, growing towards a wonderful unity ever since. That 
 process of concentrating, engrafting, and intermingling is being 
 continued in America, but with a change in the constituent parts 
 of the influence. England imbibed the Continental influences, as 
 
xvi L ONGFELL O W S PROSE. 
 
 a whole, mainly through literature ; America is now imbibing 
 them mainly through men, through the migrating thousands 
 of Europe. It was for this change of condition, for this new 
 circumstance in the evolution of mankind, that Longfellow 
 wrote. He was the poet for the newly-forming nation out 
 of many nations, and viewed in this light, Longfellow s journeys 
 to Europe to equip himself for the Bowdoin and Harvard 
 Professorships by acquiring the European languages, were some 
 thing more than the journeys of a schoolmaster in search of 
 lessons for his pupils. They were, rather, the journeys of a 
 bardic ambassador going to the fatherlands of song to learn how 
 to reach the hearts of the adopted sons of his country. 
 Longfellow translated songs out of ten languages. Into the 
 broad and spreading language of the English tongue he merged 
 the Babel voices of the Continent, passing them through the 
 generous attributes of his own noble nature for the benefit 
 of his country. No wonder that he is unique national and 
 yet international, local and yet general, for town or for country ; 
 no wonder that he stands out more massively than any other 
 native writer of his time, for he more distinctly than any is the 
 literary prototype of the young hospitable continent that 
 opens wide its arms to the venturing sons of divers tongues 
 from the elder continent of Europe ; and hence the length, 
 the breadth, and the depth of Longfellow s immediate influence 
 and popularity. 
 
 Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, February 27, 1807. 
 He visited Europe in the years 1826, 1833, 1842, 1868, and 
 1869. Hyperion was published in 1839, and Kavanagh in 
 1849. He died March 24, 1882. 
 
 WILLIAM TIREBUCK. 
 
HYPERION, 
 
 BOOK THE FIRST. 
 
 Who ne er his bread in sorrow ate, 
 
 Who ne er the mournful midnight hours 
 
 Weeping upon his bed has sate, 
 
 He knows you not, ye Heavenly Powers." 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE HERO. 
 
 N John Lyly s Endymion, Sir Topas is made to 
 say, " Dost thou know what a poet is ? Why, 
 fool, a poet is as much as one should say a 
 poet ! " And thou, reader, dost thou know 
 what a hero is ? Why, a hero is as much as 
 one should say a hero ! Some romance 
 writers, however, say much more than this. Nay, the old 
 Lombard, Matteo Maria Bojardo, set all the church bells in 
 Scandiano ringing, merely because he had found a name 
 for one of his heroes. Here, also, shall church bells be 
 rung, but more solemnly. 
 
 The setting of a great hope is like the setting of the sun. 
 The brightness of our life is gone. Shadows of evening fall 
 around us, and the world seems but a dim reflection itself 
 
 215 
 
2 HYPERION. 
 
 a broader shadow. We look forward into the coming 
 lone]y night. The soul withdraws into itself. Then stars 
 arise, and the night is holy. 
 
 Paul Flemming had experienced this, though still young. 
 The friend of his youth was dead. The bough had broken 
 " under the burden of the unripe fruit." And when, after 
 a season, he looked up again from the blindness of his 
 sorrow, all things seemed unreal. Like the man whose 
 sight had been restored by miracle, he beheld men, as trees, 
 walking. His household gods were broken. He had no 
 home. His sympathies cried aloud from his desolate soul, 
 and there came no answer from the busy, turbulent world 
 around him. He did not willingly give way to grief. He 
 struggled to be cheerful to be strong. But he could no 
 longer look into the familiar faces of his friends. He could 
 no longer live alone, where he had lived with her. He 
 went abroad, that the sea might be between him and the 
 grave. Alas ! between him and his sorrow there could be 
 no sea, but that of time. 
 
 He had already passed many months in lonely wandering, 
 and was now pursuing his way along the Rhine, to the 
 South of Germany. He had journeyed the same way 
 before, in brighter days, and a brighter season of the year \ 
 in the May of life, and in the month of May. He knew 
 the beauteous river all by heart every rock and ruin, 
 every echo, every legend. The ancient castles, grim and 
 hoar, that had taken root as it were on the cliffs, they 
 were all his ; for his thoughts dwelt in them, and the wind 
 told him tales. 
 
 He had passed a sleepless night at Roland seek, and had 
 risen before daybreak. He opened the window of the 
 balcony to hear the rushing of the Rhine. It was a damp 
 December morning ; and clouds were passing over the sky, 
 thin, vapoury clouds, whose snow-white skirts were 
 " often spotted with golden tears, which men call stars." 
 The day dawned slowly ; and, in the mingling of daylight 
 and starlight, the island and cloister of Nonnenwerth made 
 together but one broad, dark shadow on the silver breast of 
 
HYPERION. 3 
 
 the river. Beyond rose the summits of the Siebengebirg. 
 Solemn and dark, like a monk, stood the Drachenfels, in 
 his hood of mist, and rearward extended the Curtain of 
 Mountains, back to the Wolkenburg, the Castle of the 
 Clouds. 
 
 But Flemming thought not of the scene before him. 
 Sorrow unspeakable was upon his spirit in that lonely hour ; 
 and, hiding his face in his hands, he exclaimed aloud 
 
 " Spirit of the past ! look not so mournfully at me with 
 thy great, tearful eyes ! Touch me not with thy cold hand ! 
 Breathe not upon me with the icy breath of the grave ! 
 Chant no more that dirge of sorrow through the long and 
 silent watches of the night ! " 
 
 Mournful voices from afar seemed to answer, " Treu- 
 enfels ! " and he remembered how others had suffered, and 
 his heart grew still. 
 
 Slowly the landscape brightened. Down the rushing 
 stream came a boat, with its white wings spread, and darted 
 like a swallow through the narrow pass of God s Help. 
 The boatmen were singing, but not the song of Roland the 
 Brave, which was heard of old by the weeping Hildegund, 
 as she sat within the walls of that cloister, which now 
 looked forth in the pale morning from amid the leafless 
 linden-trees. The dim traditions of those grey old times 
 rose in the traveller s memory : for the ruined tower of 
 Rolandseck was still looking down upon the Kloster 
 Nonnenwerth, as if the sound of the funeral bell had 
 changed the faithful Paladin to stone, and he were watch 
 ing still to see the form of his beloved one come forth, not 
 from her cloister, but from her grave. Thus the brazen 
 clasps of the book of legends were opened, and, on the page 
 illuminated by the misty rays of the rising sun, he read 
 again the tales of Liba, and the mournful bride of 
 Argenfels, and Siegfried, the mighty slayer of the dragon. 
 Meanwhile the mists had risen from the Rhine, and the 
 whole air was filled with golden vapour, through which he 
 beheld the sun, hanging in heaven like a drop of blood. 
 Even thus shone the sun within him, amid the wintry 
 
4 HYPERION. 
 
 vapours, uprising from the valley of the shadow of death, 
 through which flowed the stream of his life, sighing, 
 sighing I 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE CHRIST OP ANDERNACII. 
 
 PAUL FLEMMING resumed his solitary journey. The morn 
 ing was still misty, but not cold. Across the Rhine the 
 sun came wading through the reddish vapours, and soft and 
 silver-white outspread the broad river, without a ripple 
 upon its surface, or visible motion of the ever-moving 
 current. A little vessel, with one loose sail, was riding at 
 anchor, keel to keel with another that lay beneath it its 
 own apparition and all was silent, and calm, and beautiful. 
 
 The road was for the most part solitary, for there are few 
 travellers upon the Rhine in winter. Peasant women were 
 at work in the vineyards, climbing up the slippery hill 
 sides like beasts of burden, with large baskets upon their 
 backs. And once during the morning, a band of appren 
 tices with knapsacks passed by singing, "The Rhine ! the 
 Rhine ! a blessing on the Rhine !" 
 
 Oh, the pride of the German heart in this noble river ! 
 And right it is, for of all the rivers of this beautiful earth, 
 there is none so beautiful as this. There is hardly a league 
 of its whole course, from its cradle in the snowy Alps to its 
 grave in the sands of Holland, which boasts not its peculiar 
 charms. By heavens ! if I were a German, I would be 
 proud of it too ; and of the clustering grapes that hang 
 about its temples, as it reels onward through vineyards, in 
 a triumphal march, like Bacchus, crowned and drunken. 
 
 But I will not attempt to describe the Rhine ; it would 
 make this chapter much too long. And to do it well one 
 should write like a god ; and his language flow onward 
 
HYPERION. 5 
 
 royally, with breaks and dashes, like the waters of that 
 royal river, and antique, quaint, and Gothic times be 
 reflected in it. Alas ! this evening mine flows not at all. 
 
 Flow, then, into this smoke-coloured goblet, thou blood of 
 the Rhine ! out of thy prison-house out of thy long- 
 necked, tapering flask, in shape not unlike a church spire 
 among thy native hills ; and from the crystal belfry loud 
 ring the merry tinkling bells, while I drink a health to my 
 hero, in whose heart is sadness, and in whose ears the bells 
 of Andernach are ringing noon. 
 
 He is threading his way alone through a narrow alley, 
 and now up a flight of stone steps, and along the city wall, 
 towards that old round tower built by the Archbishop 
 Frederic of Cologne, in the twelfth century. It has a 
 romantic interest in his eyes, for he has still in his mind 
 and heart that beautiful sketch of Carove, in which is 
 described a day on the tower of Andernach. He finds the 
 old keeper and his wife still there ; and the old keeper 
 closes the door behind him slowly, as of yore, lest he should 
 jam too hard the poor souls in purgatory, whose fate it is to 
 suffer in the cracks of doors and hinges. But, alas! alas! 
 the daughter, the maiden with long, dark eyelashes, she is 
 asleep in her little grave under the linden-trees of Feldkirche, 
 with rosemary in her folded hands ! 
 
 Flemming returned to the hotel disappointed. As he 
 passed along the narrow streets he was dreaming of many 
 things, but mostly of the keeper s daughter asleep in the 
 churchyard of Feldkirche. Suddenly, on turning the corner 
 of an ancient, gloomy church, his attention was arrested by 
 a little chapel in an angle of the wall. It was only a small 
 thatched roof, like a bird s nest, under which stood a rude 
 wooden image of the Saviour on the cross. A real crown 
 of thorns was upon his head, which was bowed downward, 
 as if in the death agony, and drops of blood were falling 
 down his cheeks, and from his hands, and feet, and side. 
 The face was haggard and ghastly beyond expression, and 
 wore a look of unutterable bodily anguish. The rude 
 sculptor had given it this, but his art could go no farther. 
 
6 HYPERION. 
 
 The sublimity of death in a dying Saviour, the expiring 
 God-likeness of Jesus of Nazareth, was not there. The 
 artist had caught no heavenly inspiration from his theme. 
 All was coarse, harsh, and revolting to a sensitive mind ; 
 and Flemming turned away with a shudder as he saw 
 this fearful image gazing at him, with its fixed and 
 half-shut eyes. 
 
 He soon reached the hotel, but that face of agony still 
 haunted him. He could not refrain from speaking of it to 
 a very old woman, who sat knitting by the window of the 
 dining-room, in a high-backed, old-fashioned arm-chair. I 
 believe she was the innkeeper s grandmother. At all events, 
 she was old enough to be so. She took off her owl-eyed 
 spectacles, and as she wiped the glasses with her 
 handkerchief, said 
 
 "Thou dear Heaven! Is it possible 1 ! Did you never 
 hear of the Christ of Anclernach ?" 
 
 Flemming answered in the negative. 
 
 " Thou dear Heaven ! " continued the old woman. " It 
 is a very wonderful story, and a true one, as every good 
 Christian in Andernach will tell you. And it all happened 
 before the death of my blessed man, four years ago ; let me 
 see yes, four years ago come Christmas." 
 
 Here the old woman stopped speaking, but went on with 
 her knitting. Other thoughts seemed to occupy her mind. 
 She was thinking, no doubt, of her blessed man, as German 
 widows call their dead husbands. But Flemming having 
 expressed an ardent wish to hear the wonderful story, she 
 told it in nearly the following words : 
 
 " There was once a poor old woman in Andernach whose 
 name was Frau Martha, and she lived all alone in a house 
 by herself, and loved all the Saints and the blessed Virgin, 
 and was as good as an angel, and sold tarts down the 
 E/heinkrahn. But her house was very old, and the roof- 
 tiles were broken, and she was too poor to get new ones, 
 and the rain kept coming in, and no Christian soul in 
 Andernach would help her. But the Frau Martha was a 
 good woman, and never did anybody any harm, but went 
 
HYPERION. 7 
 
 to mass every morning, and sold tarts by the Rheinkralm. 
 Now one dark, windy night, when all the good Christians 
 in Andernach were asleep, in the feathers, Frau Martha, 
 who lay under the roof, heard a great noise over 
 her head, and in her chamber, drip ! drip ! drip ! as if 
 the rain were dropping down through the broken tiles. 
 Dear soul ! and sure enough it was. And then there was 
 a pounding and hammering overhead, as if somebody were 
 at work on the roof ; and she thought it was Pelz-Nickel 
 tearing the tiles off, because she had not been to confession 
 often enough. So she began to pray ; and the faster she 
 said her Paternoster and her Ave Maria, the faster Pelz- 
 Nickel pounded and pulled : and drip ! drip ! drip ! it 
 went all round her in the dark chamber, till the poor 
 woman was frightened out of her wits, and ran to the 
 window to call for help. Then in a moment all was still 
 death still. But she saw a light streaming through the 
 mist and rain, and a great shadow on the house opposite. 
 And then somebody came down from the top of her house 
 by a ladder, and had a lantern in his hand, and he took the 
 ladder on his shoulder and passed down the street. But 
 she could not see clearly, because the window was streaked 
 with rain. And in the morning the old broken tiles were 
 found scattered about the street, and there were new ones on 
 the roof, and the old house has never leaked to this blessed 
 day. 
 
 " As soon as mass was over, Frau Martha told the priest 
 what had happened, and he said it was not Pelz-Nickel, but, 
 without doubt, St. Castor or St. Florian. Then she went 
 to the market, and told Frau Bridget all about it ; and 
 Frau Bridget said, that, two nights before, Hans Claus, the 
 cooper, had heard a great pounding in his shop, and in the 
 morning found new hoops on all his hogsheads ; and that 
 a man with a lantern and a ladder had been seen riding out 
 of town at midnight on a donkey ; and that the same n ; ght 
 the old wind-mill at Kloster St. Thomas had been mended, 
 and the old gate of the churchyard at Feldkirche made 
 as good as new, though nobody knew how the man got 
 
8 HYPERION. 
 
 across the river. Then Frau Martha went down to the 
 Rheinkrahn and told all these stories over again ; and the 
 old ferryman of Fahr said he could tell something about it, 
 for, the very night the churchyard gate was mended, he was 
 lying awake in his bed, because he could not sleep, and he 
 heard a loud knocking at the door, and somebody calling to 
 him to get up and set him over the river. And when 
 he got up, he saw a man down by the river with a lantern 
 and a ladder ; but as he was going down to him, the man 
 blew out the light, and it was so dark he could not see 
 who he was ; and his boat was old and leaky, and he was 
 afraid to set him over in the dark : but the man said 
 he must be in Andernach that night, and so he set him 
 over. And after they had crossed the river he watched 
 the man till he came to an image of the Holy Virgin, and 
 saw him put the ladder against the wall, and light his 
 lamp, and then walk along the street. And in the morning 
 he found his old boat all calked, and tight, and painted 
 red, and he could not for his blessed life tell who did it, 
 unless it were the man with the lantern. Dear soul ! how 
 strange it was ! 
 
 " And so it went on for some time : and whenever the 
 man with the lantern had been seen walking through the 
 street at night, so sure as the morning came some work had 
 been done for the sake of some good soul ; and everybody 
 knew he did it, and yet nobody could find out who he was, 
 nor where he lived ; for whenever anybody came near him 
 he blew out his light, and turned down another street, and 
 suddenly disappeared nobody could tell how. And some 
 said it was Riibezahl, and some Pelz-Nickel, and some St. 
 Anthony-on-the-Heath. 
 
 " Now one stormy night, a poor sinful creature was 
 wandering about the streets with her babe in her arms, and 
 she was hungry and cold, and no soul in Andernach would 
 take her in. And when she came to the church where the 
 great crucifix stands, she saw no light in the little chapel at 
 the corner ; but she sat down on a stone at the foot of the 
 cross and began to pray, and prayed till she fell asleep, 
 
HYPERION. 9 
 
 with her poor little babe on her bosom. But she did not 
 sleep long, for a bright light shone full in her face ; and 
 when she opened her eyes, she saw a pale man, with a 
 lantern, standing right before her. He was almost naked, 
 and there was blood upon his hands and body, and great 
 tears in his beautiful eyes, and his face was like the face of 
 the Saviour on the cross. Not a single word did he say to 
 the poor woman, but looked at her compassionately, and 
 gave her a loaf of bread, and took the little babe in his 
 arms, and kissed it. Then the mother looked up to the 
 great crucifix, but there was no image there ; and she 
 shrieked, and fell down as if she were dead. And there she 
 was found with her child ; and a few days after they both 
 died, and were buried together in one grave. And nobody 
 would have believed her story if a woman, who lived at the 
 corner, had not gone to the window when she heard the 
 scream, and seen the figure hang the lantern up in its place, 
 and then set the ladder against the wall, and go up and nail 
 itself to the cross. Since that night it has never moved 
 again. Ach ! Herr Je ! " 
 
 Such was the legend of the Christ of Andernach, as the 
 old woman in spectacles told it to Flemming. It made a 
 painful impression on. his sick and morbid soul ; and he felt 
 now for the first time how great is the power of popular 
 superstition. 
 
 The post-chaise being already at the door, Flemming was 
 soon on the road to Coblentz, a town which stands upon 
 the Rhine, at the mouth of the Mosel, opposite Ehrenbreit- 
 stein. It is by no means a long drive from Andernach to 
 Coblentz ; and the only incident which occurred to enliven 
 the way was the appearance of a fat, red-faced man on 
 horseback, trotting slowly towards Andernach. As they 
 met, the mad little postillion gave him a friendly cut with 
 his whip, and broke out into an exclamation, which showed 
 he was from Minister 
 
 " Jesmariosp ! my friend ! How is the Man in the 
 Custom-house 1 " 
 
 Now, to any candid mind this would seem a fair question 
 
io HYPERION. 
 
 enough but not so thought the red-faced man on horseback, 
 for he waxed exceedingly angry, and replied, as the chaise 
 whirled by 
 
 " The devil take you, and your Westphalian ham, and 
 pumpernickel ! " 
 
 Flemming called to his servant, and the servant to the 
 postillion, for an explanation of this short dialogue ; and the 
 explanation was, that on the belfry of the Kaufhaus in 
 Coblentz is a huge head, with a brazen helmet and a 
 beard ; and whenever the clock strikes, at each stroke of 
 the hammer this giant s head opens its great jaws, and 
 smites its teeth together, as if, like the brazen head of Friar 
 Bacon, it would say " Time was time is time is past." 
 This figure is known through all the country round about 
 as " The Man in the Custom-house ; " and when a friend in 
 the country meets a friend from Coblentz, instead of saying, 
 " How are all the good people in Coblentz 1 " he says, 
 " How is the Man in the Custom-house 1 " Thus the giant 
 has a great part to play in the town. And thus ended 
 the first day of Flemming s Rhine journey : and the only 
 good deed he had done was to give an alms to a poor 
 beggar-woman, who lifted up her trembling hands and 
 exclaimed 
 
 " Thou blessed babe ! " 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 IIOMUNCULUS. 
 
 AFTER all, a journey up the Rhine, in the mists and solitude 
 of December, is not so unpleasant as the reader may 
 imagine. You have the whole road and river to yourself, 
 Nobody is on the wing hardly a single traveller. The 
 ruins are the same, and the river, and the outlines of the 
 hills ; and there are few living figures in the landscape to 
 
HYPERION. ii 
 
 wake you from your musings, distract your thoughts, and 
 cover you with dust. 
 
 Thus, likewise, thought our traveller, as he continued his 
 journey on the morrow. The day is overcast, and the clouds 
 threaten rain or snow. Why does he stop at the little 
 village of Capellen *\ Because, right above him on the high 
 cliff , the glorious ruin of Stolzenfels is looking at him with 
 its hollow eyes, and beckoning to him with its gigantic 
 finger, as if to say, " Come up hither, and I will tell thee an 
 old tale." Therefore he alights, and goes up the narrow 
 village lane, and up the stone steps, and up the steep path 
 way, and throws himself into the arms of that ancient ruin, 
 and holds his breath, to hear the quick footsteps of the 
 falling snow, like the footsteps of angels descending upon 
 earth. And that ancient ruin speaks to him with its hollow 
 voice, and says 
 
 " Beware of dreams ! Beware of the illusions of fancy ! 
 Beware of the solemn deceivings of thy vast desires ! 
 Beneath me flows the Rhine, and, like the stream of Time, 
 it flows amid the ruins of the past. I see myself therein, 
 and I know that I am old. Thou, too, shalt be old. Be 
 wise in season. Like the stream of thy life runs the 
 stream beneath us. Down from the distant Alps, out into the 
 wide world, it bursts away, like a youth from the house of 
 his fathers. Broad-breasted and strong, and with earnest 
 endeavours, like manhood, it makes itself a way through 
 these difficult mountain-passes. And at length, in its old 
 age, it falters, and its steps are weary and slow, and it sinks 
 into the sand, and, through its grave, passes into the great 
 ocean, which is its eternity. Thus shall it be with thee. 
 
 " In ancient times there dwelt within these halls a 
 follower of Jesus of Jerusalem, an Archbishop in the 
 church of Christ. He gave himself up to dreams to the 
 illusions of fancy to the vast desires of the human soul. 
 He sought after the impossible. He sought after the 
 Elixir of Life the Philosopher s Stone. The wealth that 
 should have fed the poor was melted in his crucibles. 
 Within these walls the Eagle of the clouds sucked the 
 
12 HYPERION. 
 
 blood of the Red Lion, and received the spiritual love of 
 the Green Dragon, but, alas ! was childless. In solitude 
 and utter silence did the disciple of the Hermetic Philo 
 sophy toil from day to day, from night to night- From the 
 place where thou standest, he gazed at evening upon hills, 
 and vales, and waters spread beneath him ; and saw how 
 the setting sun had changed them all to gold, by an 
 alchemy more cunning than his own. He saw the world 
 beneath his feet, and said in his heart, that he alone was 
 wise. Alas ! he read more willingly in the book of Para 
 celsus, than in the book of Nature; and, believing that 
 * where reason hath experience, faith hath no mind, would 
 fain have made unto himself a child, not as Nature teaches 
 us, but as the Philosopher taught a poor homunculus, in 
 a glass bottle. And he died poor and childless." 
 
 Whether it were worth while to climb the Stolzenfels to 
 hear such a homily as this, some persons may perhaps doubt. 
 But Paul Flemming doubted not. He laid the lesson to 
 heart ; and it would have saved him many an hour of sor 
 row if he had learned that lesson better, and remembered 
 it longer. 
 
 In ancient times there stood in the citadel of Athens 
 three statues of Minerva. The first was of olive wood, and, 
 according to popular tradition, had fallen from heaven. 
 The second was of bronze, commemorating the victory of 
 Marathon ; and the third of gold and ivory, a great 
 miracle of art in the age of Pericles. And thus in the 
 citadel of Time stands Man himself. In childhood shaped 
 of soft and delicate wood, just fallen from heaven ; in 
 manhood a statue of bronze, commemorating struggle and 
 victory ; and lastly, in the maturity of age, perfectly shaped 
 in gold and ivory a miracle of art ! 
 
 Flemming had already lived through the olive age. He 
 was passing into the age of bronze, into his early manhood ; 
 and in his hands the flowers of Paradise were changing to 
 the sword and shield. 
 
 And this reminds me that I have not yet described my 
 hero. I will do it now, as he stands looking down on the 
 
HYPERION. 13 
 
 glorious landscape : but in few words. Both in person 
 and character he resembled Harold, the Fair-Hair of 
 Norway, who is described in the old Icelandic Death-Song 
 of Regner Hairy-Breeches, as " the young chief so proud of 
 his flowing locks ; he who spent his mornings among the 
 young maidens he who loved to converse with the hand 
 some widows." This was an amiable weakness; and it 
 sometimes led him into mischief. Imagination was the 
 ruling power of his mind. His thoughts were twin-born 
 the thought itself, and its figurative semblance in the outer 
 world. Thus, through the quiet, still waters of his soul, 
 each image floated double, " swan and shadow." 
 
 These traits of character, a good heart and a poetic 
 imagination, made his life joyous and the world beautiful : 
 till at length Death cut down the sweet blue flower that 
 bloomed beside him, and wounded him with that sharp 
 sickle, so that he bowed his head, and would fain have been 
 bound up in the same sheaf with the sweet blue flower. 
 Then the world seemed to him less beautiful, and life 
 became earnest. It would have been well if he could have 
 forgotten the past, that he might not so mournfully have 
 lived in it, but might have enjoyed and improved the 
 present. But this his heart refused to do ; and ever, as he 
 floated upon the great sea of life, he looked down through 
 the transparent waters, checkered with sunshine and shade, 
 into the vast chambers of the mighty deep, in which his 
 happier days had sunk, and wherein they were lying still 
 visible, like golden sands, and precious stones, and pearls ; 
 and half in despair, half in hope, he grasped downward 
 after them again, and drew back his hand, filled only with 
 seaweed, and dripping with briny tears ! And between 
 him and those golden sands a radiant image floated, like the 
 spirit in Dante s Paradise, singing, "Ave Maria!" and 
 while it sang, down-sinking, and slowly vanishing away. 
 
 In all things he acted more from impulse than from fixed 
 principle, as is the case with most young men. Indeed, his 
 principles hardly had time to take root : for he pulled thorn 
 all up, every now and then, as children do the flowers they 
 
I 4 HYPERION. 
 
 have planted, to see if they are growing. Yet there was 
 much in him which was good ; for underneath the flowers 
 and greensward of poetry, and the good principles which 
 would have taken root, had he given them time, there lay a 
 strong and healthy soil of common sense, freshened by 
 living springs of feeling, and enriched by many faded hopes 
 that had fallen upon it like dead leaves. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE LANDLADY S DAUGHTER. 
 
 " ALLEZ, Fuchs ! allez, lustig ! " cried the impatient 
 postillion to his horses, in accents which, like the wild echo 
 of the Lurley Felsen, came first from one side of the river 
 arid then from the other, that is to say, in words 
 alternately French and German. The truth is, he was 
 tired of waiting ; and when Flamming had at length 
 resumed his seat in the post-chaise, the poor horses had to 
 make up the time he had lost in dreams on the mountain. 
 This is far oftener the case than most people imagine. 
 One half of the world must sweat and groan, that the other 
 half may dream. It would have been a difficult task for 
 the traveller, or his postillion, to persuade the horses that 
 these dreams were all for their good. 
 
 The next stopping-place was the little tavern of the Star, 
 an out-of-the-way corner in the town of Salzig. It stands 
 on the banks of the Rhine ; and, directly in front of it, 
 sheer from the water s edge, rise the mountains of 
 Liebenstein and Sternenfels, each with its ruined castle. 
 These are the Brothers of the old tradition, still gazing at 
 each other face to face ; and beneath them in the valley 
 stands a cloister, meet emblem of that orphan child they 
 both so passionately loved. 
 
 In a small flat-bottomed boat did the landlady s daughter 
 
HYPERION. 1 5 
 
 row Flemming "over the Rhine stream, rapid and roaring 
 wide." She was a beautiful girl of sixteen, with black hair, 
 and dark, lovely eyes, and a face that had a story to tell. 
 How different faces are in this particular ! Some of them 
 speak not. They are books in which not a line is written, 
 save, perhaps, a date. Others are great Family Bibles, 
 with both the Old and the New Testament written in them. 
 Others are Mother Goose and nursery tales ; others bad 
 tragedies, or pickle-herring farces ; and others, like that of 
 the landlady s daughter at the Star, sweet love-anthologies, 
 and songs of the affections. It was on that account that 
 Flemming said to her, as they glided out into the swift 
 stream 
 
 " My dear child, do you know the story of the Lieben- 
 stein ? " 
 
 " The story of the Liebenstein," she answered, " I knew 
 by heart, when I was a little child." 
 
 And here her large, dark, passionate eyes looked into 
 Flemming s, and he doubted not that she had learned the 
 story far too soon, and far too well. That story he longed 
 to hear, as if it were unknown to him ; for he knew that 
 the girl, who had got it by heart when a child, would tell it 
 as it should be told. So he begged her to repeat the story, 
 which she was but too glad to do ; for she loved and 
 believed it, as if it had all been written in the Bible. But 
 before she began, she rested a moment on her oars, and 
 taking the crucifix, which hung suspended from her neck, 
 kissed it, and then let it sink down into her bosom, as if it 
 were an anchor she was dropping into her heart. Mean 
 while, her moist, dark eyes were turned to heaven. 
 Perhaps her soul was walking with the souls of Cunizza, 
 and Rahab, and Mary Magdalen. Or perhaps she was 
 thinking of that nun, of whom St. Gregory says, in his 
 Dialogues, that, having greedily eaten a lettuce in a garden, 
 without making the sign of the cross, she found herself soon 
 after possessed with the devil. 
 
 The probability, however, is, that she was looking at the 
 ruined castles only, and not to heaven, for she soon began her 
 
1 6 HYPERION. 
 
 story, and told Flemming how, " a great, great many years 
 ago, an old man lived in the Liebenstein with his two sons \ 
 and how both the young men loved the Lady Geraldine, 
 an orphan under their father s care ; and how the elder 
 brother went away in despair, and the younger was 
 betrothed to the Lady Geraldine ; and how they were 
 as happy as Aschenputtel and the prince. And then the 
 holy St. Bernard came, and carried away all the young 
 men to the war, just as Napoleon did afterwards ; and the 
 young lord went to the Holy Land, and the Lady 
 Geraldine sat in her tower and wept, and waited for her 
 lover s return, while the old father built the Sternenfels 
 for them to live in when they were married. And when it 
 was finished, the old man died ; and the elder brother came 
 back, and lived in the Liebenstein, and took care of the 
 gentle lady. Ere long, there came news from the Holy 
 Land that the war was over; and the heart of the gentle lady 
 beat with joy, till she heard that her faithless lover was 
 coming back with a Greek wife, the wicked man! and then 
 she went into a convent, and became a holy nun. So the 
 young lord of Sternenfels came home, and lived in his 
 castle in great splendour, with the Greek woman, who was 
 a wicked woman, and did what she ought not to do. But 
 the elder brother was angry for the wrong done to the 
 gentle lady, and challenged the lord of Sternenfels to single 
 combat. And while they were fighting with their great 
 swords in the valley of Bornhofen, behind the castle, the 
 convent bells began to ring, and the Lady Geraldine came 
 forth with a train of nuns all dressed in white, and made 
 the brothers friends again, and told them she was the bride 
 of Heaven, and happier in her convent than she could have 
 been in the Liebenstein or the Sternenfels. And when the 
 brothers returned, they found that the false Greek wife 
 had gone away with another knight. So they lived 
 together in peace, and were never married. And when 
 
 they died " 
 
 " Lisbeth ! Lisbeth ! " cried a sharp voice from the shore 
 " Lisbeth ! where are you taking the gentleman 3 " 
 
HYPERION. 17 
 
 This recalled the poor girl to her senses, and she saw 
 how fast they were floating down stream j for in telling the 
 story she had forgotten everything else, and the swift 
 current had swept them clown to the tall walnut-trees of 
 Kamp. They landed in front of the Capucin Monastery. 
 Lisbeth led the way through the little village, and, turning 
 to the right, pointed up the romantic, lonely valley which 
 leads to the Liebenstein, and even offered to go with him. 
 But Flemming patted her cheek, and shook his head. He 
 went up the valley alone. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 JEAN PAUL, THE ONLY-ONE, 
 
 THE man in the play who wished for u some forty pounds 
 of lovely beef, placed in a Mediterranean sea of brewis," 
 might have seen his ample desires almost realised at the 
 table-d hdte of the Rheinischen Hof, in Mayence, where 
 Flemming dined that day. At the head of the table sat a 
 gentleman, with a smooth, broad forehead, and large 
 intelligent eyes. He was from Baireuth, in Franconia, and 
 talked about poetry and Jean Paul to a pale, romantic- 
 booking lady on his right. There was music all dinner 
 time at the other end of the hall, a harp, a horn, and a 
 voice ; so that a great part of the fat gentleman s conversa 
 tion with the pale lady was lost to Flemming, who sat 
 opposite to her, and could look right into her large, melan 
 choly eyes. But what he heard so much interested him, 
 indeed, the very name of the beloved Jean Paul would have 
 been enough for this, that he ventured to join in the 
 conversation, and asked the German if he had known the 
 poet personally. 
 
 " Yes ; I knew him well," replied the stranger. " I am 
 
 216 
 
1 8 HYPERION, 
 
 a native of Baireuth, where he passed the best years of his 
 life. In my mind the man and the author are closely 
 united. I never read a page of his writings without hear 
 ing his voice, and seeing his form before me. There he 
 sits, with his majestic, mountainous forehead, his mild blue 
 eyes, and finely cut nose and mouth ; his massive frame, 
 clad loosely and carelessly in an old green frock, from the 
 pockets of which the corners of books project, and perhaps 
 the end of a loaf of bread, and the nose of a bottle ; a straw 
 hat, lined with green, lying near him ; a huge walking- 
 stick in his hand, and at his feet a white poodle, with pink 
 eyes, and a string round his neck. You would sooner have 
 taken him for a master carpenter than for a poet. Is he a 
 favourite author of yours ?" 
 
 Flemming answered in the affirmative. 
 
 " But a foreigner must find it exceedingly difficult to 
 understand him," said the gentleman. " It is by no means 
 an easy task for us Germans." 
 
 "I have always observed," replied Flemming, "that the 
 true understanding and appreciation of a poet depend more 
 upon individual than upon national character. If there be 
 a sympathy between the minds of the writer and reader, 
 the bounds and barriers of a foreign tongue are soon over 
 leaped. If you once understood an author s character, the 
 comprehension of his writings becomes easy." 
 
 " Very true," replied the German, " and the character of 
 Hichter is too marked to be easily misunderstood. Its prom 
 inent traits are tenderness and manliness qualities which 
 are seldom found united in so high a degree as in him. 
 Over all he sees, over all he writes, are spread the sunbeams 
 of a cheerful spirit the light of inexhaustible human love. 
 Every sound of human joy and of human sorrow finds a 
 deep-resounding echo in his bosom. In every man he loves 
 his humanity only, not his superiority. The avowed object 
 of all his literary labours was to raise up again the down- 
 sunken faith in God, virtue, and immortality ; and, in an 
 egotistical revolutionary age, to warm again our human 
 sympathies, which have now grown cold. And not less 
 
HYPERION. 19 
 
 boundless is his love for nature for this outward, beautiful 
 world. He embraces it all in his arras." 
 
 " Yes," answered Flemming, almost taking the words out 
 of the stranger s mouth, " for in his mind all things become 
 idealised. He seems to describe himself, when he describes 
 the hero of his Titan, as a child, rocking in a high wind 
 upon the branches of a full-blossomed apple tree, and, as its 
 summit, blown abroad by the wind, now sunk him in 
 deep green, and now tossed him aloft in deep blue and 
 glancing sunshine in his imagination stood that tree 
 gigantic ; it grew alone in the universe, as if it were the 
 tree of eternal life ; its roots struck down into the abyss ; 
 the white and red clouds hung as blossoms upon it; the 
 moon as fruit ; the little stars sparkled like dew, and 
 Albana reposed in its measureless summit \ and a storm 
 swayed the summit out of Day into Night, and out of 
 Night into Day." 
 
 "Yet the spirit of love," interrupted the Franconian, 
 " was not weakness but strength. It was united in him 
 with great manliness. The sword of his spirit had been 
 forged and beaten by poverty. Its temper had been tried 
 by a thirty years war. It was not broken, not even 
 blunted, but rather strengthened and sharpened, by the 
 blows it gave and received. And, possessing this noble 
 spirit of humanity, endurance, and self-denial, he made 
 literature his profession, as if he had been divinely commis 
 sioned to write. He seems to have cared for nothing else, 
 to have thought of nothing else, than living quietly and 
 making books. He says that he felt it his duty, not to 
 enjoy, nor to acquire, but to write ; and boasted that he 
 had made as many books as he had lived years." 
 
 " And what do you Germans consider the prominent 
 characteristics of his genius ? " 
 
 " Most undoubtedly, his wild imagination and his playful 
 ness. He throws over all things a strange and magic 
 colouring. You are startled at the boldness and beauty 
 of his figures and illustrations, which are scattered every 
 where with a reckless prodigality ; multitudinous, like the 
 
20 HYPERION. 
 
 blossoms of early summer, and as fragrant as beautiful. With 
 a thousand extravagances are mingled ten thousand beauties 
 of thought and expression, which kindle the reader s im 
 agination, and lead it onward in a bold flight, through 
 the glow of sunrise and sunset, and the dewy coldness and 
 starlight of summer nights. He is difficult to understand, 
 intricate, strange, drawing his illustrations from every 
 by-corner of science, art, and nature, a comet among the 
 bright stars of German literature. When you read his 
 works, it is as if you were climbing a high mountain, in 
 merry company, to see the sun rise. At times you are 
 enveloped in mist the morning wind sweeps by you with a 
 shout you hear the far-off muttering thunders. Wide 
 beneath you spreads the landscape field, meadow, town, 
 and winding river. The ringing of distant church bells, or 
 the sound of solemn village clock, reaches you ; then arises 
 the sweet and manifold fragrance of flowers the birds 
 begin to sing the vapours roll away up comes the 
 glorious sun you revel like the lark in the sunshine and 
 bright blue heaven, and all is a delirious dream of soul and 
 sense when suddenly a friend at your elbow laughs aloud, 
 and offers you a piece of Bologna sausage. As in real life, 
 so in his writings the serious and the comic, the sublime 
 and the grotesque, the pathetic and ludicrous are mingled 
 together. At times he is sententious, energetic, simple \ 
 then again, obscure and diffuse. His thoughts are like 
 mummies embalmed in spices, and wrapped about with 
 curious envelopments j but within these the thoughts 
 themselves are kings. At times glad, beautiful images, 
 airy forms move by you, graceful, harmonious ; at times 
 the glaring, wild-looking fancies, chained together by 
 hyphens, brackets, and dashes, brave and base, high and 
 low, all in their motley dresses, go sweeping down the 
 dusty page, like the galley slaves that sweep the streets of 
 Rome, where you may chance to see the nobleman and the 
 peasant manacled together." 
 
 Flemming smiled at the German s warmth, to which 
 the presence of the lady, and the Laubenheimer wine, 
 
HYPERION. 21 
 
 seemed each to have contributed something, and then 
 said 
 
 " Better an outlaw, than not free ! These are his own 
 words. And thus he changes at his will. Like the God 
 Thor, of the old Northern mythology, he now holds forth 
 the seven bright stars in the bright heaven above us, and 
 now hides himself in clouds, and pounds away with his 
 great hammer." 
 
 "And yet this is not affectation in him," rejoined the 
 German. " It is his nature ; it is Jean Paul. And the 
 figures and ornaments of his style wild, fantastic, and 
 ofttimes startling, like those in Gothic cathedrals are not 
 merely what they seem, but massive coignes and buttresses, 
 which support the fabric. Remove them, and the roof and 
 walls fall in. And through these gurgoyles, these wild faces, 
 these images of beasts and men carved upon spouts and 
 gutters, flow out, like gathered rain,- the bright, abundant 
 thoughts, that have fallen from heaven." 
 
 "And all he does is done with a kind of serious playful 
 ness. He is a sea monster, disporting himself on the broad 
 ocean ; his very sport is earnest ; there is something 
 majestic and serious about it. In everything there is 
 strength, a rough good nature, all sunshine overhead, and 
 underneath the heavy moaning of the sea. Well may he be 
 called Jean Paul, the Only-One. " 
 
 With such discourse the hour of dinner passed, and after 
 dinner Flemming went to the cathedral. They were sing 
 ing vespers. A beadle, dressed in blue, with a cocked hat, 
 and a crimson sash and collar, was strutting, like a turkey, 
 along the aisles. This important gentleman conducted 
 Flemming through the church, and showed him the choir, 
 with its heavy sculptured stalls of oak, and the beautiful 
 figures in brown stone over the bishops tombs. He then 
 led him, by a side door, into the old and ruined cloisters of 
 St. Willigis. Through the low Gothic arches the sunshine 
 streamed upon the pavement of tomb-stones, whose images 
 and inscriptions are mostly effaced by the footsteps of 
 many generations. There stands the tomb of Frauenlob, 
 
22 HYPERION. 
 
 the Minnesinger. His face is sculptured on the entablature 
 in the wall ; a fine, strongly-marked, and serious counten 
 ance. Below it is a bas-relief, representing the poet s 
 funeral. He is carried to his grave by ladies, whose praise 
 he sang, and thereby won the name of Frauenlob. 
 
 "This, then," said Flemming, "is the grave, not of 
 Praise-God Barebones, but of Praise-the-Ladies Meissen, 
 who wrote songs somewhat of lust, and somewhat of love. 
 But where sleeps the dust of his rival and foe, sweet Master 
 Bartholomew Rainbow?" 
 
 He meant this for an aside ; but the turkey-cock picked 
 it up and answered 
 
 " I do not know. He did not belong to this parish." 
 
 It was already night when Flemming crossed the Roman 
 bridge over the Nahe, and entered the town of Bingen. He 
 stopped at the White Horse ; and, before going to bed, 
 looked out into the dim starlight from his window towards 
 the Rhine, and his heart leaped within him to behold the 
 bold outline of the neighbouring hills crested with Gothic 
 ruins ; which in the morning proved to be only a high, 
 slated roof, with fantastic chimneys. 
 
 The morning was bright and frosty, and the river tinged 
 with gay colours by the rising sun. A soft thin vapour 
 floated in the air. In the sunbeams flashed the hoar frost, 
 like silver stars ; and through a long avenue of trees, whose 
 dripping branches bent and scattered pearls before him, 
 Paul Flemming journeyed on in triumph. 
 
 I will not prolong this journey, for I am weary and way 
 worn, and would fain be at Heidelberg with my readers and 
 my hero. It was already night when he reached the Man- 
 heim gate, and drove down the long Hauptstrasse so slowly, 
 that it seemed to him endless. The shops were lighted on 
 each side of the street, and he saw faces at the windows 
 here and there, and figures passing in the lamplight, visible 
 for a moment, and then swallowed up in the darkness. The 
 thoughts that filled his mind were strange ; as are always 
 the thoughts of a traveller who enters for the first time a 
 strange city. This little world had been going on for 
 
HYPERION. 23 
 
 centuries before he came, and would go on for centuries 
 after he was gone. Of all the thousands who inhabited it 
 he knew nothing ; and what knew they, or thought, of the 
 stranger, who, in that close post-chaise, weary with travel, 
 and chilled by the evening wind, was slowly rumbling over 
 the paved street ! Truly this world can go on without us, 
 if we would but think so. If it had been a hearse instead 
 of a post-chaise, it would have been all the same to the 
 people of Heidelberg, though by no means the same to 
 Paul Flemming. 
 
 But at the farther end of the city, near the Castle and 
 the Carls-Thor, one warm heart was waiting to receive him ; 
 and this was the German, heart of his friend, the Baron of 
 Hohenfels, with whom he was to pass the winter in Heidel 
 berg. No sooner had the carriage stopped at the iron-grated 
 gate, and the postillion blown his horn, to announce the 
 arrival of a traveller, than the baron was seen among the 
 servants at the door ; and, in a few moments afterwards, 
 the two long absent friends were in each other s arms, and 
 Flemming received a kiss upon each cheek, and another on 
 the mouth, as the pledge and seal of the German s friend 
 ship. They held each other long by the hand, and looked 
 into each other s eyes, both literally and figuratively ; 
 literally, inasmuch as the images were there ; and figu 
 ratively, inasmuch as each was imagining what the other 
 thought of him, after the lapse of some years. In friendly 
 hopes, and questionings, and answers, the evening glided 
 away at the supper table, where many more things were 
 discussed than the roasted hare and the Johannisberger ; 
 and they sat late into the night, conversing of the thoughts, 
 and feelings, and delights which fill the hearts of young 
 men who have already enjoyed and suffered, and hoped and 
 been disappointed. 
 
24 HYPERION, 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HEIDELBERG AND THE BARON. 
 
 HIGH and hoar on the forehead of the Jettenbuhl stands 
 the Castle of Heidelberg. Behind it rise the oak-crested 
 hills of the Geissberg and the Kaisersthul ; and in front, from 
 the broad terrace of masonry, you can almost throw a stone 
 upon the roofs of the town, so close do they lie beneath. 
 Above this terrace rises the broad front of the chapel of 
 Saint Udalrich. On the left stands the slender octagon 
 tower of the horologe, and on the right a huge round tower, 
 battered and shattered by the mace of war, shores up with 
 its broad shoulders the beautiful palace and garden- terrace 
 of Elizabeth, wife of the Pfalzgraf Erederick. In the rear 
 are older palaces and towers, forming a vast, irregular 
 quadrangle ; Rodolph s ancient castle, witli its Gothic 
 gloriette and fantastic gables ; the Giant s Tower, guarding 
 the drawbridge over the moat ; the Rent Tower, with the 
 linden trees growing on its summit : and the magnificent 
 Rittersaal of Otho Henry, Count Palatine of the Rhine and 
 grand seneschal of the Holy Roman Empire. Erom the 
 gardens behind the castle you pass under the archway of 
 the Giant s Tower into the great court-yard. The diverse 
 architecture of different ages strikes the eye ; and curious 
 sculptures. In niches on the wall of Saint Udalrich s 
 chapel stand rows of knights in armour, all broken and 
 dismembered ; and on the front of Otho s Rittersaal, the 
 heroes of Jewish history and classic fable. You enter the 
 open and desolate chambers of the ruin, and on every side 
 are medallions and family arms ; the Globe of the Empire 
 and the Golden Eleece, or the Eagle of the Caesars, resting 
 on the escutcheons of Bavaria and the Palatinate. Over 
 the windows and door-ways and chimney-pieces are 
 sculptures and mouldings of exquisite workmanship ; and 
 the eye is bewildered by the profusion of caryatides, and 
 
HYPERION. 25 
 
 arabesques, and rosettes, and fanlike flutings, and garlands 
 of fruits, and flowers, and acorns, and bullocks heads, with 
 draperies of foliage, and muzzles of lions, holding rings in 
 their teeth. The cunning hand of art was busy for six 
 centuries in raising and adorning these walls ; the mailed 
 hands of time and war have defaced and overthrown them 
 in less than two. Next to the Alhambra of Granada, the 
 Castle of Heidelberg is the most magnificent ruin of the 
 Middle Ages. 
 
 In the valley below flows the rushing stream of the 
 Neckar. Close from its margin, on the opposite side, rises 
 the mountain of All Saints, crowned with the ruins of a 
 convent ; and up the valley stretches the mountain-curtain 
 of the Odenwald. So close and many are the hills, which 
 eastward shut the valley in, that the river seems a lake. 
 But westward it opens upon the broad plain of the Rhine, 
 like the mouth of a trumpet ; and like the blast of a 
 trumpet is at times the wintry wind through this narrow 
 mountain-pass. The blue Alsatian hills rise beyond ; and 
 on a platform or strip of level land between the Neckar and 
 the mountains, right under the castle, stands the town of 
 Heidelberg ; as the old song says, " a pleasant town, when 
 it has done raining." 
 
 Something of this did Paul Flemming behold when he 
 rose the next morning and looked from his window. It was 
 a warm, vapoury morning, and a struggle was going on 
 between the mist and the rising sun. The sun had taken 
 the hill-tops, but the mist still kept possession of the valley 
 and the town. The steeple of the great church rose through 
 a dense mass of snow-white clouds ; and eastward, on the 
 hills, the dim vapours were rolling across the windows of 
 the ruined castle, like the fiery smoke of a great conflagra 
 tion. It seemed to him an image of the rising of the sun 
 of Truth on a benighted world ; its light streamed through 
 the ruins of centuries ; and, down in the valley of time, the 
 Cross of the Christian church caught its rays, though the 
 priests were singing in mist and darkness below. 
 
 In the warm breakfast-room he found the Baron waiting 
 
25 HYPERION. 
 
 for him. He was lying upon a sofa, in morning-gown and 
 purple velvet slippers, both with flowers upon them. He 
 had a guitar in his hand, and a pipe in his mouth, at the 
 same time smoking, playing, and humming his favourite 
 song from Goethe, 
 
 The water rushed, the water swelled, 
 A fisher sat thereby." 
 
 Flemming could hardly refrain from laughing at the sight 
 of his friend ; and told him it reminded him of a street- 
 musician he once saw in Aix-la-Chapelle, who was playing 
 upon six instruments at once ; having a helmet with bells 
 on his head, a Pan s reed in his cravat, a fiddle in his 
 hand, a triangle on his knee, cymbals on his heels, and on 
 his back a brass drum, which he played with his elbows. 
 To tell the truth, the Baron of Hohenfels was rather a 
 miscellaneous youth, rather a universal genius. He 
 pursued all things with eagerness, but for a short time 
 only ; music, poetry, painting, pleasure, even the study of 
 the Pandects. His feelings were keenly alive to the 
 enjoyment of life. His great defect was, that he was too 
 much in love with human nature. But by the power of 
 imagination, in him, the bearded goat was changed to a 
 bright Capricornus no longer an animal on earth, but a 
 constellation in heaven. An easy and indolent disposition 
 made him gentle and childlike in his manners; and, in 
 short, the beauty of his character, like that of the precious 
 opal, was owing to a defect in its organisation. His person 
 was tall and slightly built : his hair light ; and his eyes 
 blue, and as beautiful as those of a girl. In the tones of 
 his voice there was something indescribably gentle and 
 winning ; and he spoke the German language with the soft, 
 musical accent of his native province of Curland. In his 
 manners, if he had not " Antinous easy sway," he had at 
 least an easy sway of his own. Such, in few words, was 
 the bosom friend of Flemming. 
 
 " And what do you think of Heidelberg and the old 
 
HYPERION. 27 
 
 castle ? " said he, as they seated themselves at the breakfast 
 table. 
 
 " Last night the town seemed very long to me," replied 
 Flemming; "and as to the castle, I have as yet had but a 
 glimpse of it through the mist. They tell me there is 
 nothing finer in its way than this magnificent ruin ; and I 
 have no doubt I shall find it so, only I wish the stone were 
 grey, and not red. But, red or grey, I foresee that I shall 
 waste many a long hour in its desolate halls. Pray, does 
 anybody live there now-a-days 1 " 
 
 " Nobody," answered the Baron, " but the man who 
 shows the Heidelberg Tun, and a Frenchman, who has been 
 there sketching ever since the year 1810. He has, more 
 over, written a super-magnificent description of the ruin, in 
 which he says, that during the day only the birds of prey 
 disturb it with their piercing cries, and at night screech-owls, 
 and other fallow-deer. You must buy his book and his 
 sketches." 
 
 "Yes, the quotation and the tone of your voice will 
 certainly persuade me so to do." 
 
 " Take his, or none, my friend, for you will find no others. 
 And seriously, his sketches are very good. There is one on 
 the wall there, which is beautiful, save and except that 
 straddlebug figure among the bushes in the corner." 
 
 " But is there no ghost, no haunted chamber, in the old 
 castle 1 " asked Flemming, after casting a hasty glance at 
 the picture. 
 
 " Oh, certainly," replied the Baron ; " there are two. 
 There is the ghost of the Virgin Mary in Ruprecht s tower, 
 and the Devil in the Dungeon." 
 
 "Ah ! that is grand," exclaimed Flemming, with evident 
 delight. " Tell me the whole story quickly. I am as 
 curious as a child." 
 
 " It is a tale of the times of Louis Debonnaire," said the 
 Baron, with a smile ; " a mouldy tradition of a credulous 
 age. His brother Frederick lived here in the castle with 
 him, and had a flirtation with Leonore von Luzelstein, a 
 lady of the court, whom he afterwards despised, and was 
 
28 HYPERION. 
 
 consequently most cordially hated by her. From political 
 motives, he was equally hateful to certain petty German 
 tyrants, who, in order to effect his ruin, accused him of 
 heresy. But his brother Louis would not deliver him up to 
 their fury, and they resolved to effect by stratagem what 
 they could not by intrigue. Accordingly, Leonore von 
 Luzelstein, disguised as the Virgin Mary, and the father 
 confessor of the Elector, in the costume of Satan, made 
 their appearance in the Elector s bed-chamber at midnight, 
 and frightened him so horribly, that he consented to deliver 
 up his brother into the hands of two Black Knights, who 
 pretended to be ambassadors from the Vehin-Gericht. 
 They proceeded together to Frederick s chamber, where 
 luckily old Gemmingen, a brave soldier, kept guard behind 
 the arras. The monk went foremost in his Satanic garb ; 
 but no sooner had he set foot in the prince s bed-chamber, 
 than the brave Gemmingen drew his sword, and said 
 quaintly, Die, wretch! and so he died. The rest took 
 to their heels, and were heard of no more. And now the 
 souls of Leonore and the monk haunt the scene of their 
 midnight crime. You will find the story in the Frenchman s 
 book, worked up with a kind of red morocco and burnt cork 
 sublimity, and great melo-dramatic clanking of chains, and 
 hooting of owls, and other fallow-deer." 
 
 "After breakfast," said Flemming, "we will go up to the 
 castle. I must get acquainted with this mirror of owls, this 
 modern Till Eulenspiegel. See what a glorious morning we 
 have. It is truly a wondrous winter. What summer 
 sunshine ! what soft Venetian fogs. How the wanton, 
 treacherous air coquets with the old greybeard trees. Such 
 weather makes the grass and our beards grow apace. But 
 we have an old saying in English, that winter never rots in 
 the sky. So he will come clown at last in his old-fashioned 
 mealy coat. We shall have snow in spring, and the 
 blossoms will be all snow-flakes; and afterwards a summer, 
 which will be no summer, but, as Jean Paul says, only a 
 winter painted green. Is it not so ^ " 
 
 11 Unless I am much deceived in the climate of Heidel- 
 
HYPERION. 29 
 
 berg," replied the Baron, " we shall not have to wait long 
 for snow. We have sudden changes here ; and I should not 
 marvel much if it snowed before night." 
 
 " The greater reason for making good use of the morning 
 sunshine, then. Let us hasten to the castle, after which my 
 heart yearns." 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 LIVES OF SCHOLARS. 
 
 THE forebodings of the Baron proved true. In the after 
 noon the weather changed. The western wind began to 
 blow, and drew a cloud-veil over the face of heaven, as a 
 breath does over the human face in a mirror. Soon the 
 snow began to fall. Athwart the distant landscape it swept 
 like a white mist. The storm-wind came from the Alsatian 
 hills, and struck the dense clouds aslant through the air, 
 and ever faster fell the snow, a roaring torrent from those 
 mountainous clouds. The setting sun glared wildly from 
 the summit of the hills, and sank like a burning ship at sea, 
 wrecked in the tempest. Thus the evening set in, and 
 winter stood at the gate wagging his white and shaggy 
 beard, like an old harper, chanting an old rhyme " How 
 cold it is ! how cold it is ! " 
 
 " I like such a storm as this," said Flemming, who stood 
 at the window, looking out into the tempest and the 
 gathering darkness. " The silent falling of snow is to me 
 one of the most solemn things in nature. The fall of 
 autumnal leaves does not so much affect me ; but the 
 driving storm is grand. It startles me it awakens me. 
 It is wild and woful, like my own soul. I cannot help 
 thinking of the sea. How the waves run and toss their 
 arms about, and the wind plays on those great sonorous 
 harps, the shrouds and masts of ships. Winter is here in 
 earnest ! How the old churl whistles and threshes the 
 
SO HYPERION. 
 
 snow ! Sleet and rain are falling, too. Already the trees 
 are bearded with icicles ; and the two broad branches of 
 yonder pine look like the white moustache of some old 
 German baron." 
 
 "And to-morrow it will look more wintry still," said his 
 friend. " We shall wake up and find that the frost-spirit 
 has been at work all night building Gothic cathedrals on our 
 windows, just as the Devil built the cathedral of Cologne. 
 So draw the curtains, and come sit here by the warm fire." 
 
 "And now," said Flemming, having done as his friend 
 desired, " tell me something of Heidelberg and its Univer 
 sity. I suppose we shall lead about as solitary and studious 
 a life here as we did of yore in little Gottingen, with 
 nothing to amuse us save our own day-dreams." 
 
 " Pretty much so," replied the Baron ; " which cannot 
 fail to please you, since you are in pursuit of tranquillity. 
 As to the University, it is, as you know, one of the oldest 
 in Germany. It was founded in the fourteenth century by 
 the Count Palatine Ruprecht, and had in the first year 
 more than five hundred students, all busily committing to 
 memory, after the old scholastic wise, the rules of grammar 
 versified by Alexander de Villa Dei, and the extracts made 
 by Peter the Spaniard from Michel Psellus s Synopsis of 
 Aristotle s Organon, and the Categories, with Porphyry s 
 Commentaries. Truly, I do not much wonder that Erigena 
 Scotus should have been put to death by his scholars with 
 their pen-knives. They must have been pushed to the very 
 verge of despair." 
 
 " What a strange picture a university presents to the 
 imagination ! The lives of scholars in their cloistered 
 stillness ; literary men of retired habits, and professors who 
 study sixteen hours a-day, and never see the world but on a 
 Sunday. Nature has, no doubt, for some wise purpose, 
 placed in their hearts this love of literary labour and 
 seclusion. Otherwise, who would feed the undying lamp of 
 thought? But for such men as these, a blast of wind 
 through the chinks and crannies of this old world, or the 
 flapping of a conqueror s banner, would blow it out for ever. 
 
HYPERION. 31 
 
 The light of the soul is easily extinguished. And whenever 
 I reflect upon these things, I become aware of the great 
 importance, in a nation s history, of the individual fame of 
 scholars and literary men. I fear that it is far greater 
 than the world is willing to acknowledge ; or, perhaps I 
 should say, than the world has thought of acknowledging. 
 Blot out from England s history the names of Chaucer, 
 Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton only, and how much of 
 her glory would you blot out with them ! Take from Italy 
 such names as Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Michael Angelo, 
 and Raphael, and how much would be wanting to the com 
 pleteness of her glory ! How would the history of Spain 
 look if the leaves were torn out on which are written the 
 names of Cervantes, Lope de Yega, and Calderon 1 What 
 would be the fame of Portugal, without her Camoens ; of 
 France without her Racine, and Rabelais, and Voltaire ; or 
 Germany without her Martin Luther, her Goethe, and her 
 Schiller ? Nay, what were the nations of old, without their 
 philosophers, poets, and historians 1 Tell me, do not these 
 men, in all ages, and in all places, emblazon with bright 
 colours the armorial bearings of their country ? Yes, and 
 far more than this ; for in all ages, and in all places, they 
 give humanity assurance of its greatness, and say, Call not 
 this time or people wholly barbarous, for thus much, even 
 then and there, could the human mind achieve ! But the 
 boisterous world has hardly thought of acknowledging all 
 this. Therein it has shown itself somewhat ungrateful. 
 Else whence the great reproach, the general scorn, the loud 
 derision, with which, to take a familiar example, the monks 
 of the Middle Ages are regarded ? That they slept their 
 lives away is most untrue. For in an age when books were 
 few, so few, so precious, that they were often chained to 
 their oaken shelves with iron chains, like galley-slaves to 
 their benches, these men, with their laborious hands, 
 copied upon parchment all the lore and wisdom of the past, 
 and transmitted it to us. Perhaps it is not too much to 
 say, that but for these monks, not one line of the classics 
 would have reached our day. Surely, then, we can pardon 
 
32 HYPERION. 
 
 something to those superstitious ages, perhaps even the 
 mysticism of the scholastic philosophy, since, after all, we 
 can find no harm in it, only the mistaking of the possible 
 for the real, and the high aspirings of the human mind 
 after a long-sought and unknown somewhat. I think the 
 name of Martin Luther, the monk of Wittemberg, alone 
 sufficient to redeem all monkhood from the reproach of 
 laziness. If this will not, perhaps the vast folios of Thomas 
 Aquinas will ; or the countless manuscripts still treasured 
 in old libraries, whose yellow and wrinkled pages remind 
 one of the hands that wrote them, and the faces that once 
 bent over them." 
 
 "An eloquent homily," said the Baron, laughing; "a 
 most touching appeal in behalf of suffering humanity ! For 
 my part, I am no friend of this entire seclusion from the 
 world. It has a very injurious effect on the mind of a 
 scholar. The Chinese proverb is true ; a single conversa 
 tion across the table with a wise man is better than ten 
 years mere study of books. I have known some of these 
 literary men, who thus shut themselves up from the world. 
 Their minds never come in contact with those of their 
 fellow-men. They read little, they think much. They are 
 mere dreamers. They know not what is new nor what is 
 old. They often strike upon trains of thought, which 
 stand written in good authors some century or so back, 
 and are even current in the mouths of men around them. 
 But they know it not; and imagine they are bringing 
 forward something very original when they publish their 
 thoughts." 
 
 " It reminds me," replied Flemming, " of what Dr. 
 Johnson said of Goldsmith, when he proposed to travel 
 abroad in order to bring home improvements He will 
 bring home a wheel-barrow, and call that an improvement. 
 It is unfortunately the same with some of these scholars." 
 
 " And the worst of it is," said the Baron, " that in 
 solitude some fixed idea will often take root in the mind, 
 and grow till it overshadow all one s thoughts. To this 
 must all opinions come ; no thought can enter there which 
 
HYPERION. 33 
 
 shall not be wedded to the fixed idea. There it remains, 
 and grows. It is like the watchman s wife, in the Tower 
 of Waiblingen, who grew to such a size, that she could not 
 get down the narrow stair-case ; and when her husband 
 died, his successor was forced to marry the fat widow in the 
 Tower." 
 
 " I remember an old English comedy," said Flemming, 
 laughing, " in which a scholar is described as a creature 
 that can strike fire in the morning at his tinder-box put 
 on a pair of lined slippers sit ruminating till dinner, and 
 then go to his meat when the bell rings ; one that hath a 
 peculiar gift in a cough, and a licence to spit : or if you 
 will have him defined by negatives, he is one that cannot 
 make a good leg one that cannot eat a mess of broth 
 cleanly. What think you of that *( " 
 
 " That is just as people are always represented in English 
 comedy," said the Baron. " The portrait is overcharged < 
 caricatured." 
 
 "And yet," continued Flemming, "no longer ago than 
 yesterday, in the preface of a work by a Professor of 
 Philosophy in the University of Halle, I read this 
 passage." 
 
 He opened a book and read 
 
 " Here in Halle, where we have no public garden and no 
 Tivoli, no London Exchange, no Paris Chamber of Deputies, 
 no Berlin nor Vienna Theatres, no Strasburg Minster nor 
 Salzburg Alps, no Grecian ruins nor fantastic Catholicism 
 in fine, nothing which, after one s daily task is finished, 
 can divert and refresh him, without his knowing or caring 
 how I consider the sight of a proof-sheet quite as delight 
 ful as a walk in the Prater of Vienna. I fill my pipe very 
 quietly, take out my inkstand and pens, seat myself in the 
 corner of my sofa, read, correct, and now for the first time 
 really set about thinking what I have written. To see this 
 origin of a book, this metamorphosis of manuscript into 
 print, is a delight to which I give myself up entirely. Look 
 you, this melancholy pleasure, which would have furnished 
 the departed Voss with worthy matter for more than one 
 
 217 
 
34 HYPERION. 
 
 blessed Idyl (the more so, as on such occasions I am 
 generally arrayed in a morning gown, though, I am sorry to 
 say, not a calamanco one, with great flowers) this melan 
 choly pleasure has already grown here in Halle to a sweet, 
 pedantic habit. Since I began my hermit s life here, I have 
 been printing ; and so long as I remain here, I shall keep 
 on printing. In all probability I shall die with a proof- 
 sheet in my hand." 
 
 "This," said Flemming, closing the book, "is no carica 
 ture by a writer of comedy, but a portrait by a man s own 
 hand. We can see by it how easily, under certain circum 
 stances, one may glide into habits of seclusion, and in a 
 kind of undress, slip-shod hardihood, with a pipe and a 
 proof-sheet, defy the world. Into this state scholars have 
 too often fallen ; thus giving some ground for the prevalent 
 opinion, that scholarship and rusticity are inseparable. To 
 me, I confess, it is painful to see the scholar and the world 
 assume so often a hostile attitude, and set each other at 
 defiance. Surely, it is a characteristic trait of a great 
 and liberal mind that it recognises humanity in all its 
 forms and conditions. I am a student ; and always, when 
 I sit alone at night, I recognise the divinity of a student, 
 as she reveals herself to me in the flame of the midnight 
 lamp. But because solitude and books are not unpleasant 
 to me nay, wished for sought after, shall I say to my 
 brother, Thou fool ! Shall I take the world by the beard, 
 and say, Thou art old, and mad ! Shall I look society in 
 the face, and say, * Thou art heartless ! Heartless ! 
 Beware of that word ! The good Jean Paul says very 
 wisely, that * Life in every shape should be precious to us, 
 for the same reason that the Turks carefully collect every 
 scrap of paper that comes in their way, because the name 
 of God may be written upon it. Nothing is more true 
 than this, yet nothing more neglected." 
 
 "If it be painful to see this misunderstanding between 
 scholars and the world," said the Baron, " I think it is still 
 more painful to see the private sufferings of authors by pro 
 fession. How many have languished in poverty, how many 
 
HYPERION. 35 
 
 died broken-hearted, how many gone mad with over-excite 
 ment and disappointed hopes ! How instructive and 
 painfully interesting are their lives ! with so many 
 weaknesses, so much to pardon, so much to pity, so 
 much to admire ! I think he was not so far out of the 
 way, who said that next to the Newgate Calendar, the 
 Biography of Authors is the most sickening chapter in the 
 history of man." 
 
 " It is indeed enough to make one s heart ache ! " inter 
 rupted Flemming- " Only think of Jonson and Savage 
 rambling about the streets of London at midnight, without 
 a place to sleep in ; Otway starved to death ; Collins mad, 
 and howling like a dog through the aisles of Chichester 
 Cathedral, at the sound of church music ; and Goldsmith, 
 strutting up Fleet Street in his peach-blossom coat, to knock 
 a bookseller over the pate with one of his own volumes ; and 
 then, in his poverty, about to marry his landlady in Green 
 Arbour Court." 
 
 " A life of sorrow and privation, a hard life, indeed, do 
 these poor devil authors have of it," replied the Baron; 
 "and then at last must get them to the workhouse, or creep 
 away into some hospital to die." 
 
 " After all," said Flemming, with a sigh, " poverty is 
 not a crime." 
 
 " But something worse," interrupted the Baron ; " as 
 Dufresny said when he married his laundress, because he 
 could not pay her bill. He was the author, as you know, 
 of the opera of Lot ; at whose representation the great pun 
 was made ; I say the great pun, as we say the great Tun 
 of Heidelberg. As one of the performers was singing the 
 line L amour a vaincu Loth, (vingt culottes), a voice from 
 the pit cried out, Qu il en donne une d, I auteur ! " 
 
 Flemming laughed at the unseasonable jest; and then, 
 after a short pause, continued 
 
 " And yet, if you look closely at the causes of these 
 calamities of authors, you will find that many of them spring 
 from false and exaggerated ideas of poetry and the poetic 
 character ; and from disdain of common-sense, upon which 
 
36 HYPERION. 
 
 all character worth having is founded. This comes from 
 keeping aloof from the world, apart from our fellow-men ; 
 disdainful of society as frivolous. By too much sitting still 
 the body becomes unhealthy ; and soon the mind. This is 
 nature s law. She will never see her children wronged. If 
 the mind, which rules the body, ever forgets itself so far as 
 to trample upon its slave, the slave is never generous 
 enough to forgive the injury, but will rise and smite 
 its oppressor. Thus has many a monarch mind been 
 dethroned." 
 
 "After all," said the Baron, "we must pardon much to 
 men of genius. A delicate organisation renders them 
 keenly susceptible to pain and pleasure. And then they 
 idealise everything ; and, in the moonlight of fancy, even 
 the deformity of vice seems beautiful." 
 
 " And this, you think, should be forgiven ! " 
 
 " At all events, it is forgiven. The world loves a spice 
 of wickedness. Talk as you will about principle, impulse 
 is more attractive, even when it goes too far. The passions 
 of youth, like unhooded hawks, fly high, with musical bells 
 upon their jesses ; and we forget the cruelty of the sport in 
 the dauntless bearing of the gallant bird." 
 
 " And thus do the world and society corrupt the scholar ! " 
 exclaimed Flemming. 
 
 Here the Baron rang, and ordered a bottle of Prince 
 Metternich. He then very slowly filled his pipe, and began 
 to smoke. Flemming was lost in a day-dream. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LITERARY FAME. 
 
 TIME has a Doomsday-Book, upon whose pages he is 
 continually recording illustrious names. But, as often as a 
 new name is written there, an old one disappears. Only a 
 few stand in illuminated characters, never to be effaced. 
 
HYPERION. 37 
 
 These are the high nobility of Nature lords of the Public 
 Domain of thought. Posterity shall never question their 
 titles. But those whose fame lives only in the indiscreet 
 opinion of unwise men, must soon be as well forgotten as if 
 they had never been. To this great oblivion must most 
 men come. It is better, therefore, that they should soon 
 make up their minds to this ; well knowing, that, as their 
 bodies must ere long be resolved into dust again, and their 
 graves tell no tales of them, so must their names likewise 
 be utterly forgotten, and their most cherished thoughts, 
 purposes, and opinions have no longer an individual being 
 among men, but be resolved and incorporated into the 
 universe of thought. If, then, the imagination can trace 
 the noble dust of heroes, till we find it stopping a beer 
 barrel, and know that 
 
 "Imperial Coesar, dead and turned to clay, 
 May stop a hole to keep the wind away ; " 
 
 not less can it trace the noble thoughts of great men, till it 
 finds them mouldered into the common dust of conversa 
 tion, and used to stop men s mouths, and patch up 
 theories, to keep out the flaws of opinion. Such, for 
 example, are all popular adages and wise proverbs, which 
 are now resolved into the common mass of thought, their 
 authors forgotten, and having no more an individual being 
 among men. 
 
 It is better, therefore, that men should soon make up 
 their minds to be forgotten, and look about them, or within 
 them, for some higher motive in what they do than the 
 approbation of men, which is Fame namely, their duty ; 
 that they should be constantly and quietly at work, each 
 in his sphere, regardless of effects, and leaving their fame 
 to take care of itself. Difficult must this indeed be, in our 
 imperfection; impossible, perhaps, to achieve it wholly. 
 Yet the resolute, the indomitable will of man can achieve 
 much at times even this victory over himself; being 
 persuaded that fame comes only when deserved, and then is 
 as inevitable as destiny, for it is destiny. 
 
38 HYPERION. 
 
 It has become a common saying that men of genius are 
 always in advance of their age, which is true. There is 
 something equally true, yet not so common namely, that 
 of these men of genius, the best and bravest are in advance, 
 not only of their own age, but of every age. As the 
 German prose-poet says, every possible future is behind 
 them. We cannot suppose that a period of time will ever 
 arrive, when the world, or any considerable portion of it, 
 shall have come up abreast with these great minds, so as 
 fully to comprehend them. 
 
 And, oh ! how majestically they walk in history ; some 
 like the sun, " with all his travelling glories round him ; " 
 others wrapped in gloom, yet glorious as a night with stars ! 
 Through the else silent darkness of the past, the spirit 
 hears their slow and solemn footsteps. Onward they pass, 
 like those hoary elders seen in the sublime vision of an 
 earthly paradise, attendant angels bearing golden lights 
 before them, and, above and behind, the whole air painted 
 with seven listed colours, as from the trail of pencils ! 
 
 And yet, on earth, these men were not happy, not all 
 happy, in the outward circumstances of their lives. They 
 were in want and in pain, and familiar with prison bars, and 
 the damp, weeping walls of dungeons ! Oh, I have looked 
 with wonder upon those, who, in sorrow and privation, and 
 bodily discomfort and sickness, which is the shadow of 
 death, have worked right on to the accomplishment of their 
 great purposes ; toiling much, enduring much, fulfilling 
 much; and then, with shattered nerves, and sinews all un 
 strung, have laid themselves down in the grave, and slept 
 the sleep of death and the world talks of them while they 
 sleep ! 
 
 It would seem, indeed, as if all their sufferings had but 
 sanctified them ! as if the death-angel, in passing, had 
 touched them with the hem of his garment, and made them 
 holy ! as if the hand of disease had been stretched out over 
 them only to make the sign of the cross upon their souls ! 
 And as in the sun s eclipse we can behold the great stars 
 shining in the heavens, so in this life eclipse have these 
 
HYPERION. 39 
 
 men beheld the lights of the great eternity, burning 
 solemnly and for ever. 
 
 This was Flemming s reverie. It was broken by the 
 voice of the Baron, suddenly exclaiming 
 
 " An angel is flying over the house ! Here in this 
 goblet, fragrant as the honey of Hymettus, fragrant as the 
 wild flowers in the Angel s Meadow, I drink to the divinity 
 of thy dreams." 
 
 " This is all sunshine," said Flemming, as he drank. " The 
 wine of the Prince, and the Prince of wines. By-the-way, 
 did you ever read that brilliant Italian dithyrambic, Redi s 
 Bacchus in Tuscany ^ an ode which seems to have been 
 poured out of the author s soul, as from a golden pitcher. 
 
 Filled with the wine 
 Of the vine 
 Benign, 
 That flames so red in Sansovine. 
 
 He calls the Montepulciano the king of all wines." 
 
 "Prince Metternich," said the Baron "is greater than 
 any king in Italy ; and I wonder that this precious wine 
 has never inspired a German poet to write a Bacchus on 
 the Rhine. Many little songs we have on this theme, but 
 none very extraordinary. The best are Max Schenkendorf s 
 Song of the Rhine, and the song of Rhine Wine, by 
 Claudine, a poet who never drank Rhenish without sugar. 
 We will drink for him a blessing on the Rhine." 
 
 And again the crystal lips of the goblets kissed each 
 other with a musical chime, as of evening bells at vintage 
 time from the villages on the Rhine. Of a truth, I do not 
 much wonder that the German poet, Schiller, loved to write 
 by candle-light, with a bottle of Rhine- wine upon the table. 
 Nor do I wonder at the worthy schoolmaster, Roger 
 Ascham, when he says, in one of his letters from Germany 
 to Mr. John Raven, of John s College, " Tell Mr. Maden I 
 will drink with him now a carouse of wine ; and would to 
 God he had a vessel of Rhenish wine ; and, perchance, when 
 I come to Cambridge, I will so provide here, that every year 
 I will have a little piece of Rhenish wine." Nor, in fine, do 
 
40 HYPERION. 
 
 I wonder at the German emperor of whom he speaks in 
 another letter, to the same John Raven, and says, " The 
 emperor drank the best that I ever saw ; he had his head in 
 the glass five times as long as any of us, and never drank 
 less than a good quart at once of Rhenish wine." 
 
 " But to resume our old theme of scholars and their 
 whereabouts," said the Baron, with an unusual glow, caught 
 no doubt from the golden sunshine, imprisoned like the 
 student Anselmus, in the glass bottle ; " where should the 
 scholar live 1 In solitude, or in society 1 in the green 
 stillness of the country, where he can hear the heart of 
 nature beat ; or in the dark, grey town, where he can hear 
 and feel the throbbing heart of man 1 I will make answer 
 for him, and say, in the dark, grey town. Oh, they do 
 greatly err who think that the stars are all the poetry 
 which cities have, and therefore that the poet s only 
 dwelling should be in sylvan solitudes, under the green roof 
 of trees. Beautiful, no doubt, are all the forms of Nature, 
 when transfigured by the miraculous power of poetry ; 
 hamlets and harvest-fields, and nut-brown waters flowing 
 ever under the forest, vast and shadowy, with all the sights 
 and sounds of rural life. But after all, what are these but 
 the decorations and painted scenery in the great theatre of 
 human life 1 What are they but the coarse materials of the 
 poet s song ? Glorious indeed is the world of God around 
 us, but more glorious the world of God within us. There 
 lies the Land of Song ; there lies the poet s native land. 
 The river of life that flows through streets tumultuous, 
 bearing along so many gallant hearts, so many wrecks 
 of humanity ; the many homes and households, each a 
 little world in itself, revolving round its fireside, as a 
 central sun ; all forms of human joy and suffering brought 
 into that narrow compass ; and to be in this, and be 
 a part of this, acting, thinking, rejoicing, sorrowing with 
 his fellow-men, such, such should be the poet s life. If he 
 would describe the world, he should live in the world. The 
 mind of the scholar, if you would have it large and liberal, 
 should come in contact with other minds. It is better that 
 
HYPERION. 41 
 
 his armour should be somewhat bruised by rude encounters 
 even, than hang for ever rusting on the wall. Nor will his 
 themes be few or trivial, because apparently shut in between 
 the walls of houses, and having merely the decorations of 
 street scenery. A ruined character is as picturesque as a 
 ruined castle. There are dark abysses and yawning gulfs 
 in the human heart, which can be rendered passable only by 
 bridging them over with iron nerves and sinews, as Challey 
 bridged the Sarine in Switzerland, and Telford the sea 
 between Anglesea and England, with chain-bridges. These 
 are the great themes of human thought ; not green grass, 
 and flowers, and moonlight. Besides, the mere eternal 
 forms of Nature we make our own, and carry with us 
 everywhere, by the power of memory." 
 
 " I fear, however," interrupted Flemming, " that in 
 towns the soul of man grows proud. He needs at times to 
 be sent forth, like the Assyrian monarch, into green fields, 
 a wondrous wretch and weedless, to eat green herbs, and 
 be wakened and chastised by the rain-shower and winter s 
 bitter weather. Moreover, in cities there is danger of the 
 soul s becoming wed to pleasure, and forgetful of its high 
 vocation. There have been souls dedicated to heaven from 
 childhood, and guarded by good angels as sweet seclusions 
 for holy thoughts, and prayers, and all good purposes ; 
 wherein pious wishes dwelt like nuns, and every image was 
 a saint ; and yet in life s vicissitudes, by the treachery of 
 occasion, by the thronging passions of great cities, have 
 become soiled and sinful. They resemble those convents on 
 the river Rhine which have been changed to taverns ; from 
 whose chambers the pious inmates have long departed, and 
 in whose cloisters the footsteps of travellers have effaced the 
 images of buried saints, and whose walls are written over 
 with ribaldry and the names of strangers, and resound no 
 more with holy hymns, but with revelry and loud voices." 
 
 " Both town and country have their dangers," said the 
 Baron ; " and therefore, wherever the scholar lives, he must 
 never forget his high vocation. Other artists give them 
 selves up wholly to the study of their art. It becomes with 
 
42 HYPERION. 
 
 them almost religion. For the most part, and in their 
 youth, at least, they dwell in lands where the whole atmos 
 phere of the soul is beauty ; laden with it as the air may 
 be with vapour, till their very nature is saturated with the 
 genius of their art. Such, for example, is the artist s life 
 in Italy." 
 
 "I agree with you," exclaimed Flemming; "and such 
 should be the poet s everywhere ; for he has his Rome, his 
 Florence, his whole glowing Italy within the four walls of 
 his library. He has in his books the ruins of an antique 
 world, and the glories of a modern one his Apollo and 
 Transfiguration. He must neither forget nor undervalue 
 his vocation ; but thank God that he is a poet, and every 
 where be true to himself, and to the vision and the faculty 
 divine he recognises within him." 
 
 " But, at any rate, a town life is most eventful," continued 
 the Baron. u The men who make, or take, the lives of 
 poets and scholars, always complain that these lives are 
 barren of incidents. Hardly a literary biography begins 
 without some such apology, unwisely made. I confess, 
 however, that it is not made without some show of truth; 
 if, by incidents, we mean only those startling events which 
 suddenly turn aside the stream of time, and change the 
 world s history in an hour. There is certainly a uniformity, 
 pleasing or unpleasing, in literary life, which for the most 
 part makes to-day seem twin-born with yesterday. But if, 
 by incidents, you mean events in the history of the human 
 mind (and why not ?) noiseless events, that do not scar the 
 forehead of the world as battles do, yet change it not the 
 less, then surely the lives of literary men are most eventful. 
 The complaint and the apology are both foolish. I do not 
 see why a successful book is not as great an event as a 
 successful campaign, only different in kind, and not easily 
 compared." 
 
 " Indeed," interrupted Flemming, " in no sense is the 
 complaint strictly true, though at times apparently so. 
 Events enough there are, were they all set down. A life 
 that is worth writing at all, is worth writing minutely. 
 
HYPERION. 43 
 
 Besides, all literary men have not lived in silence and 
 solitude not all in stillness, not all in shadow. For 
 many have lived in troubled times, in the rude and 
 adverse fortunes of the state and age, and could say with 
 Wallenstein 
 
 Our life was but a battle and a march ; 
 And, like the wind s blast, never-resting : homeless, 
 We stormed across the war- convulsed earth. 
 
 Many such examples has history recorded ; Dante, Cer 
 vantes, Byron, and others ; men of iron ; men who have 
 dared to breast the strong breath of public opinion, and, 
 like spectre ships, come sailing right against the wind. 
 Others have been puffed out by the first adverse wind that 
 blew ; disgraced and sorrowful, because they could not 
 please others. Had they been men, they would have made 
 these disappointments their best friends, and learned from 
 them the needful lesson of self-reliance." 
 
 " To confess the truth," added the Baron, "the lives of 
 literary men, with their hopes and disappointments, and 
 quarrels and calamities, present a melancholy picture of 
 man s strength and weakness. On that very account the 
 scholar can make them profitable for encouragement, 
 consolation, warning." 
 
 " And after all," continued Flemming, " perhaps the 
 greatest lesson which the lives of literary men teach us is 
 told in a single word Wait ! Every man must patiently 
 bide his time. He must wait. More particularly in lands 
 like my native land, where the pulse of life beats with such 
 feverish and impatient throbs, is the lesson needful. Our 
 national character wants the dignity of repose. We seem to 
 live in the midst of a battle, there is such a din, such a 
 hurrying to and fro. In the streets of a crowded city it is 
 difficult to walk slowly. You feel the rushing of the crowd, 
 and rush with it onward. In the press of our life it is diffi 
 cult to be calm. In this stress of wind and tide, all profes 
 sions seem to drag their anchors, and are swept out into the 
 main. The voices of the Present say Come ! But the 
 
44 HYPERION. 
 
 voices of the Past say Wait ! With calm and solemn foot 
 steps the rising tide bears against the rushing torrent up 
 stream, and pushes back the hurrying waters. With no less 
 calm and solemn footsteps, nor less certainty, does a great 
 mi.nd bear up against public opinion, and push back its 
 hurrying stream. Therefore should every man wait should 
 bide his time. Not in listless idleness not in useless 
 pastime not in querulous dejection ; but in constant, 
 steady, cheerful endeavours, always willing and fulfilling, 
 and accomplishing his task, that when the occasion comes, 
 he may be equal to the occasion. And if it never comes, 
 what matters it to the world whether I, or you, or other man 
 did such a deed, or wrote such a book, so be it the deed and 
 book were well done. It is the part of an indiscreet and 
 troublesome ambition to care too much about fame about 
 what the world says of us to be always looking into the 
 faces of others for approval to be always anxious for the 
 effect of what we do and say to be always shouting to hear 
 the echo of our own voices ! If you look about you, you 
 will see men, who are wearing life away in feverish anxiety 
 of fame ; and the last we shall ever hear of them will be 
 the funeral bell that tolls them to their early graves ! 
 Unhappy men, and unsuccessful \ because their purpose is, 
 not to accomplish well their task, but to clutch the * trick 
 and fantasy of fame ; and they go to their graves with 
 purposes unaccomplished and wishes unfulfilled. Better for 
 them, and for the world in their example, had they known 
 how to wait ! Believe me, the talent of success is nothing 
 more than doing what you can do well, and doing well 
 whatever you do, without a thought of fame. If it come at 
 all, it will come because it is deserved, not because it is 
 sought after. And, moreover, there will be no misgiv 
 ings no disappointment no hasty, feverish, exhausting 
 excitement." 
 
 Thus endeth the First Book of Hyperion. I made no 
 record of the winter. Paul Flemming buried himself in 
 
HYPERION. 45 
 
 books ; in old, dusty books. He worked his way diligently 
 through the ancient poetic lore of Germany, from Frankish 
 Legends of Saint George, and Saxon Rhyme-Chronicles, and 
 Nibelungen-Lieds, and Helden-Buchs, and Songs of the 
 Minnesingers, Master-singers, and Ships of Fools, and 
 Reynard the Foxes, and Death-Dances, and Lamentations 
 of Damned Souls, into the bright, sunny land of harvests, 
 where, amid the golden grain and the blue corn flowers, 
 walk the modern bards, and sing. 
 
BOOK THE SECOND. 
 
 Something the heart must have to cherish, 
 Must love, and joy, and sorrow learn : 
 
 Something with passion clasp, or perish, 
 And in itself to ashes burn." 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SPRING. 
 
 IT was a sweet carol which the Rhodian children sang of 
 old, in Spring, bearing in their hands, from door to door, a 
 swallow, as herald of the season : 
 
 " The Swallow is come ! 
 The Swallow is come ! 
 fair are the seasons, and light 
 Are the days that she brings, 
 With her dusky wings, 
 And her bosom snowy white ! " 
 
 A pretty carol, too, is that which the Hungarian boys, on 
 the islands of the Danube, sing to the returning stork in 
 Spring : 
 
 " Stork ! Stork ! poor Stork 1 
 Why is thy foot so bloody ! 
 A Turkish boy hath torn it ; 
 Hungarian boy will heal it, 
 With fiddle, fife, and drum." 
 
HYPERION. 47 
 
 But what child has a heart to sing in this capricious 
 clime of ours, where Spring comes sailing in from the 
 sea, with wet and heavy cloud-sails, and the misty pennon 
 of the east wind nailed to the mast ! Yet even here, 
 and in the stormy month of March even, there are 
 bright, warm mornings, when we open our windows to 
 inhale the balmy air. The pigeons fly to and fro, and 
 we hear the whirring sound of wings. Old flies crawl 
 out of the cracks to sun themselves, and think it is summer. 
 They die in their conceit ; and so do our hearts within 
 us, when the cold sea breath comes from the eastern sea, 
 and again, 
 
 " The driving hail 
 Upon the window beats with icy flail." 
 
 The red flowering maple is first in blossom, its beautiful 
 purple flowers unfolding a fortnight before the leaves. 
 The moose-wood follows, with rose-coloured buds and 
 leaves ; and the dog-wood, robed in the white of its own 
 pure blossoms. Then comes the sudden rain-storm, and 
 the birds fly to and fro, and shriek. Where do they 
 hide themselves in such storms ? at what firesides dry 
 their feathery cloaks ? At the fireside of the great 
 hospitable sun, to-morrow, not before ; they must sit in 
 wet garments until then. 
 
 In all climates Spring is beautiful. In the South it is 
 intoxicating, and sets a poet beside himself. The birds 
 begin to sing : they utter a few rapturous notes, and then 
 wait for an answer in the silent woods. Those green-coated 
 musicians, the frogs, make holiday in the neighbouring 
 marshes. They, too, belong to the orchestra of Nature, 
 whose vast theatre is again opened, though the doors have 
 been so long bolted with icicles, and the scenery hung with 
 snow and frost like cobwebs. This is the prelude which 
 announces the opening of the scene. Already the grass 
 shoots forth. The waters leap with thrilling pulse through 
 the veins of the earth, the sap through the veins of the 
 plants and trees, and the blood through the veins of man. 
 
48 HYPERION. 
 
 What a thrill of delight in Spring-time ! What a joy in 
 being and moving ! Men are at work in gardens ; and in 
 the air there is an odour of the fresh earth. The leaf-buds 
 begin to swell and blush. The white blossoms of the cherry 
 hang upon the boughs like snow-flakes ; and ere long our 
 next-door neighbours will be completely hidden from us by 
 the dense green foliage. The May-flowers open their soft 
 blue eyes. Children are let loose in the fields and gardens. 
 They hold butter-cups under each other s chins, to see if 
 they love butter. And the little girls adorn themselves 
 with chains and curls of dandelions ; pull out the yellow 
 leaves to see if the school-boy loves them, and blow the 
 down from the leafless stalk, to find out if their mothers 
 want them at home. 
 
 And at night so cloudless and so still ! Not a voice of 
 living thing not a whisper of leaf or waving bough 
 not a breath of wind not a sound upon the earth 
 nor in the air ! And overhead bends the blue sky, dewy 
 and soft, and radiant with innumerable stars, like the 
 inverted bell of some blue flower sprinkled with golden 
 dust, and breathing fragrance. Or if the heavens are over 
 cast, it is no wild storm of wind and rain, but clouds that 
 melt and fall in showers. One does not wish to sleep, but 
 lies awake to hear the pleasant sound of the dropping rain. 
 
 It was thus the Spring began in Heidelberg. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A COLLOQUY. 
 
 " AND what think you of Tiedge s Urania ? " said the Baron, 
 smiling, as Paul Flemming closed the book, and laid it upon 
 the table. 
 
 " I think," said Flemming, " that it is very much like 
 Jean Paul s grandfather, in the highest degree poor and 
 pious." 
 
HYPERION. 49 
 
 "Bravo!" exclaimed the Baron. "That is the best 
 criticism I have heard upon the book. For my part, I 
 dislike it as much as Goethe did. It was once very 
 popular, and lay about in every parlour and bedroom. 
 This annoyed the old gentleman exceedingly ; and I do not 
 wonder at it. He complains that at one time nothing was 
 sung or said but this Urania. He believed in Immortality, 
 but wished to cherish his belief in quietness. He once told 
 a friend of his that he had, however, learned one thing from 
 all this talk about Tiedge and his Urania ; which was, that 
 the saints, as well as the nobility, constitute an aristocracy. 
 He said he found stupid women who were proud because 
 they believed in Immortality with Tiedge, and had to sub 
 mit himself to not a few mysterious catechisings and tea- 
 table lectures on this point ; and that he cut them short by 
 saying that he had no objection whatever to enter into 
 another state of existence hereafter, but prayed only that 
 he might be spared the honour of meeting there any of 
 those who had believed in it here; for, if he did, they 
 would flock around him on all sides, exclaiming, Were we 
 not in the right 1 Did we not tell you so? Has it not all 
 turned out just as we said 1 : 
 
 " How shocked the good old ladies must have been ! " 
 said Flemming. 
 
 " No doubt their nerves suffered a little ; but the young 
 women loved him all the better for being witty and wicked, 
 and thought, if they could only marry him, how they would 
 reform him." 
 
 " Bettina Brentano, for instance." 
 
 " O, no ! That happened long afterwards. Goethe was 
 then an old man of sixty. She had never seen him, and 
 knew him only by his writings : a romantic girl of 
 seventeen." 
 
 "And yet much in love with the sexagenarian. And 
 surely a more wild, fantastic passion never sprang up in 
 woman s breast. She was a flower that worshipped the 
 sun." 
 
 " She afterwards married Achim von Arnim, and is now 
 
 218 
 
50 HYPERION. 
 
 a widow. And not the least singular part of the affair is, 
 that having grown older, and I hope colder, she should 
 herself publish the letters which passed between her and 
 Goethe." 
 
 " Particularly the letter in which she describes her first 
 visit to Weimar, and her interview with the hitherto 
 invisible divinity of her dreams. The old gentleman took 
 her upon his knees, and she fell asleep with her head upon 
 his shoulder. Oberon must have touched her eyes with the 
 juice of Love-in-idleness. However, this book of Goethe s 
 Correspondence with a Child is a very singular and valuable 
 revelation of the feelings which he excited in female hearts. 
 You say she afterwards married Achim von Arnim ? " 
 
 " Yes ; and he and her brother, Clemens Brentano, 
 published that wondrous book, the Boy s Wonder-Horn." 
 
 " The Boy s Wonder-Horn! " said Flemming, after a short 
 pause, for the name seemed to have thrown him into a 
 reverie : "I know the book almost by heart. Of all your 
 German books, it is the one which produces upon my 
 imagination the most wild and magic influence. I have a 
 passion for ballads." 
 
 " And who has not 1 " said the Baron, with a smile. 
 " They are the gipsy children of song, born under green 
 hedgerows, in the leafy lanes and by-paths of literature 
 in the genial Summer-time." 
 
 " Why do you say Summer-time, and not Summer ? " 
 inquired Flemming. "The expression reminds me of your 
 old Minnesingers of Heinrich von Ofterdingen, and 
 Walther von der Yogelweide, and Count Kraft von 
 Toggenburg, and your own ancestor, I dare say, Burkhart 
 von Hohenfels. They were always singing of the gentle 
 Summer-time. They seem to have lived poetry, as well as 
 sung it, like the birds who make their marriage-beds in the 
 voluptuous trees." 
 
 " Is that from Shakespeare 1 " 
 
 "No ; from Lope de Yega." 
 
 " You are deeply read in the lore of antiquity, and the 
 Aubades and Watch-Songs of the old Minnesingers. What 
 
HYPERION. 51 
 
 do you think of the shoemaker poets that came after them, 
 with their guilds and singing schools 1 It makes me laugh 
 to think how the great streams of your German Helicon, 
 shrunk to small rivulets, go bubbling and gurgling over the 
 pebbly names of Zwinger, Wurgendrussel, Buchenlin, Hell- 
 fire, Old Stoll, Young Stoll, Strong Bopp, Dang Brotscheim, 
 Batt Spiegel, Peter Pfort, and Martin Gumpel. And then 
 the Corporation of the Twelve Wise Masters, with their 
 stumpfereime and klingende-reime, and their Hans Tin- 
 deisen s rosemary-weise, and Joseph Schmierer s flowery- 
 paradise-weise, and Frauenlob s yellow-weise, and blue-weise, 
 and frog-weise, and looking-glass-weise ! " 
 
 " O, I entreat you," exclaimed Flemming, laughing, " do 
 not call those men poets ! You transport me to quaint old 
 Nuremberg, and I see Hans Sachs making shoes, and Hans 
 Folz shaving the burgomaster." 
 
 " By the way," interrupted the baron, " did you ever 
 read Hoffmann s beautiful story of Master Martin, the 
 Cooper of Nuremberg? I will read it to you this very 
 night. It is the most delightful picture of that age which 
 you can conceive. But, look ! the sun has already set 
 behind the Alsatian hills. Let us go up to the castle, and 
 look for the ghost in Prince Huprecht s Tower. O, what a 
 glorious sunset ! " 
 
 Flemming looked at the evening sky, and a shade of 
 sadness stole over his countenance. He told not to his 
 friend the sorrow with which his heart was heavy, but 
 kept it for himself alone. He knew that the time which 
 comes to all men, the time to suffer and be silent, had come 
 to him likewise; and he spake no word. O well has it 
 been said that there is no grief like the grief which does 
 not speak. 
 
52 HYPERION. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OWL-TOWERS. 
 
 " THERE sits the old Frau Himmelhahn, perched up in her 
 owl-tower," said the Baron to Flemming, as they passed 
 along the Hauptstrasse. " She looks down through her 
 round-eyed spectacles, from her nest up there, and watches 
 every one that goes by. I wonder what mischief she is 
 hatching now ? Do you know she has nearly ruined your 
 character in town 1 She says you have a rakish look, 
 because you carry a cane, and your hair curls. Your 
 gloves, also, are a shade too light for a strictly virtuous 
 man," 
 
 "It is very kind in her to take such good care of my 
 character, particularly as I am a stranger in town. She is, 
 doubtless, learned in the Clothes Philosophy." 
 
 "And ignorant of everything else. She asked a friend 
 of mine the other day whether Christ was a Catholic or a 
 Protestant." 
 
 " That is really too absurd ! " 
 
 "Not too absurd to be true. And ignorant as she is, 
 she contrives to do a good deal of mischief in the course of 
 the year. Why, the women already call you Wilhelm 
 Meister." 
 
 " They are at liberty to call me what they please. But 
 you, who know me better, know that I am something more 
 than they would imply by the name." 
 
 "She says, moreover, that the American women sit 
 with their feet out of the window, and have no pocket- 
 handkerchiefs." 
 
 " Excellent ! " 
 
 They crossed the market-place, and went up beneath the 
 grand terrace into the court-yard of the castle. 
 
 "Let us go and sit under the great linden-trees that 
 grow on the summit of the Bent Tower," said Flemming. 
 
HYPERION. 53 
 
 " From that point, as from a watch-tower, we can look 
 down into the garden and see the crowd below us." 
 
 " And amuse ourselves, as old Frau Himmelhahn does 
 at her window in the Hauptstrasse," added the Baron. 
 
 The keeper s daughter unlocked for them the door of 
 the tower, and climbing the steep stair-case, they seated 
 themselves on a wooden bench under the linden-trees. 
 
 " How beautifully these trees overgrow the old tower ! 
 And see what a solid mass of masonry lies in the great 
 fosse down there, toppled from its base by the explosion of 
 a mine ! It is like a rusty helmet, cleft in twain, but still 
 crested with towering plumes." 
 
 " And what a motley crowd in the garden ! Philisters and 
 Sons of the Muses ! And there goes the venerable Thibaut, 
 taking his evening stroll. Do you see him there, with his 
 silver hair flowing over his shoulders, and that friendly 
 face, which has for so many years pored over the Pandects 1 
 I assure you, he inspires me with awe. And yet he is a 
 merry old man, and loves his joke, particularly at the 
 expense of Moses and other ancient law-givers." 
 
 Here their attention was diverted by a wild-looking 
 person, who passed with long strides under the archway in 
 the fosse, right beneath them, and disappeared among the 
 bushes. He was ill-dressed, his hair flying in the wind, 
 his movements hurried and nervous, and the expression of 
 his broad countenance wild, strange, and earnest. 
 
 "Who can that be?" asked Flemming. "He strides 
 away indignantly, like one of Ossian s ghosts ! " 
 
 "A great philosopher, whose name I have forgotten. 
 Truly, a strange owl." 
 
 " He looks like a lion with a hat on." 
 
 " He is a mystic, who reads Schubert s History of the 
 Soul, and lives, for the most part, in the clouds of the 
 Middle Ages. To him the spirit-world is still open. He 
 believes in the transmigration of souls, and I dare say is 
 now following the spirit of some departed friend, who has 
 taken the form of yonder pigeon." 
 
 " What a strange hallucination ! He lives, I suppose, in 
 
54 HYPERION. 
 
 the land of cloud-shadows. And, as St. Thomas Aquinas 
 was said to be lifted up from the ground by the fervour 
 of his prayers, so, no doubt, is he, by the fervour of his 
 visions." 
 
 " He certainly appears to neglect all sublunary things ; 
 and, to judge from certain appearances, since you seem 
 fond of holy similitudes, one would say, that like St. 
 Serapion the Sindonite, he had but one shirt. Yet, what 
 cares he ? he lives in that poetic dreamland of his thoughts, 
 and clothes himself in poetry." 
 
 " He is a poet, then, as well as a philosopher? " 
 
 " Yes ; but a poet who never writes a line. There is 
 nothing in nature to which his imagination does not give a 
 poetic hue. But the power to make others see these objects 
 in the same poetic light is wanting. Still, he is a man of 
 fine powers and feelings; for next to being a great poet, is 
 the power of understanding one of finding one s self in 
 him, as we Germans say." 
 
 Three figures, dressed in black, now came from one of 
 the green alleys, and stopped on the brink of a little 
 fountain that was playing among the gay flowers in the 
 garden. The eldest of the three was a woman in that 
 season of life, when the early autumn gives to the summer 
 leaves a warmer glow, yet fades them not. Though the 
 mother of many children, she was still beautiful ; resem 
 bling those trees which blossom in October, when the leaves 
 are changing, and whose fruit and blossom are on the branch 
 at once. At her side was a girl of some sixteen years, who 
 seemed to lean upon her arm for support. Her figure was 
 slight ; her countenance beautiful, though deadly white ; 
 and her meek eyes, like the flower of the nightshade, pale 
 and blue, but sending forth golden rays. They were 
 attended by a tall youth, of foreign aspect, who seemed 
 a young Antinous, with a moustache and a nose & la 
 Kosciusko. In other respects a perfect hero of romance. 
 
 " Unless mine eyes deceive me," said the Baron, " there 
 is the Frau von Ilmenau, with her pale daughter Emma, 
 and that eternal Polish count. He is always hovering 
 
HYPERION. 55 
 
 about them, playing the unhappy exile, merely to excite 
 that poor girl s sympathies ; and as wretched as genius and 
 wantonness can make him." 
 
 " Why, he is already married, you know," replied 
 Flemming. " And his wife is young and beautiful." 
 
 " That does not prevent him from being in love with 
 some one else. That question was decided in the Courts 
 of Love in the Middle Ages. Accordingly, he has sent 
 his fair wife to Warsaw. But how pale the poor child 
 looks ! " 
 
 " She has just recovered from severe illness. In the 
 winter, you know, it was thought she would not live from 
 hour to hour." 
 
 " And she has hardly recovered from that disease before 
 he seems threatened with a worse one ; namely, a hopeless 
 passion. However, people do not die of love now-a-days." 
 
 " Seldom, perhaps," said Flemming ; " and yet it is folly 
 to pretend that one ever wholly recovers from a dis 
 appointed passion. Such wounds always leave a scar. 
 There are faces I can never look upon without emotion. 
 There are names I can never hear spoken without almost 
 starting." 
 
 " But whom have we here 1 
 
 " That is the French poet, Quinet, with his fair German 
 wife, one of the most interesting women I ever knew. He 
 is the author of a very wild Mystery, or dramatic prose- 
 poem, in which the Ocean, Mont-blanc, and the Cathedral 
 of Strasburg have parts to play ; and the saints on the 
 stained windows of the minster speak, and the statues and 
 dead kings enact the Dance of Death. It is entitled 
 Ahasuerus, or the Wandering Jew." 
 
 " Or, as the Danes would translate it, the Shoemaker of 
 Jerusalem. That would be a still more fantastic title for 
 his fantastic book. You know I am no great admirer of 
 the modern French school of writers. The tales of Paul de 
 Kock seem to me like obscene stories told at dinner tables. 
 It has been truly said of him, that he is not only populaire, 
 but populacier ; and rather harshly of George Sand and 
 
56 HYPERION. 
 
 Victor Hugo, that their works stand like fortifications, well 
 built, and well supplied with warlike munitions ; but 
 ineffectual against the Grand Army of God, which marches 
 onward, as if nothing had happened. In surveying a 
 national literature, the point you must start from is 
 national character. That lets you into many a secret. 
 The most prominent trait in the French character is love of 
 amusement and excitement, and " 
 
 " I should say, rather, the fear of ennui," interrupted 
 Flemming. " Some one has said, with a great deal of 
 truth, that the gentry of France rush into Paris to escape 
 from ennui, as, in the noble days of chivalry, the defenceless 
 inhabitants of the champaign fled into the castles, at the 
 approach of some plundering knight, or lawless baron, 
 forsaking the inspired twilight of their native groves for 
 the luxurious shades of the royal gardens/ What do you 
 think of that <\ " 
 
 The Baron replied, with a smile : 
 
 " There is only one Paris ; and out of Paris there is no 
 salvation for decent people," 
 
 Thus conversing of many things, sat the two friends 
 under the linden-trees on the Rent Tower, till gradually 
 the crowd disappeared from the garden, and the objects 
 around them grew indistinct in the fading twilight. 
 Between them and the amber-coloured western sky the 
 dense foliage of the trees looked heavy and hard, as if cast 
 in bronze ; and already the evening stars hung like silver 
 lamps in the towering branches of that Tree of Life, 
 brought more than two centuries ago from its primeval para 
 dise in America, to beautify the gardens of the Palatinate. 
 
 " I take a mournful pleasure in gazing at that tree," said 
 Flemming, as they rose to depart. "It stands there so 
 straight and tall, with iron bands around its noble trunk 
 and limbs, in silent majesty, or whispering only in its 
 native tongue, and freighting the homeward wind with 
 sighs ! It reminds me of some captive monarch of a 
 savage tribe, brought over the vast ocean for a show, and 
 chained in the public market-place of the city, disdainfully 
 
HYPERION. 57 
 
 silent, or breathing only in melancholy accents a prayer for 
 his native forest, a longing to be free." 
 
 " Magnificent ! " cried the Baron. " I always experience 
 something of the same feeling when I walk through a 
 conservatory. The luxuriant plants of the tropics, those 
 illustrious exotics, with their gorgeous flamingo-coloured 
 blossoms, and great flapping leaves, like elephant s ears, 
 have a singular working upon my imagination, and remind 
 me of a menagerie and wild beasts kept in cages. But your 
 illustration is finer ; indeed, a grand figure. Put it down 
 for an epic poem." 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A BEER-SCANDAL. 
 
 ON their way homeward Flemming and the Baron passed 
 through a narrow lane, in which was a well-known 
 Studenten-Kneipe. At the door stood a young man, whom 
 the Baron at once recognised as his friend, Yon Kleist. He 
 was a student, and universally acknowledged, among his 
 young acquaintance, as a " devilish handsome fellow," 
 notwithstanding a tremendous scar on his cheek, and a 
 cream-coloured moustache, as soft as the silk of Indian corn. 
 In short, he was a renowner, and a duellist. 
 
 " What are you doing here, Yon Kleist ? " 
 
 " Ah, my dear Baron ! is it you ? Come in ; come in. 
 You shall see some sport. A Fox-Commerce is on foot, 
 and a regular Beer-scandal." 
 
 " Shall we go in, Flemming 1 " 
 
 " Certainly. I should like to see how these things are 
 managed in Heidelberg. You are a baron, and I am a 
 stranger. It is of no consequence what you and I do, as 
 the king s fool, Angeli, said to the poet Bautru, urging him 
 to put on his hat at the royal dinner-table." 
 
 William Lilly, the astrologer, says, in his Autobiography, 
 
58 HYPERION, 
 
 that when he was committed to the guard-room in Whitehall, 
 he thought himself in Hell ; for " some were sleeping, 
 others swearing, others smoking tobacco, and in the chimney 
 of the room there were two bushels of broken tobacco-pipes, 
 and almost half a load of ashes." What he would have 
 thought, if he had peeped into this Heidelberg Studenten- 
 Kneipe, I know not. He certainly would not have thought 
 himself in heaven, unless it were a Scandinavian heaven. 
 The windows were open ; and yet so dense was the atmos 
 phere with the smoke of tobacco and the fumes of beer, 
 that the tallow candles burnt but dimly. A crowd of 
 students were sitting at three long tables in the large 
 hall ; a medley of fellows, known at German Universities 
 under the cant names of Old-Ones, Mossy-Heads, Princes 
 of Twilight, and Pomatum-Stallions. They were smoking, 
 drinking, singing, screaming, and discussing the great 
 laws of the Broadstone and the Gutter. They had a 
 great deal to say, likewise, about Besens, and Zobels, 
 and Poussades ; and, if they had been charged for the 
 noise they made, as travellers used to be in the old Dutch 
 taverns, they would have had a longer bill to pay for that 
 than for their beer. 
 
 In a large arm-chair, upon the middle table, sat one of 
 those distinguished individuals, known among German 
 students as a Senior, or Leader of a Landsmannschaft. He 
 was booted and spurred, and wore a very small crimson cap, 
 and a very tight blue jacket, and very long hair, and a 
 very dirty shirt. He was president of the night ; and as 
 Flemming entered the hall, with the Baron and his friend, 
 striking upon the table with a mighty broadsword, he cried, 
 in a loud voice 
 
 " Silentium ! " 
 
 At the same moment a door at the end of the hall was 
 thrown open, and a procession of new comers, or Nasty- 
 Foxes, as they are called in the college dialect, entered two 
 by two, looking wild, and green, and foolish. As they 
 came forward, they were obliged to pass under a pair of 
 naked swords held cross-wise by two Old-Ones, who, with 
 
HYPERION. 59 
 
 pieces of burnt cork, made an enormous pair of moustaches 
 on the smooth, rosy cheeks of each as he passed beneath 
 this arch of triumph. While the procession was entering 
 the hall the president lifted up his voice again, and began 
 to sing the well-known Fox-song, in the chorus of which all 
 present joined hastily 
 
 " "What comes there from the hill ? 
 What comes there from the hill ? 
 What comes there from the leathery hill ? 
 
 Sa ! Sa ! 
 
 Leathery hill ! 
 What comes there from the hill ? 
 
 It is a Postillion 1 
 It is a Postillion ! 
 It is a leathery Postillion ! 
 
 Sa ! Sa ! 
 
 Postillion I 
 It is a Postillion ! 
 
 What brings the Postillion ? 
 What brings the Postillion ? 
 What brings the leathery Postillion ? 
 
 Sa! Sa! 
 
 Postillion ! 
 What brings the Postillion ! 
 
 He bringeth us a Fox ! 
 He bringeth us a Fox ! 
 He bringeth us a leathery Fox ! 
 
 Sa ! Sa ! 
 
 Leathery Fox ! 
 He bringeth us a Fox ! 
 
 Your servant, Masters mine 1 
 Your servant, Masters mine ! 
 Your servant, much honoured Masters mine ! 
 
 Sa ! Sa ! 
 
 Much honoured Masters mine 1 
 Your servant, Masters mine ! 
 
 How does the Herr Papa ? 
 How does the Herr Papa ? 
 How does the leathery Herr Papa ? 
 
 Sa ! Sa ! 
 
 Herr Papa ! 
 How does the Herr Papa ? 
 
60 HYPERION. 
 
 He reads in Cicero ! 
 He reads in Cicero ! 
 He reads in leathery Cicero ! 
 
 Sa ! Sa ! 
 
 Cicero ! 
 He reads in Cicero ! 
 
 How does the Fran Mamma ? 
 How does the Frau Mamma ? 
 How does the leathery Frau Mamma ? 
 
 Sa ! Sa ! 
 
 Frau Mamma ! 
 How does the Frau Mamma ? 
 
 She makes the Papa tea ! 
 She makes the Papa tea ! 
 She makes the Papa leathery tea ! 
 
 Sa ! Sa ! 
 
 Leathery tea ! 
 She makes the Papa tea ! 
 
 How does the Mamsell Sceur ? 
 How does the Mamsell Soeur ? 
 How does the leathery Mamsell Soeur i 
 
 Sa ! Sa ! 
 
 Mamsell Sceur ! 
 How does the Mamsell Sceur ? 
 
 She knits the Papa stockings ! 
 She knits the Papa stockings ! 
 She knits the Papa leathery stockings 
 
 Sa ! Sa ! 
 
 Leathery stockings ! 
 She knits the Papa stockings ! 
 
 How does the Herr Rector ? 
 How does the Herr Rector ! 
 How does the leathery Herr Rector ? 
 
 Sa ! Sa ! 
 
 Herr Rector ! 
 How does the Herr Rector ? 
 
 He calls the scholar, Boy ! 
 He calls the scholar, Boy ! 
 He calls the scholar, leathery Boy ! 
 
 Sa ! Sa ! 
 
 Leathery Boy ! 
 He calls the scholar, Boy ! 
 
HYPERION. 61 
 
 And smokes the Fox tobacco ? 
 And smokes the Fox tobacco ? 
 And smokes the leathery Fox tobacco ? 
 
 Sa ! Sa ! 
 
 Fox tobacco ! 
 And smokes the Fox tobacco ? 
 
 A little, Masters mine ! 
 A little, Masters mine ! 
 A little, much honoured Masters mine ! 
 
 Sa ! Sa ! 
 
 Much honoured Masters mine ! 
 A little, Masters mine ! 
 
 Then let him fill a pipe ! 
 Then let him fill a pipe ! 
 Then let him fill a leathery pipe ! 
 
 Sa ! Sa ! 
 
 Leathery pipe ! 
 Then let him fill a pipe ! 
 
 Lord ! it makes me sick ! 
 O Lord ! it makes me sick ! 
 Lord ! it makes me leathery sick 
 
 Sa ! Sa ! 
 
 Leathery sick ! 
 O Lord ! it makes me sick ! 
 
 Then let him throw it off ! 
 Then let him throw it off ! 
 Then let him throw it leathery off ! 
 
 Sa ! Sa ! 
 
 Leathery off ! 
 Then let him throw it off ! 
 
 Now I again am well 
 
 Now he again is well ! 
 
 Now I again am leathery well ! 
 
 Sa ! Sa ! 
 
 Leathery well ! 
 Now I again am well ! 
 
 So grows the Fox a Bursch ! 
 So grows the Fox a Bursch ! 
 So grows the leathery Fox a Bursch ! 
 
 Sa 1 Sa ! 
 
 Fox a Bursch ! 
 So grows the Fox a Bursch ! " 
 
62 HYPERION. 
 
 At length the song was finished. Meanwhile, large tufts 
 and strips of paper had been twisted into the hair of the 
 Branders, as those are called who have been already one 
 term at the university, and then at a given signal were set 
 on fire, and the Branders rode round the table on chairs, 
 amid roars of laughter. When this ceremony was com 
 pleted, the president rose, and in a solemn voice pronounced 
 a long discourse, in which old college jokes were mingled 
 with much parental advice to young men on entering life, 
 and the whole was profusely garnished "with select 
 passages from the Old Testament. Then they all seated 
 themselves at the table, and the heavy beer-drinking set in, 
 as among the Gods and Heroes of the old Northern 
 mythology. 
 
 " Brander ! Brander " screamed a youth, whose face 
 was hot and flushed with supper and with beer; " Brander, 
 I say ! thou art a Doctor ! No a Pope ; thou art a 
 Pope, by ! 
 
 These words were addressed to a pale, quiet-looking 
 person, who sat opposite, and was busy in making a wretched 
 shaved poodle sit on his hind legs in a chair by his master s 
 side, and hold a short clay pipe in his mouth; a performance 
 to which the poodle seemed nowise inclined. 
 
 lt Thou art challenged 1 " replied the pale student, turning 
 from his dog, who dropped the pipe from his mouth, and 
 leaped under the table. 
 
 Seconds were chosen on the spot ; and the arms ordered, 
 namely, six mighty goblets, or bassglaser, filled to the 
 brim with foaming beer. Three were placed before each 
 duellist. 
 
 "Take your weapons!" cried one of the seconds, and each 
 of the combatants seized a goblet in his hand. 
 
 4 Strike!" 
 
 And the glasses rang, with a salutation like the crossing 
 of swords. 
 
 " Set to ! " 
 
 Each set the goblet to his lips. 
 
 "Out!" 
 
HYPERION. 63 
 
 And each poured the contents down his throat, as if he 
 were pouring them through a tunnel into a beer barrel. The 
 other two glasses followed in quick succession, hardly a long 
 breath drawn between. The pale student was victorious 
 he was first to drain the third goblet. He held it for a 
 moment inverted, to let the last drops fall out, and then 
 placing it quietly on the table, looked his antagonist in the 
 face, and said 
 
 "Hit!" 
 
 Then, with the greatest coolness, looking under the table, 
 he whistled for his dog. His antagonist stopped midway in 
 his third glass. Every vein in his forehead seemed burst 
 ing, his eyes were wild and bloodshot, his hand gradually 
 loosened its hold upon the table, and he sank and rolled 
 together like a sheet of lead. He was drunk. 
 
 At this moment a majestic figure came stalking down the 
 table, ghost-like, through the dim, smoky atmosphere. His 
 coat was off, his neck bare, his hair wild, his eyes wide 
 open, and looking straight before him, as if he saw some 
 beckoning hand in the air that others could not see. His 
 left hand was upon his hip, and in his right he held a drawn 
 sword extended, and pointing downward. Regardless of 
 every one, erect, and with a martial stride, he marched 
 directly along the centre of the table, crushing glasses and 
 overthrowing bottles at every step. The students shrunk 
 back at his approach ; till at length one, more intoxicated, 
 or more courageous than the rest, dashed a glass full of 
 beer into his face. A general tumult ensued, and the 
 student with the sword leaped to the floor. It was Von 
 Kleist. He was renowning it. In the midst of the uproar 
 could be distinguished the offensive words 
 
 " Arrogant ! Absurd I Impertinent ! Dummer Junge ! " 
 
 Von Kleist went home that night with no less than six 
 duels on his hands. He fought them all out in as many 
 days, and came off with only a gash through his upper lip, 
 and another through his right eyelid, from a dexterous 
 Suabian Schlager. 
 
64 HYPERION. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE WHITE LADY S SLIPPER AND THE PASSION-FLOWER. 
 
 THAT night Emma of Ilmenau went to her chamber with a 
 heavy heart, and her dusky eyes were troubled with tears. 
 She was one of those gentle beings who seem created only 
 to love and to be loved. A shade of melancholy softened 
 her character. She shunned the glare of daylight and of 
 society, and wished to be alone. Like the evening prim 
 rose, her heart opened only after sunset, but bloomed 
 through the dark night with sweet fragrance. Her mother, 
 on the contrary, flaunted in the garish light of society. 
 There was no sympathy between them. Their souls never 
 approached, never understood each other ; and words were 
 often spoken which wounded deeply. And, therefore, 
 Emma of Ilmenau went to her chamber that night with 
 tears in her eyes. 
 
 She was followed by her French chambermaid, Madeleine, 
 a native of Strasburg, who had grown old in the family. 
 In her youth she had been poor, and virtuous, because she 
 had never been tempted ; and, now that she had grown old, 
 and seen no immediate reward for her virtue, as is usual 
 with weak minds, she despaired of Providence, and regret 
 ted she had never been tempted. Whilst this unfortunate 
 personage was lighting the wax tapers on the toilet, ,and 
 drawing the bed-curtains, and tattling about the rbom, 
 Emma threw herself into an arm-chair, and, crossing her 
 hands in her lap, and letting her head fall upon her bosom, 
 seemed lost in a dream. 
 
 " Why have these gentle feelings been given me { " said 
 she in her heart. " Why have I been born with all these 
 warm affections, these ardent longings after what is good, 
 if they lead only to sorrow and disappointment *{ I would 
 love some one love him once and for ever devote myself 
 to him alone live for him die for him exist alone in 
 
HYPERION. 65 
 
 him ! But, alas ! in all this wide world there is none to 
 love me as I would be loved none whom I may love as I 
 am capable of loving. How empty, how desolate, seems the 
 world about me. Why has heaven given me these affections, 
 only to fall and fade ^ " 
 
 Alas ! poor child ! thou too must learn, like others, 
 that the sublime mystery of Providence goes on in silence, 
 and gives no explanation of itself no answer to our 
 impatient questionings ! 
 
 " Bless me, child, what ails you 1 " exclaimed Madeleine, 
 preceiving that Emma paid no attention to her idle gossip. 
 " When I was of your age " 
 
 "Do not talk to me now, good Madeleine. Leave me; I 
 wish to be alone ! " 
 
 " Well, here is something," continued the maid, taking a 
 billet from her bosom, " which I hope will enliven you. 
 When I was of your age " 
 
 " Hush ! hush ! " said Emma, taking the billet from the 
 hard hand of Madeleine. " Once more I beg you, leave me ! 
 I wish to be alone ! " 
 
 Madeleine took the lamp and retired slowly, wishing her 
 young mistress many good nights and rosy dreams. Emma 
 broke the seal of the note. As she read, her face became 
 deadly pale, and then, as quick as thought, a crimson blush 
 gleamed on her cheek, and her hands trembled. Tender 
 ness, pity, love, offended pride, the weakness and dignity of 
 a woman were all mingled in her look, changing and passing 
 over her fine countenance like cloud-shadows. She sunk 
 back in her chair, covering her face with her hands, as if 
 she would hide it from herself and Heaven. 
 
 "He loves me!" she said to herself; "loves me ! and is 
 married to another, whom he loves not ! and dares to tell 
 me this ! O, never never never ! And yet he is so 
 friendless and alone in this unsympathising world and an 
 exile, and homeless ! I can but pity him yet I hate him, 
 and will see him no more ! " 
 
 This short reverie of love and hate was broken by the 
 sound of a clear, mellow voice, which, in the universal 
 
 210 
 
66 HYPERION. 
 
 stillness of the hour, seemed almost like the voice of a 
 spirit. It was a voice, without the accompaniment of any 
 instrument, singing those sweet lines of Goethe 
 " Under the tree-tops is quiet now ; 
 In all the woodlands hearest thou 
 
 Not a sound ! 
 
 The little birds are asleep in the trees. 
 Wait ! wait . and soon, like these, 
 Sleepest thou ! " 
 
 Emma knew the voice, and started. She rushed to the 
 window to close it. It was a beautiful night, and the stars 
 were shining peacefully over the mountain of All-Saints. 
 The sound of the Neckar was soft and low ; nightingales 
 were singing among the brown shadows of the woods ; the 
 large red moon shone, like a ruby, in the horizon s ample 
 ring ; and golden threads of light seemed braided together 
 with the rippling current of the river. Tall and spectral 
 stood the white statues on the bridge. The outlines of the 
 hills, the castle, the arches of the bridge, and the spires and 
 roofs of the town were as strongly marked as if cut out of 
 pasteboard. Amid this fairy scene a little boat was float 
 ing silently down the stream. Emma closed the window 
 hastily, and drew the curtains close. 
 
 " I hate him ; and yet I will pray for him," said she, as 
 she laid her weary head upon that pillow, from which, but 
 a few months before, she thought she should never raise it 
 again. " O that I had died then ! I dare not love him, 
 but I will pray for him ! " 
 
 Sweet child ! If the face of the deceiver comes so often 
 between thee and Heaven, I tremble for thy fate ! The plant 
 that sprang from Helen s tears destroyed serpents ; would 
 that from thine might spring up heart s-ease some plant, 
 at least, to destroy the serpents in thy bosom ! Believe 
 me, upon the margin of celestial streams alone those simples 
 grow which cure the heartache : 
 
 And this the silent stars beheld, looking down from 
 Heaven, and told it not again. This, likewise, the Frau 
 Himmelhahn beheld, looking from her chamber window, 
 and was not so discreet as the silent stars. 
 
HYPERION. 67 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 GLIMPSES INTO CLOUD-LAND, 
 
 "THERE are many things which, having no corporeal 
 evidence, can be perceived and comprehended only by the 
 discursive energies of reason. Hence the ambiguous nature 
 of matter can be comprehended only by adulterated opinion. 
 Matter is the principle of all bodies, and is stamped with 
 the impression of forms. Fire, air, and water derive their 
 origin and principle from the scalene triangle. But the 
 earth was created from right-angled triangles, of which two 
 of the sides are equal. The sphere and the pyramid con 
 tain in themselves the figure of fire ; but the octaedron 
 was destined to be the figure of air, and the icosaedron of 
 water. The right-angled isosceles triangle produces from 
 itself a square, and the square generates from itself the 
 cube, which is the figure peculiar to earth. But the figure 
 of a beautiful and perfect sphere was imparted to the most 
 beautiful and perfect world, that it might be indigent of 
 nothing, but contain all things, embracing and comprehend 
 ing them in itself, and thus might be excellent and 
 admirable, similar to and in concord with itself, ever 
 moving musically and melodiously. If I use a novel 
 language, excuse me. As Apuleius says, pardon must be 
 granted to novelty of words, when it serves to illustrate the 
 obscurity of things." 
 
 These words came from the lips of the lion-like philosopher 
 who has been noticed before in these pages. He was sitting 
 with Flemming, smoking a long pipe. As the Baron said, 
 he was indeed a strange owl ; for the owl is a grave bird 
 a monk, who chants midnight mass in the great temple of 
 Nature an anchorite a pillar saint the very Simeon 
 Stylites of his neighbourhood. Such, likewise, was the 
 philosophical Professor. Solitary, but with a mighty 
 current, flowed the river of his life, like the Nile, without 
 
68 HYPERION. 
 
 a tributary stream, and making fertile only a single strip in 
 the vast desert. His temperament had been in youth a 
 joyous one; and now, amid all his sorrows and privations, 
 for he had many, he looked upon the world as a glad, 
 bright, glorious world. On the many joys of life he gazed 
 still with the eyes of childhood, from the far-gone Past 
 upward, trusting, hoping and upon its sorrows with the 
 eyes of age, from the distant Future downward, triumphant, 
 not despairing. He loved solitude, and silence, and candle 
 light, and the deep midnight. " For," said he, " if the 
 morning hours are the wings of the day, I only fold them 
 about me to sleep more sweetly ; knowing that, at its other 
 extremity, the day, like the fowls of the air, has an 
 epicurean morsel a parson s nose ; and on this oily 
 midnight my spirit revels and is glad." 
 
 Such was the Professor, who had been talking in a half- 
 intelligible strain for two hours or more. The Baron had 
 fallen fast asleep in his chair ; but Flemming sat listening 
 with excited imagination, and the Professor continued in 
 the following words, which, to the best of his listener s 
 memory, seemed gleaned here and there from Fichte s 
 Destiny of Man, and Schubert s History of the Soul 
 
 "Life is one and universal; its forms, many and 
 individual. Throughout this beautiful and wonderful 
 creation there is never-ceasing motion, without rest by 
 night or day, ever waving to and fro. Swifter than a 
 weaver s shuttle it flies from Birth to Death, from Death 
 to Birth ; from the beginning seeks the end, and finds it 
 not, for the seeming end is only a dim beginning of a new 
 outgoing and endeavour after the end. As the ice upon 
 the mountain, when the warm breath of the summer sun 
 breathes upon it, melts, and divides into drops, each of 
 which reflects an image of the sun ; so life, in the smile of 
 God s love, divides itself into separate forms, each bearing 
 in it and reflecting an image of God s love. Of all these 
 forms, the highest and most perfect in its God-likeness is the 
 human soul. The vast cathedral of Nature is full of holy 
 scriptures, and shapes of deep, mysterious meaning ; but all 
 
HYPERION. 69 
 
 is solitary and silent there ; no bending knee, no uplifted eye, 
 no lip adoring, praying. Into this vast cathedral comes the 
 human soul, seeking its Creator; and the universal silence is 
 changed to sound, and the sound is harmonious, and has a 
 meaning, and is comprehended and felt. It was an ancient 
 saying of the Persians, that the waters rush from the moun 
 tains and hurry forth into all the lands to find the Lord of 
 the Earth ; and the flame of the fire, when it awakes, gazes 
 no more upon the ground, but mounts heavenward to seek 
 the Lord of Heaven ; and here and there the Earth has 
 built the great watch-towers of the mountains, and they lift 
 their heads far up into the sky, and gaze ever upward and 
 around, to see if the Judge of the World comes not. Thus 
 in Nature herself, without man, there lies a waiting and 
 hoping, a looking and yearning, after an unknown somewhat. 
 Yes ; when above there, where the mountain lifts its head 
 over all others, that it may be alone with the clouds and 
 storms of Heaven, the lonely eagle looks forth into the 
 grey dawn, to see if the day comes not ; when by the moun 
 tain torrent the brooding raven listens to hear if the chamois 
 is returning from his nightly pasture in the valley; and 
 when the soon uprising sun calls out the spicy odours of 
 the thousand flowers, the Alpine flowers, with heaven s 
 deep blue, and the blush of sunset on their leaves, then 
 there awake in Nature, and the soul of man can see and 
 comprehend them, an expectation and a longing for a 
 future revelation of God s majesty. They awake, also, when, 
 in the fulness of life, field and forest rest at noon, and 
 through the stillness are heard only the song of the grass 
 hopper and the hum of the bee ; and when at evening the 
 singing lark up from the sweet-smelling vineyards rises, or 
 in the later hours of night Orion puts on his shining armour, 
 to walk forth into the fields of heaven. But in the soul of 
 man alone is this longing changed to certainty, and fulfilled. 
 For, lo ! the light of the sun and the stars shines through 
 the air, and is nowhere visible and seen ; the planets hasten 
 with more than the speed of the storm through infinite 
 space, and their footsteps are not heard; but where the 
 
70 HYPERION. 
 
 sunlight strikes the firm surface of the planets, where the 
 storm-wind smites the wall of the mountain cliff, there is 
 the one seen and the other heard. Thus is the glory of 
 God made visible, and may be seen, where in the soul of 
 man it meets its likeness changeless and firm-standing. 
 Thus, then, stands Man ; a mountain on the boundary 
 between two worlds its foot in one, its summit far-rising 
 into the other. From this summit the manifold landscape 
 of life is visible, the way of the Past and Perishable, which 
 we have left behind us ; and, as we evermore ascend, bright 
 glimpses of the daybreak of Eternity beyond us !" 
 
 Flemming would fain have interrupted this discourse at 
 times, to answer and inquire, but the Professor went on, 
 warming and glowing more and more. At length there was 
 a short pause, and Fleming said 
 
 " All these indefinite longings, these yearnings after an 
 unknown somewhat, I have felt and still feel within me ; 
 but not yet their fulfilment." 
 
 " That is because you have not faith," answered the Pro 
 fessor. " The present is an age of doubt, and disbelief, and 
 darkness, out of which shall arise a clear and bright Here 
 after. In the second part of Goethe s Faust, there is a 
 grand and striking scene, where, in the classical Walpurgis 
 Night, on the Pharsalian Plains, the mocking Mephisto- 
 pheles sits down between the solemn antique Sphinxes, and 
 boldly questions them, and reads their riddles. The red 
 light of innumerable watch-fires glare round about, and 
 shines upon the terrible face of the arch-scoffer ; while on 
 either side, severe, majestic, solemnly serene, we behold the 
 gigantic forms of the children of Chimseru, half buried in 
 the earth, their mild eyes gazing fixedly, as if they heard 
 through the midnight the swift rushing wings of the Stym- 
 phalides striving to outstrip the speed of Alcides arrows 1 
 Angry Griffins are near them ; and not far are Sirens, 
 singing their wondrous songs from the rocking branches of 
 the willow trees ! Even thus does a scoffing and unbelieving 
 Present sit down between an unknown Future and a too- 
 believing Past, and question and challenge the gigantic 
 
HYPERION. 71 
 
 forms of Faith, half-buried in the sands of Time, and gazing 
 forward steadfastly into the night, while sounds of anger and 
 voices of delight alternate vex and soothe the ear of man ! 
 But the time will come when the scul of man shall return 
 again child-like and trustful to its faith in God, and look 
 God in the face and die ; for it is an old saying, full of deep, 
 mysterious meaning, that he must die who hath looked upon 
 a God. And this is the fate of the soul, that it should die 
 continually. No sooner here on earth does it awake to its 
 peculiar being than it struggles to behold and comprehend 
 the Spirit of Life. In. the first dim twilight of its existence 
 it beholds this spirit, is pervaded by its energies is quick 
 and creative like the spirit itself, and yet slumbers away 
 into death after having seen it. But the image it has seen 
 remains ; in the eternal procreation, as a homogeneal exist 
 ence, is again renewed ; and the seeming death, from 
 moment to moment, becomes the source of kind after kind 
 of existences in ever-ascending series. The soul aspires 
 ever onward to love and to behold. It sees the image 
 more perfect in the brightening twilight of the dawn, in 
 the ever higher-rising sun. It sleeps again, dying in the 
 clearer vision ; but the image seen remains as a permanent 
 kind ; and the slurnberer awakes anew and ever higher 
 after its own image, till at length, in the full blaze of noon 
 day, a being comes forth, which, like the eagle, can behold 
 the sun and die not. Then both live on, even when this 
 bodily element, the mist and vapour through which the 
 young eagle gazed, dissolves and falls to earth." 
 
 " I am not sure that I understand you," said Flemming, 
 " but if I do, you mean to say, that as the body continually 
 changes and takes unto itself new properties, and is not the 
 same to-day as yesterday, so likewise the soul lays aside its 
 idiosyncrasies, and is changed by acquiring new powers, and 
 thus may be said to die. And hence, properly speaking, the 
 soul lives always in the Present, and has, and can have, no 
 Future ; for the Future becomes the Present, and the soul 
 that then lives in me is a higher and more perfect soul ; and 
 so onward for evermore." 
 
72 HYPERION. 
 
 " I mean -what I say," continued the Professor, " and can 
 find no more appropriate language to express my meaning 
 than that which I have used. But, as I said before, pardon 
 must be granted to the novelty of words, when it serves to 
 illustrate the obscurity of things. And I think you will see 
 clearly from what I have said, that this earthly life, when 
 seen hereafter from Heaven, will seem like an hour passed 
 long ago, and dimly remembered ; that, long, laborious, full 
 of joys and sorrows as it is, it will then have dwindled down 
 to a mere point, hardly visible to the far-reaching ken of the 
 disembodied spirit. But the spirit itself soars onward. 
 And thus death is neither an end nor a beginning. It is a 
 transition not from one existence to another, but from one 
 state of existence to another. No link is broken in the 
 chain of being, any more than in passing from infancy to 
 manhood, from manhood to old age. There are seasons of 
 reverie and deep abstraction which seem to me analogous 
 to death. The soul gradually loses its consciousness of what 
 is passing around it, and takes no longer cognisance of 
 objects which are near. It seems for the moment to have 
 dissolved its connexion with the body. It has passed, as it 
 were, into another state of being. It lives in another world. 
 It has flown over lands and seas ; and holds communion 
 with those it loves, in distant regions of the earth, and the 
 more distant heaven. It sees familiar faces, and hears 
 beloved voices, which to the bodily senses are no longer visible 
 and audible. And this likewise is death ; save that, when 
 we die, the soul returns no more to the dwelling it has left." 
 
 " You seem to take it for granted," interrupted Flemming, 
 Cc that in our reveries the soul really goes out of the body 
 into distant places, instead of summoning up their semblance 
 within itself by the power of memory and imagination." 
 
 " Something I must take for granted," replied the Pro 
 fessor. " We will not discuss that point now. I speak not 
 without forethought. Just observe what a glorious thing 
 human life is when seen in this light; and how glorious man s 
 destiny. I am ; thou art ; he is ! seems but a school-boy s 
 conjugation ; but therein lies a mysterious meaning. We 
 
HYPERION. 73 
 
 behold all round about us one vast union, in which no man 
 can labour for himself without labouring at the same time for 
 all others ; a glimpse of truth, which by the universal har 
 mony of things becomes an inward benediction, and lifts the 
 soul mightily upward. Still more so, when a man regards 
 himself as a necessary member of this union. The feeling of 
 our dignity and our power grows strong, when we say to 
 ourselves, My being is not objectless and in vain ; I am a 
 necessary link in the great chain, which, from the full 
 development of consciousness in the first man, reaches 
 forward into eternity. All the great, and wise, and good 
 among mankind, all the benefactors of the human race, 
 whose names I read in the world s history, and the still 
 greater number of those whose good deeds have outlived 
 their names, all those have laboured for me. I have 
 entered into their harvest. I walk the green earth which 
 they inhabited. I tread in their footsteps, from which 
 blessings grow. I can undertake the sublime task which 
 they once undertook, the task of making our common 
 brotherhood wiser and happier. I can build forward where 
 they were forced to leave off \ and bring nearer to perfection 
 the great edifice which they left uncompleted. And at 
 length I, too, must leave it, and go hence. O, this is the 
 sublimest thought of all ! I can never finish the noble 
 task ; therefore, so sure as this task is my destiny, I can 
 never cease to work, and consequently never cease to be. 
 What men call death cannot break off this task, which is 
 never-ending ; consequently no period is set to my being, 
 and I am eternal. I lift my head boldly to the threatening 
 mountain-peaks, and to the roaring cataract, and to the 
 storm-clouds swimming in the fire-sea overhead, and say I 
 am eternal, and defy your power ! Break, break over me ! 
 and thou Earth, and thou Heaven, mingle in the wild 
 tumult ! and ye Elements, foam and rage, and destroy this 
 atom of dust this body, which I call mine ! My will 
 alone, with its fixed purpose, shall hover brave and 
 triumphant over the ruins of the universe ; for I have 
 comprehended my destiny, and it is more durable than ye ! 
 
74 HYPERION. 
 
 It is eternal ; and I, who recognise it, I likewise am 
 eternal ! Tell me, my friend, have you no faith in this V 
 
 " I have," answered Flemming, and there was another 
 pause. He then said 
 
 " I have listened to you patiently and without interrup 
 tion. Now listen to me. You complain of the scepticism 
 of the age. This is one form in which the philosophic 
 spirit of the age presents itself. Let me tell you that 
 another form which it assumes is that of poetic reverie. 
 Plato of old had dreams like these, and the Mystics of the 
 Middle Ages ; and still their disciples walk in the cloud- 
 land and dream-land of this poetic philosophy. Pleasant 
 and cool upon their souls lie the shadows of the trees under 
 which Plato taught. From their whispering leaves comes 
 wafted across the noise of populous centuries a solemn and 
 mysterious sound, which to them is the voice of the Soul of 
 the World. All nature has become spiritualised and trans 
 figured ; and, rapt in beautiful, vague dreams of the real 
 and the ideal, they live in this green world, like the little 
 child in the German tale, who sits by the margin of a wood 
 land lake, and hears the blue heaven and the branches over 
 head dispute with their reflection in the water, which is the 
 reality and which the image. I willingly confess that such 
 day-dreams as these appeal strongly to my imagination. 
 Visitants and attendants are they of those lofty souls, 
 which, soaring ever higher and higher, build themselves 
 nests under the very eaves of the stars, forgetful that they 
 cannot live on air, but must descend to earth for food. Yet 
 I recognise them as day-dreams only ; as shadows, not 
 substantial things. What I mainly dislike in the New 
 Philosophy is the cool impertinence with which an old 
 idea, folded in a new garment, looks you in the face and 
 pretends not to know you, though you have been familiar 
 friends from childhood. I remember an English author, 
 who, in speaking of your German philosophies, says very 
 wisely Often, a proposition of inscrutable and dread 
 aspect, when resolutely grappled with, and torn from its 
 shady den, and its bristling entrenchments of uncouth 
 
HYPERION. 75 
 
 terminology, and dragged forth into the open light of 
 day, to be seen by the natural eye and tried by merely 
 human understanding, proves to be a very harmless truth, 
 familiar to us from old, sometimes so familiar as to be a 
 truism. Too frequently the anxious novice is reminded of 
 Dryden in the Battle of the Books; there is a helmet of 
 rusty iron, dark, grim, gigantic ; and within it, at the 
 farthest corner, is a head no bigger than a walnut. Can 
 you believe that these words ever came from the pen of 
 Thomas Carlyle ? He has himself taken up the uncouth 
 terminology of late, and many pure, simple minds are much 
 offended at it. They seem to take it as a personal insult. 
 They are angry, and deny the just meed of praise. It is, 
 however, hardly worth while to lose our presence of mind. 
 Let us rather profit as we may, even from this spectacle, 
 and recognise the monarch in his masquerade. For, hooded 
 and wrapped about with that strange and antique garb, 
 there walks a kingly, a most royal soul, even as the 
 Emperor Charles walked amid solemn cloisters under a 
 monk s cowl a monarch still in soul. Such things are not 
 new in the history of the world. Ever and anon they 
 sweep over the earth, and blow themselves out soon, and 
 then there is quiet for a season, and the atmosphere of 
 Truth seems more serene. Why would you preach to the 
 wind 1 Why reason with thunder-showers 1 Better sit 
 quiet, and see them pass over like a pageant, cloudy, 
 superb, and vast." 
 
 The Professor smiled self-complacently, but said not a 
 word. Flemming continued 
 
 " I will add no more than this ; there are many specula 
 tions in literature, philosophy, and religion, which, though 
 pleasant to walk in, and lying under the shadow of great 
 names, yet lead to no important result. They resemble 
 rather those roads in the Western forests of my native 
 land, which, though broad and pleasant at first, and lying 
 beneath the shadow of great branches, finally dwindle to a 
 squirrel-track, and run up a tree ! " 
 
 The Professor hardly knew whether he should laugh or 
 
76 HYPERION. 
 
 be offended at this sally ; and, laying his hand upon 
 Flemm ing s arm, he said seriously 
 
 "Believe me, my young friend, the time will come when 
 you will think more wisely on these things. And with you, 
 I trust, that time will soon come ; since it moves more 
 speedily with some than with others. For what is Time % 
 The shadow on the dial, the striking of the clock, the 
 running of the sand, day and night, summer and winter, 
 months, years, centuries. These are but arbitrary and 
 outward signs, the measure of Time, not Time itself. 
 Time is the Life of the Soul. If not this, then tell me 
 what is Time ? " 
 
 The high and animated tone of voice in which the Pro 
 fessor uttered these words aroused the Baron from his 
 sleep ; and, not distinctly comprehending what was said, 
 but thinking the Professor asked what time it was, he 
 innocently exclaimed : 
 
 " I should think it must be near midnight." 
 
 This somewhat disconcerted the Professor, who took his 
 leave soon afterward. When he was gone, the Baron 
 said 
 
 "Excuse me for treating your guest so cavalierly. His 
 philosophy annoyed me not a little, and I took refuge in 
 sleep. One would think, to judge by the language of this 
 sect, that they alone saw any beauty in Nature ; and, when 
 I hear one of them discourse, I am instantly reminded of 
 Goethe s Bacca-laurcus, when he exclaims : The world was 
 not, before I created it ; I brought the sun up out of the 
 sea ; with me began the changeful course of the moon ; the 
 day decked itself on my account; the earth grew green and 
 blossomed to meet me ; at my nod, in that first night, the 
 pomp of all the stars developed itself ; who but I set you 
 free from all the bonds of Philister-like, contracting 
 thoughts 1 I, however, emancipated as my mind assures 
 me I am, gladly pursue my inward light, advance boldly in 
 a transport peculiarly my own, the bright before me, and 
 the dark behind ! Do you not see a resemblance ? O, 
 they might be modest enough to confess, that one straggling 
 
HYPERION. 77 
 
 ray of light may, by some accident, reach the blind eyes of 
 even us poor, benighted heathens ! " 
 
 " Alas ! how little veneration we have," said Flemming. 
 " I could not help closing the discussion with a jest. An 
 ill-timed levity often takes me by surprise. On all such 
 occasions I think of a scene at the University, where, in the 
 midst of a grave discussion on the possibility of Absolute 
 Motion, a scholar said he had seen a rock split open, from 
 which sprang a toad, who could not be supposed to have 
 any knowledge of the external world, and consequently his 
 motion must have been absolute. The learned Professor 
 who presided on that occasion was hardly more startled and 
 astonished than was our learned Professor five minutes ago. 
 But come ; wind up your watch, and let us go to bed." 
 
 "By-the-way," said the Baron, "did you mind what a 
 curious head he has 1 There are two crowns upon it." 
 
 " That is a sign," replied Flemming, " that he will eat his 
 bread in two kingdoms." 
 
 "I think the poor man would be very thankful," said 
 the Baron, with a smile, " if he were always sure of eating 
 it in one. He is what the transcendentalists call a God- 
 intoxicated man ; and I advise him, as Santeul advised 
 Bossuet, to go to Patmos, and write a new Apocalypse." 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MILL-WHEELS AND OTHER WHEELS. 
 
 A FEW days after this the Baron received letters from his 
 sister, telling him that her physicians had prescribed a few 
 weeks at the Baths of Ems, and urging him to meet her 
 there before the fashionable season. 
 
 " Come," said he to Flemming, " make this short journey 
 with me. We will pass a few pleasant days at Ems, and 
 visit the other watering-places of Nassau. It will drive 
 away the melancholy day-dreams that haunt you. Perhaps 
 some future bride is even now waiting for you, with dim 
 
78 HYPERION. 
 
 presentiments and undefined longings, at the Serpent s 
 Bath." 
 
 11 Or some widow of Ems, with a cork leg ! " said Flem- 
 ming, smiling ; and then added, in a tone of voice half jest, 
 half earnest, " Certainly, let us go in pursuit of her. 
 
 Whoe er she be, 
 That not impossible she, 
 That shall command niy heart and me, 
 
 Where er she lie, 
 
 Hidden from mortal eye, 
 
 In shady leaves of destiny. " 
 
 They started in the afternoon for Frankfort, pursuing 
 their way slowly along the lovely Bergstrasse, famed 
 throughout Germany for its beauty, They passed the 
 ruined house where Martin Luther lay concealed after the 
 Diet of Worms, and through the village of Handschuh- 
 heimer, as old as the days of King Pepin the Short a 
 hamlet, lying under the hills, half-buried in blossoms and 
 green leaves. Close on the right rose the mountains of the 
 mysterious Odenwald ; and on the left lay the Neckar, like 
 a steel bow in the meadow. Farther westward, a thin, 
 smoky vapour betrayed the course of the Rhine ; beyond 
 which, like a troubled sea, ran the blue, billowy Alsatian 
 hills. Song of birds, and sound of evening bells, and 
 fragrance of sweet blossoms filled the air ; and silent and 
 slow sank the broad red sun, half-hidden amid folding 
 clouds. 
 
 " We shall not pass the night at Weinheim," said the 
 Baron to the postillion, who had dismounted to walk up the 
 hill leading to the town. "You may drive to the mill in 
 the village of Birkenau." 
 
 The postillion seized one of his fat horses by the tail, and 
 swung himself up to his seat again. They rattled over the 
 paved streets of Weinheim, and took no heed of the host of 
 the Golden Eagle, who stood so invitingly at the door of his 
 own inn ; and the ruins of Burg Windeck, above there, 
 
HYPERION. 79 
 
 on its mountain-throne, frowned at them for hurrying by, 
 without staying to do him homage. 
 
 "The old ruin looks well from the valley," said the Baron; 
 "but let us beware of climbing that steep hill. Most 
 travellers are like children; they must needs touch what 
 ever they behold. They climb up to every old broken tooth 
 of a castle which they find on their way ; get a toilsome 
 ascent and hot sunshine for their pains, and come down 
 wearied and disappointed. I trust we are wiser." 
 
 They crossed the bridge, and turned up the stream, pass 
 ing under an arch of stone, which serves as a gateway to 
 this enchanted valley of Birkenau. A cool and lovely 
 valley, shut in by high hills ; shaded by alder trees and tall 
 poplars, under which rushes the Wechsnitz, a noisy mountain 
 brook, that ever and anon puts its broad shoulder to the 
 wheel of a mill, and shows that it can labour as well as 
 laugh. At one of these mills they stopped for the night. 
 
 A mill forms as characteristic a feature in the romantic 
 German landscape as in the romantic German tale. It is 
 not only a mill, but likewise an ale-house and a rural inn ; 
 so that the associations it suggests are not of labour only, 
 but also of pleasure. It stands in the narrow defile, 
 with its picturesque thatched roof ; thither throng the 
 peasants, of a holiday ; and there are rustic dances under 
 the trees. 
 
 In the twilight of the fast-approaching summer night, 
 the Baron and Flemming walked forth along the borders 
 of the stream. As they heard it, rushing and gushing 
 among the stones and tangled roots, and the great wheel 
 turning in the current, with its never-ceasing plash! plash! it 
 brought to their minds that exquisite, simple song of Goethe, 
 the Youth and the Mill-brook. It was, for the moment, 
 a nymph which sang to them, in the voice of the waters. 
 
 " I am persuaded," said Flemming, " that in order fully 
 to understand and feel the popular poetry of Germany, one 
 must be familiar with the German landscape. Many sweet 
 little poems are the outbreaks of momentary feelings ; 
 words, to which the song of birds, the rustling of leaves, 
 
8o HYPERION. 
 
 and the gurgle of cool waters form the appropriate music. 
 Or perhaps I should say they are words which man has com 
 posed to the music of nature. Can you not, even now, 
 hear this brooklet telling you how it is on its way to the 
 mill, where at daybreak the miller s daughter opens her 
 window, and comes down to bathe her face in its stream, 
 and her bosom is so full and white, that it kindles the glow 
 of love in the cool waters ! " 
 
 " A most delightful ballad, truly," said the Baron. 
 " But, like many others of our little songs, it requires a 
 poet to feel and understand it. Sing them in the valley 
 and woodland shadows, and under the leafy roofs of garden 
 walks, and at night, and alone, as they were written. 
 Sing them not in the loud world, for the loud world 
 laughs such things to scorn. It is Miiller who says, in 
 that little song, where the maiden bids the moon good 
 evening 
 
 This song was made to be sung at night, 
 And he who reads it in broad daylight, 
 Will never read the mystery right ; 
 And yet it is childlike easy ! 
 
 He has written a great many pretty songs, in which the 
 momentary, indefinite longings and impulses of the soul of 
 man find an expression. He calls them the Songs of a 
 Wandering Horn-Player. There is one among them much 
 to our present purpose. He expresses in it the feeling of 
 unrest, and desire of motion, which the sight and sound of 
 running waters often produce in us. It is entitled 
 " Whither *{ " and is worth repeating to you. 
 
 I heard a brooklet gushing 
 
 From its rocky fountain near, 
 Down into the valley rushing, 
 So fresh and wondrous clear. 
 
 I know not what came o er me, 
 
 Nor who the counsel gave, 
 But I must hasten downward, 
 
 All with my pilgrim-stave. 
 
HYPERION. 8 1 
 
 Downward, and ever farther, 
 
 And ever the brook beside ; 
 And ever fresher murmured, 
 
 And ever clearer the tide. 
 
 Whither, brooklet, say ! 
 Thou hast, with thy soft murmur, 
 Murmured my senses away. 
 
 What do I say of a murmur ? 
 
 That can no murmur be ; 
 Tis the water-nymphs that are singing 
 
 Their roundelays under me. 
 
 Let them sing, my friend, let them murmur 
 
 And wander merrily near : 
 The wheels of a mill are going 
 
 In every brooklet clear. " 
 
 " There you have the poetic reverie," said Flemming, 
 " and the dull prose commentary and explanation in matter 
 of fact. The song is pretty, and was probably suggested 
 by some such scene as this which we are now beholding. 
 Doubtless all your old national traditions sprang up in the 
 popular mind as this song in the poet s." 
 
 " Your opinion is certainly correct/ answered the Baron; 
 " and yet all this play of poetic fancy does not prevent me 
 from feeling the chill night air and the pangs of hunger. 
 Let us go back to the mill, and see what our landlady has 
 for supper. Did you observe what a loud, sharp voice she 
 has 1 " 
 
 " People always have who live in mills, and near 
 waterfalls." 
 
 On the following morning they emerged unwillingly from 
 the green, dark valley, and journeyed along the level 
 highway to Frankfort, where in the evening they heard 
 the glorious Don Giovanni of Mozart. Of all operas, 
 this was Flemming s favourite. What rapturous flights 
 of sound ! what thrilling, pathetic chimes ! what wild, 
 joyous revelry of passion 1 what a delirium of sense ! what 
 an expression of agony and woe ! all the feelings of 
 
 220 
 
82 HYPERION. 
 
 suffering and rejoicing humanity sympathised with and 
 finding a voice in those tones. Hemming and the Baron 
 listened with ever-increasing delight. 
 
 " How wonderful this is ! " exclaimed Flemming, 
 transported by his feelings. " How the chorus swells and 
 dies, like the wind of summer ! How those passages 
 of mysterious import seem to wave to and fro, like the 
 swaying branches of trees : from which anon some solitary 
 sweet voice darts off like a bird, and floats away and 
 revels in the bright, warm sunshine ! And then mark I 
 how, amid the chorus of a hundred voices and a 
 hundred instruments, of flutes, and drums, and trumpets, 
 this universal shout and whirlwind of the vexed air, 
 you can so clearly distinguish the melancholy vibration 
 of a single string touched by the finger, a mournful, 
 sobbing sound ! Ah, this is indeed human life ! where, 
 in the rushing noisy crowd, and amid sounds of gladness, 
 and a thousand mingling emotions, distinctly audible to the 
 ear of thought, are the pulsations of some melancholy string 
 of the heart, touched by an invisible hand." 
 
 Then came in the midst of these excited feelings the ballet, 
 drawing its magic net about the soul. And soon, from the 
 tangled yet harmonious mazes of the dance, came forth a 
 sylph-like form, her scarf floating behind her, as if she were 
 fanning the air with gauze-like wings. Noiseless as a 
 feather or a snow-flake falls did her feet touch the earth. 
 She seemed to float in the air, and the floor to bend and 
 wave under her, as a branch when a bird alights upon it, 
 and takes wing again. Loud and rapturous applause 
 followed each wonderful step, each voluptuous movement ; 
 and with a flushed cheek and burning eye, and bosom 
 panting to be free, stood the gracefully majestic figure for 
 a moment still, and then the winged feet of the swift 
 dancing girls glanced round her, and she was lost again in 
 the throng. 
 
 " How truly exquisite this is ! " exclaimed the Baron, 
 after joining loudly in the applause. "What a noble 
 figure ! What grace ! What attitudes ! How much soul 
 
HYPERION. 83 
 
 in every motion ! How much expression in every gesture ! 
 I assure you, it produces upon me the same effect as a 
 beautiful poem. It is a poem. Every step is a word ; and 
 the whole together a poem ! " 
 
 The Baron and Flamming were delighted with the scene, 
 and at the same time exceedingly amused with the counten 
 ance of an old prude in the next box, who seemed to look 
 upon the whole magic show with such feelings as Michal, 
 Saul s daughter, experienced, when she looked from her 
 window and saw King David dancing and leaping with his 
 scanty garments. 
 
 " After all," said Flemming, " the old French priest was 
 not so far out of the way, when he said, in his coarse dialect, 
 the dance is the Devil s procession; and paint and orna 
 ments the whetting of the Devil s sword ; and the ring that 
 is made in dancing the Devil s grindstone, whereon ho 
 sharpens his sword ; and, finally, that a ballet is the pomp 
 and mass of the Devil, and whosoever entereth therein, 
 entereth into his pomp and mass ; for the woman who 
 singeth is the prioress of the Devil, and they that answer 
 are clerks, and they that look on are parishioners, and the 
 cymbals and flutes are the bells, and the musicians that 
 play are the ministers of the Devil." 
 
 " No doubt this good lady near us thinks so likewise," 
 answered the Baron, laughing ; " but she likes it, for all 
 that." 
 
 When the play was over, the Baron begged Flemming to 
 sit still, till the crowd had gone. 
 
 " I have a strange fancy," said he, " whenever I come to 
 the theatre, to see the end of all things. When the crowd 
 is gone, and the curtain raised again to air the house, and 
 the lamps are all out, save here and there one behind the 
 scenes, the contrast with what has gone before is most 
 impressive. Everything wears a dream-like aspect. The 
 empty boxes and stalls the silence the smoky twilight, 
 and the magic scene dismantled, produce in me a strange, 
 mysterious feeling. It is like a dim reflection of a theatre 
 in water, or in a dusty mirror ; and reminds me of some of 
 
84 HYPERION. 
 
 Hoffman s wild tales. It is a practical moral lesson, a 
 commentary on the play, and makes the show complete." 
 
 It was truly as he said ; only tenfold more desolate, 
 solemn, and impressive ; and produced upon the mind the 
 effect we experience when slumber is suddenly broken, and 
 dreams and realities mingle, and we know not yet whether 
 we sleep or wake. As they at length passed out through 
 the dimly-lighted passage, they heard a vulgar-looking 
 fellow, with a sensual face and shaggy whiskers, say to 
 some persons who were standing near him, and seemed to 
 be hangers-on of the playhouse 
 
 " I shall run her six nights at Munich, and then take her 
 on to Vienna." 
 
 Flemming thought he was speaking of some favourite 
 horse. He was speaking of his beautiful wife, the ballet- 
 dancer. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 WHAT most interested our travellers in the ancient city of 
 Frankfort was neither the opera nor the Ariadne of Dan- 
 necker, but the house in which Goethe was born, and the 
 scenes he frequented in his childhood, and remembered in 
 his old age. Such, for example, are the walks around the 
 city, outside the moat ; the bridge over the Maine, with the 
 golden cock on the cross, which the poet beheld and mar 
 velled at when a boy ; the cloister of the Barefooted Friars, 
 through which he stole with mysterious awe to sit by the 
 oilcloth-covered table of old Rector Albrecht ; and the 
 garden in which his grandfather walked up and down 
 among fruit-trees and rose-bushes, in long morning-gown, 
 black velvet cap, and the antique-leather gloves, which he an 
 nually received as mayor on Pipers-Doomsday, representing 
 
HYPERION. 85 
 
 a kind of middle personage between Alcinous and 
 Laertes. Thus, O Genius ! are thy footprints hallowed ; 
 and the star shines for ever over the place of thy nativity. 
 
 " Your English critics may rail as they list," said the 
 Baron, while he and Flemmiiig were returning from a stroll 
 in the leafy gardens, outside the moat ; " but, after all, 
 Goethe was a magnificent old fellow. Only think of his 
 life ; his youth of passion, alternately aspiring and despond 
 ing, stormy, impetuous, headlong; his romantic manhood, 
 in which passion assumes the form of strength ; assiduous, 
 careful, toiling without haste, without rest ; and his 
 sublime old age, the age of serene and classic repose, 
 where he stands like Atlas, as Claudian has painted him in 
 the battle of the Giants, holding the world aloft upon his 
 head, the ocean-streams hard frozen in his hoary locks." 
 
 "A good illustration of what the world calls his 
 indifferentism." 
 
 "And do you know I rather like this indifferentism? 
 Did you never have the misfortune to live in a community 
 where a difficulty in the parish seemed to announce the end 
 of the world 1 or to know one of the benefactors of the 
 human race, in the very storm and pressure period of his 
 indiscreet enthusiasm 1 If you have, I think you will see 
 something beautiful in the calm and dignified attitude which 
 the old philosopher assumes." 
 
 " It is a pity that his admirers had not a little of this 
 philosophic coolness. It amuses me to read the various 
 epithets which they apply to him : The Dear, dear Man ! 
 The Life-enjoying Man ! The All-sided One ! The Repre 
 sentative of Poetry upon Earth ! The Many-sided Master- 
 Mind of Germany ! His enemies rush into the other 
 extreme, and hurl at him the fierce names of Old Humbug ! 
 and Old Heathen ! which hit like pistol-bullets." 
 
 " I confess he was no saint." 
 
 " No ; his philosophy is the old ethnic philosophy. You 
 will find it all in a convenient and concentrated portable 
 form in Horace s beautiful Ode to Thaliarcus. What I 
 most object to in the old gentleman is his sensuality." 
 
86 HYPERION. 
 
 "O nonsense ! Nothing can be purer than the Iphigenia \ 
 it is as cold and passionless as a marble statue." 
 
 " Yery true ; but you cannot say the same of some of the 
 Roman Elegies, and of that monstrous book, the Elective 
 Affinities." 
 
 "Ah, my friend, Goethe is an artist, and looks upon all 
 things as objects of art merely. Why should he not be 
 allowed to copy in words what painters and sculptors copy 
 in colours and in marble 1 " 
 
 "The artist shows his character in the choice of the sub 
 ject. Goethe never sculptured an Apollo, nor painted a 
 Madonna. He gives us only sinful Magdalens and rampant 
 Fauns. He does not so much idealise as realise." 
 
 " He only copies nature." 
 
 " So did the artist who made the bronze lamps of Pompeii. 
 Would you hang one of those in your hall ? To say that a 
 man is an artist, and copies nature, is not enough. There 
 are two great schools of art ; the imitative and the imagin 
 ative. The latter is the most noble, and the most enduring ; 
 and Goethe belonged rather to the former. Have you read 
 Menzel s attack upon him ? " 
 
 " It is truly ferocious. The Silesian hews into him lustily. 
 I hope you do not take sides with him." 
 
 "By no means. He goes too far. He blames the poet 
 for not being a politician. He might as well blame him for 
 not being a missionary to the Sandwich Islands." 
 
 " And what do you think of Eckermann 1 " 
 
 " I think he is a kind of German Boswell. Goethe knew 
 he was drawing his portrait, and sat for it accordingly. 
 He works very hard to make a Saint Peter out of an old 
 J upiter, as the Catholics did at Rome." 
 
 " Well, call him Old Humbug, or Old Heathen, or what 
 you please ; I maintain that, with all his errors and 
 shortcomings, he was a glorious specimen of a man." 
 
 " He certainly was. Did it ever occur to you that he 
 was in some points like Ben Franklin ? a kind of rhymed 
 Ben Franklin ? The practical tendency of his mind was 
 the same ; his love of science was the same ; his benignant, 
 
HYPERION. 87 
 
 philosophic spirit was the same ; and a vast number of his 
 little poetic maxims and soothsayings seem nothing more 
 than the worldly wisdom of Poor Richard versified." 
 
 " What most offends me is, that now every German 
 jackass must have a kick at the dead lion." 
 
 " And every one who passes through Weimar must throw 
 a book upon his grave, as travellers did of old a stone upon 
 the grave of Manfredi, at Benevento. But of all that has 
 been said or sung, what most pleases me is, Heine s Apolo 
 getic, if I may so call it ; in which he says, that the minor 
 poets, who nourished under the imperial reign of Goethe, 
 resemble a young forest, where the trees first show their 
 own magnitude after the oak of a hundred years, whose 
 branches had towered above and overshadowed them, has 
 fallen. There was not wanting an opposition, that strove 
 against Goethe, this majestic tree. Men of the most war 
 ring opinions united themselves for the contest. The 
 adherents of the old faith, the orthodox, were vexed, that in 
 the trunk of the vast tree, no niche with its holy image 
 was to be found ; nay, that even the naked Dryads of 
 paganism were permitted to play their witchery there ; and 
 gladly, with consecrated axe, would they have imitated the 
 holy Boniface, and levelled the enchanted oak to the 
 ground. The followers of the new faith, the apostles of 
 Liberalism, were vexed, on the other hand, that the tree 
 could not serve as a Liberty Tree, or, at any rate, as a 
 barricade. In fact, the tree was too high; no one could 
 plant the red cap upon its summit, or dance the Carmagnole 
 beneath its branches. The multitude, however, venerated 
 this tree for the very reason that it reared itself with such 
 independent grandeur, and so graciously filled the world 
 with its odour, while its branches, streaming magnificently 
 toward heaven, made it appear as if the stars were only 
 the golden fruit of its wondrous limbs. Do you not think 
 that beautiful ?" 
 
 "Yes, very beautiful ! And I am glad to see that you 
 can find something to admire in my favourite author, not 
 withstanding his frailties ; or, to use an old German saying, 
 
88 HYPERION, 
 
 that you can drive the hens out of the garden without 
 trampling down the beds." 
 
 "Here is the old gentleman himself!" exclaimed 
 Flemming. 
 
 " Where ? " cried the Baron, as if for the moment he 
 expected to see the living figure of the poet walking before 
 them. 
 
 " Here at the window that full-length cast. Excellent, 
 is it noil He is dressed as usual, in his long yellow 
 nankeen surtout, with a white cravat crossed in front. 
 What a magnificent head ! and what a posture ! He stands 
 like a tower of strength. And, by Heavens ! he was nearly 
 eighty years old when that was made." 
 
 " How do you know ? " 
 
 "You can see by the date on the pedestal." 
 
 " You are right. And yet how erect he stands, with his 
 square shoulders braced back, and his hands behind him. 
 He looks as if he were standing before the fire. I feel 
 tempted to put a live coal into his hand, it lies so invitingly 
 half open. Gleim s description of him, soon after he went 
 to Weimar, is very different from this. Do you recollect it ? " 
 
 " No, I do not." 
 
 " It is a story which good old father Gleim used to tell 
 with great delight. He was one evening reading the 
 Gottingen Musen-Almanach in a select society at Weimar, 
 when a young man came in, dressed in a short green 
 shooting-jacket, booted and spurred, and having a pair of 
 brilliant black Italian eyes. He in turn offered to read ; 
 but finding probably the poetry of the Musen-Almanach of 
 that year rather too insipid for him, he soon began to 
 improvise the wildest and most fantastic poems imaginable, 
 and in all possible forms and measures, pretending all the 
 while to read from the book. < That is either Goethe or 
 the Devil, said good old father Gleim to Wieland, who sat 
 near him. To which the Great I of Osmannstadt replied, 
 It is both, for he has the Devil in him to-night : and at 
 such times he is like a wanton colt, that flings out before 
 and behind, and you will do well not to go too near him ! " 
 
HYPERION. 89 
 
 " Very good ! " 
 
 " And now the noble figure is but mould. Only a few- 
 months ago those majestic eyes looked for the last time on 
 the light of a pleasant spring morning. Calm, like a god, 
 the old man sat, and with a smile seemed to bid farewell to 
 the light of day, on which he had gazed for more than 
 eighty years. Books were near him, and the pen, which 
 had just dropped, as it were, from his dying fingers. 
 Open the shutters, and let in more light ! were the last 
 words that came from those lips. Slowly stretching forth 
 his hand, he seemed to write in the air; and as it sank 
 down again and was motionless, the spirit of the old man 
 departed." 
 
 " And yet the world goes on. It is strange how soon, 
 when a great man dies, his place is filled ; and so com 
 pletely, that he seems no longer wanted. But let us step 
 in here. I wish to buy that cast." 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE DAYLIGHT OF THE DWARFS, AND THE FALLING STAR. 
 
 AFTER lingering a day or two in Frankfort, the two friends 
 struck across through Hochheim to the Rhine, and then up 
 among the hills of the Rheingau to Schlangcnbad, where 
 they tarried only to bathe and dine, and then pursued their 
 way to Langenschwalbach. The town lies in a valley, with 
 gently-sloping hills around it, and long avenues of poplars 
 leading forth into the fields. One interminable street cuts 
 the town in twain ; and there are old houses with curious 
 faces carved upon their fronts, and dates of the olden time. 
 Our travellers soon sallied forth from their hotel, impatient 
 to drink the strength-giving waters of the fountains. They 
 continued their walk far up the valley under the poplars. 
 
90 HYPERION. 
 
 The new grain was waving in the fields ; the birds singing 
 in the trees and in the air ; and everything seemed glad, 
 save a poor old man, who came tottering out of the woods 
 with a heavy bundle of sticks on his shoulders. 
 
 Returning upon their steps, they passed down the valley 
 and through the long street to the tumble-down old Lutheran 
 church. A flight of stone steps leads from the street to the 
 green terrace or platform on which the church stands, and 
 which, in ancient times, was the churchyard, or, as the 
 Germans more devoutly say, God s-acre ; where generations 
 are scattered like seeds, and that which is sown in corruption 
 shall be raised hereafter in incorruption. On the steps stood 
 an old man a very old man holding a little girl by the 
 hand. He took off his greasy cap as they passed, and 
 wished them good day. His teeth were gone; he could 
 hardly articulate a syllable. The Baron asked him how old 
 the church was. He gave no answer, but, when the 
 question was repeated, came close up to them, and taking 
 off his cap again, turned his ear attentively, and said, 
 
 " I am hard of hearing." 
 
 " Poor old man ! " said Flemming ; " he is as much a ruin 
 as the church we are entering. It will not be long before he, 
 too, shall be sown as seed in this God s-acre ! " 
 
 The little girl ran into a house close at hand, and brought 
 out the great key. The church door swung open, and descend 
 ing a few steps, they passed through a low-roofed passage 
 into the church. All was in ruin. The gravestones in the 
 pavement were started from their places ; the vaults 
 beneath yawned ; the roof above was falling piecemeal ; 
 there were rents in the old tower ; and mysterious passages, 
 and side-doors with crazy flights of wooden steps, leading 
 down into the churchyard. Amid all this ruin, one thing 
 only stood erect ; it was a statue of a knight in armour, 
 standing in a niche under the pulpit. 
 
 " Who is this 1 " said Flemming to the old sexton ; " who 
 is this that stands here so solemnly in marble, and seems to 
 be keeping guard over dead men below 1 " 
 
 "I do not know," replied the old man; "but I have 
 
HYPERION. 91 
 
 heard my grandfather say it was the statue of a great 
 warrior." 
 
 "There is history for you!" exclaimed the Baron. 
 " There is fame ! To have a statue of marble, and yet 
 have your name forgotten by the sexton of your parish, who 
 can remember only that he once heard his grandfather say 
 that you were a great warrior." 
 
 Hemming made no reply, for he was thinking of the days 
 when, from that old pulpit, some bold reformer thundered 
 down the first tidings of a new doctrine, and the roof echoed 
 with the grand old hymn of Martin Luther. 
 
 When he communicated his thoughts to the Baron, the 
 only answer he received was 
 
 " After all, what is the use of so much preaching ? Do 
 you think the fishes that heard the sermon of St. Anthony 
 were any better than those who did not 1 I commend to 
 your favourable notice the fish sermon of this saint, as 
 recorded by Abraham a Santa Clara. You will find it in 
 your favourite Wonder-Horn." 
 
 Thus passed the day at Langenschwalbach ; and the even 
 ing at Alle"e-Saal was quite solitary, for as yet no company 
 had arrived to fill its chambers, or sit under the trees before 
 the door. The next morning, even Hemming and the 
 Baron were gone ; for the German s heart was beating with 
 strong desire to embrace his sister, and the heart of his 
 friend cared little whither he went, so be it he were not too 
 much alone. 
 
 After a few hours drive they were looking down from 
 the summit of a hill directly upon the house-tops of Ems. 
 There it lay, deep sunk in the hollow beneath them, as if 
 some inhabitant of Sirius, like him spoken of in Voltaire s 
 tale of Micromegas, held it in the hollow of his hand. High 
 and peaked rise the hills that throw their shadows into this 
 romantic valley, and at their base winds the river Lahn. 
 Our travellers drove through the one long street, composed 
 entirely of hotels and lodging-houses. Sick people looked 
 out of the windows as they passed. Others were walking 
 leisurely up and down, beneath the few decapitated trees, 
 
92 HYPERION. 
 
 which represent a promenade ; and a boy, with a blue frock 
 and crimson cap, was driving three donkeys down the 
 street. In short, they were in a fashionable watering-place, 
 as yet sprinkled only by a few pattering drops of the 
 summer rain of strangers, which generally follows the first 
 hot days. 
 
 On alighting at the London Hotel, the Baron found not 
 his sister, but only a letter from her, saying she had changed 
 her mind and gone to the Baths of Franconia. This was a 
 disappointment, which the Baron pocketed with the letter, 
 and said not a word more about either. It was his way 
 his philosophy in small things and great. In the evening 
 they went to an aesthetic tea, at the house of the Frau 
 Kranich, the wife of a rich. banker of Frankfort. 
 
 " I must tell you about this Frau Kranich," said the 
 Baron to Flemming, on the way. "She is a woman of 
 talent and beauty, and just in the prime of life ; but, 
 unfortunately, very ambitious. Her mania is to make a 
 figure in the fashionable world ; and to this end she 
 married a rich banker of Frankfort, old enough to be her 
 father, not to say her grandfather, hoping, doubtless, that 
 he would soon die ; for if ever a woman wished to be a 
 widow, she is that woman. But the old fellow is tough, 
 and won t die. Moreover he is deaf, and crabbed, and 
 penurious, and half the time bedridden. The wife is a 
 model of virtue, notwithstanding her weakness. She 
 nurses the old gentleman as if he were a child. And, 
 to crown all, he hates society, and will not hear of his 
 wife s receiving or going into company." 
 
 " How, then, can she give soirees ? n asked Flemming. 
 
 " I was just going to tell you," continued the Baron. 
 " The gay lady has no taste for long evenings with the old 
 gentleman in the back chamber; for being thus chained, 
 like a criminal under Mezentius, face to face with a dead 
 body. So she puts him to bed first, and " 
 
 " Gives him opium." 
 
 " Yes, I dare say : and then gives herself a soiree, with 
 out his knowing anything about it. This course of deception 
 
HYPERION. 93 
 
 is truly hateful in itself, and must be particularly so to her, 
 for she is not a low or an immoral woman ; but one of those 
 who, not having strength enough to complete the sacrifice 
 they have had strength enough to commence, are betrayed 
 into a life of duplicity and falsehood." 
 
 They had now readied the house, and were ushered into 
 a room gaily lighted and filled with guests. The hostess 
 came forward to receive them, dressed in white, and sailing 
 down the room like a swan. When the customary 
 salutations had passed, and Flamming had been duly 
 presented, the Baron said, not without a certain degree of 
 malice, 
 
 " And, my dear Frau Kranich, how is your good husband 
 to-night 1 " 
 
 This question was about as discreet as a cannon-ball. But 
 the lady replied in the simplicity of her heart, and not in 
 the least disconcerted, 
 
 " The same as ever, my dear Baron. It is astonishing 
 how he holds out. But let us not talk of these things now. 
 I must introduce your friend to his countryman, the Grand 
 Duke of Mississippi ; alike remarkable for his wealth, his 
 modesty, and the extreme simplicity of his manners. He 
 drives only six horses. Besides, he is known as a man of 
 learning and piety ; has his private chapel, and private 
 clergyman, who always preaches against the vanity of 
 worldly riches. He has also a private secretary, whose sole 
 duty it is to smoke to him, that he may enjoy the aroma of 
 Spanish cigars, without the trouble of smoking." 
 
 " Decidedly a man of genius ! " 
 
 Here Flemming was introduced to his illustrious country 
 man ; a person who seemed to consist chiefly of linen, such 
 a display did he make of collar, bosom, and wristbands. 
 
 " Pray, Mr. Flemming, what do you think of that 
 Rembrandt 1 ?" said he, pointing to a picture on the wall. 
 " Exquisite picture ! The grandeur of sentiment and 
 splendour of chiaroscuro are of the first order. Just 
 observe the liquidity of the water, and the silveriness of 
 the clouds. Great power ! There is a bravura of handling 
 
94 HYPERION. 
 
 in that picture, sir, which it requires the eye of the 
 connoisseur to appreciate." 
 
 " Yes, a most undoubted copy ! " 
 
 And here their conversation ended ; for at that moment 
 the little Moldavian Prince Jerkin made his way through the 
 crowd, with his snuff-box as usual in his hand, and hurried 
 up to Flemming, whom he had known in Heidelberg. He 
 was eager to let every one know that he spoke English, 
 and in his haste began by making a mistake. 
 
 "Good-bye! Good-bye! Mr. Flemming!" said he, 
 instead of good evening. " I am ravished to see you in 
 Ems. Nice place ; all that there is of most nice. I drink 
 my water and am good ! Do you not think the Frau 
 Kranich has a very beautiful leather ? " 
 
 He meant skin. Flemming laughed outright ; but it was 
 not perceived by the Prince, because at that moment he 
 was pushed aside, in the rush of a gallopade, and Flemming 
 beheld his face no more. At the same moment the Baron 
 introduced a friend of his, who also spoke English, and said 
 
 " You will sup with me to-night. I have some Rhine- 
 wine, which will be seduction to you." 
 
 Soon after the Baron, stood with an impassioned, 
 romantic lady leaning on his arm, examining a copy of 
 Raphael s Fornarina. 
 
 "Ah! I wish I had been the Fornarina," sighed the 
 impassioned, romantic lady. 
 
 " Then, my dear madam," replied the Baron, " I wish 
 I had been Raphael." 
 
 And so likewise said to himself a very tall man, with 
 fiery red hair, and fancy whiskers, who was waltzing round 
 and round in one spot, and in a most extraordinary waist 
 coat ; thus representing a fiery, floating light, to warn men 
 of the hidden rocks on which the breath of vanity drives 
 them shipwreck. At length his partner, tired of spinning, 
 sank upon a sofa, like a child s top when it reels and falls. 
 
 " You do not like the waltz ? " said an elderly French 
 gentleman, remarking the expression of Flemming s 
 countenance. 
 
HYPERION. 95 
 
 l O yes ; among the figurantes of the opera. But 1 
 confess it sometimes makes me shudder to see a young rake 
 clasp his arms round the waist of a pure and innocent girl. 
 What would you say were you to see him sitting on a sofa 
 with his arms round your wife 1 " 
 
 " Mere prejudice of education," replied the French gentle 
 man. " I know that situation. I have read all about 
 it in the Bibliotheque de Romans Choisis ! " 
 
 And merrily went the dance ; and bright eyes and flushed 
 cheeks were not wanting among the dancers : 
 
 " And they waxed red, and waxed warm, 
 And rested, panting, arm in arm ; " 
 
 and the Strauss-waltzes sounded pleasantly in the ears of 
 Flamming, who, though he never danced, yet, like Henry 
 of Ofterdingen, in the romance of Novalis, thought to 
 music. The wheeling waltz set the wheels of his fancy 
 going. And thus the moments glided on, and the footsteps 
 of Time were not heard amid the sound of music and 
 voices. 
 
 But suddenly this scene of gaiety was interrupted. The 
 door opened wide, and the short figure of a grey-haired old 
 man -presented itself, with a flushed countenance and wild 
 eyes. He was but half dressed, and in his hand held 
 a silver candlestick without a light. A sheet was wound 
 round his head, like a turban ; and he tottered forward 
 with a vacant, bewildered look, exclaiming, 
 
 " I am Mahomet, the king of the Jews ! " 
 
 At the same moment he fell in a swoon, and was borne 
 out of the room by the servants. Elemming looked at the 
 lady of the festival, and she was deadly pale. For a 
 moment all was confusion ; and the dance and the music 
 stopped. The impression produced on the company was at 
 once ludicrous and awful. They tried in vain to rally. 
 The whole society was like a dead body, from which the 
 spirit had departed. Ere long the guests had all dispersed, 
 and left the lady of the mansion to her mournful, expiring 
 lamps, and still more mournful reflections. 
 
96 HYPERION. 
 
 "Truly," said Flemming to the Baron, as they wended 
 their way homeward, "this seems not like reality, but like 
 one of the sharp contrasts we find in novels. Who shall 
 say, after this, that there is not more romance in real life 
 than we find written in books ! " 
 
 " Not more romance," said the Baron, " but a different 
 romance." 
 
 A still more tragic scene had been that evening enacted 
 in Heidelberg. Just as the sun set, two female figures 
 walked along the romantic woodland pathway leading to 
 the Angel s Meadow, a little green opening on the brow of 
 one of the high hills which see themselves in the Neckar, 
 and hear the solemn bells of Kloster-Neuburg. The even 
 ing shadows were falling broad and long ; and the cuckoo 
 began to sing. 
 
 " Cuckoo ! Cuckoo ! " said the eldest of the two figures, 
 repeating an old German popular rhyme 
 
 " Cuckoo ! Cuckoo ! 
 Tell me true, 
 Tell me, fair and fine, 
 How long must I unmarried pine ? " 
 
 It was the voice of an evil spirit that spoke in the person 
 of Madeleine ; and the pale and shrinking figure that 
 walked by her side and listened to those words was Emma 
 of Ilmenau. A young man joined them where the path 
 turns into the thick woodlands ; and they disappeared 
 among the shadowy branches. It was the Polish Count. 
 
 The forget-me-nots looked up to heaven, with their meek 
 blue eyes, from their home in the Angel s Meadow. Calmly 
 stood the mountain of All Saints, in its majestic, holy 
 stillness; the river flowed so far below, that the murmur 
 of its waters was not heard ; there was not a sigh of the 
 evening wind among the leaves not a sound upon the 
 earth nor in the air ; and yet that night there fell a star 
 from heaven ! 
 
HYPERION. 97 
 
 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 for ever. The Baron was going to 
 Berlin to join his sister ; and Flemming, driven forward by 
 the restless spirit within him, longed once more for a change 
 of scene, and was to start for 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 
 Elizabeth 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 was as yet no shadows. But 
 at length the shadows came transparent and faint out 
 lines, 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 linden- 
 trees 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 
 
 221 
 
98 HYPERION. 
 
 phantom, stood the grey 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 the nightingales, 
 that nowhere 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 
 vicissitudes of time and war that had battered down 
 its walls, and left it " tenantless, save to the cranny ing 
 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, noise 
 less. 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 grand 
 mother. 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 
 
HYPERION. 99 
 
 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 hap 
 pier as I grow older. When I compare my sensations and 
 enjoyments now with what they were ten years ago, 
 the comparison is vastly in favour of the present. Much 
 of the fever and fretfulness of life is over. The world and 
 I look each other more calmy 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, feverish spirit than yours. Do not 
 think that 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 momentery 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 conies 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 rest 
 less, 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 favourite occupa 
 tions 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 sympathise with her beloved children. 
 She sits there so eternally calm and self-possessed, so very 
 motherly and serene, and cares so little whether the heart 
 
ioo HYPERION. 
 
 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-humoured again, and then 
 she smiles." 
 
 "I think we must confess, however," continued Flem- 
 ming, "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 our own 
 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 town more." 
 
 " Yes," interrupted the Baron ; " and presently you will 
 love the town 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 con 
 tented with his own insignificant person, very self-com 
 placent, to be continually occupied with himself and his own 
 thoughts. To say the least, a town life makes one more 
 tolerant and liberal in one s 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 castle clock 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 
 
HYPERION. 1 01 
 
 were heard. Inarticulate words seemed to blot the foggy 
 air, as if written on wet paper. These were the bells of 
 Handschusheimer, 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 veer 
 ing, golden weather-cocks, that were swimming in the 
 moonlight, 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 grey 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 
 
102 
 
 HYPERION 
 
 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 THE THIRD. 
 
 " 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, pendu 
 lous branches almost to the ground. White clouds sail 
 aloft, and vapours fret the blue sky with silver threads. 
 
io 4 HYPERION. 
 
 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 anyone 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 blos 
 soms ! How pleasant the fresh, breezy country air, dashed 
 with brine from the meadows ! How pleasant, 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. Beneath lies the public walk with 
 trees, like a fathomless, black gulf, into whose silent dark 
 ness 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, revolving like 
 
HYPERION. 105 
 
 the sail of a windmill. 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 block of white marble. 
 
 Under such a green, triumphal arch, reader, with the 
 odour of flowers about thee, and the song of birds, shalt 
 thou pass onward into the enchanted land, as through the 
 ivory gate of dreams 1 and as a prelude and majestic march, 
 one sweet human voice, 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. Tis done ; 
 The tempest ceases. Bold and bright 
 
 The rainbow shoots from hill to hill ; 
 Down sinks the sun ; on presses night ; 
 
 Mont B]anc 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. 
 
io6 HYPERION. 
 
 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 supremo, 
 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 
 
HYPERION. 107 
 
 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 the soul 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, 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 Thai. There it stood, holy and high 
 and pure, the bride of heaven, veiled and clothed in white, 
 and lifting 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 
 che face, where she sits majestically aloft in the solitude of 
 
loS HYPERION. 
 
 the mountains ; for her face is hard and stern, and turns 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 Kerstelen- 
 bach comes dashing down the Maderaner Thai, from its 
 srowy 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, un 
 heard amid the roar of the great torrent below, come 
 streams of snow-white 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 above ; 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 mighty 
 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 this gloomy 
 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 
 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. 
 
HYPERION. 109 
 
 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 
 of 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. Through the 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 dis 
 traught. He stopped only to pluck one bright blue flower, 
 which bloomed alone in the vast desert, and looked up at 
 him, as if to say, " 0, 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 the sun. 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 ! " 
 
i io HYPERION. 
 
 After lingering a few hours in the cold, desolate valley, 
 he climbed in the afternoon the steep May en-Wand, on the 
 Griinsel, 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 rustic bridge, 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 half way 
 down the double cascade mingles into one. Thus he pursued 
 his way down the Hasli Thai 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 romantic valley, 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 wood 
 land cliffs, seen only, but unheard the fluted columns 
 breaking into mist, and fretted with frequent spires and 
 
HYPERION. in 
 
 ornaments of foam, and not unlike the towers of a Gothic 
 church inverted. There, in one white sheet of foam, the 
 Riechenbach pours 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 play 
 mate, and revelled with them 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 wayworn 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. 
 holy tavern ! miraculous tavern t holy, because no 
 carking cares are there, nor weariness, nor pain j 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, si ! 
 and Signor, nd / " 
 
 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 Banz des Yaches. 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 in writing 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. 
 
ii2 HYPERION. 
 
 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 them 
 selves, 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 Lauterbrunnen, where 
 the cloud-hooded Monk and pale Virgin stand like Saint 
 Francis and his Bride of Snow ; and around thee are fields, 
 and orchards, and hamlets green, from which the church 
 bells answer each other at evening ! The evening sun 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. 
 
HYPERION. 113 
 
 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 inn 
 keeper 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 in, 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-humoured face turned 
 from the book as Flemming entered, and a good-humoured 
 voice exclaimed 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! Mr. Flemming ! Is it you cr your appari 
 tion < \ 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 B-ighi. Mr. 
 Berkley was an Englishman of fortune ; a good-humoured, 
 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 ground-work 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 
 
 222 
 
it 4 HYPERION. 
 
 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 
 Grey ; 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 
 sunrisft on the mountain- top." 
 
 " No, 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 1 
 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 women 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 Travellers Book 
 
 Beware of the Raven of Zurich ! 
 
 Tis 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 ! 
 
HYPERION. 115 
 
 this Interlachen ! It is the loveliest spot on the face of 
 the earth," he continued, stretching out both arms, as if to 
 embrace the object of 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 roof 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 a clear, cloud 
 less 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 in, and laid aside 
 their shawls and hats, and exchanged a word or two with 
 Berkley. To Fleraming they were all unknown. The con 
 versation turned upon the various excursions of the day. 
 Some had been at the Staubbach ; others at the Grindel- 
 wald ; others at the Lake of Thun ; and nobody before had 
 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 
 
n6 HYPERION. 
 
 visibly upon his forehead and in his eye ; and the heart of 
 man is written upon his 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 beauti 
 ful. 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, and told 
 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 at 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 1 " 
 
 " What young lady with the soft voice 1 " 
 
HYPERION, 117 
 
 " 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." 
 
 " What is her name ? " 
 
 " Ashburton." 
 
 "Is she beautiful?" 
 
 " Not beautiful ; 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 
 narrow windows, 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 
 
ii8 HYPERION. 
 
 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 
 lie hear her voice. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE EVENING AND THE MORNING STAB. 
 
 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 thereupon 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 in the 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 0, her looks had something excellent, 
 That wants a name ! " 
 
HYPERION. 119 
 
 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 deW angelica riso, the lightning of the 
 angelic smile. 
 
 And 0, 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, for ever 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. 
 
 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 
 for evermore. 
 
 No wonder, then, that Flemming felt his heart drawn 
 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. 
 
130 HYPERION. 
 
 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 after 
 wards, whenever at evening he thought of this evening at 
 Interlachen. To-day he had seen more clearly the vision, 
 and his restless soul grew 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 the landscape 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 ap 
 proached 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 ^ou. I like to 
 see people cheerful and happy. Why give way to sadness 
 in this beautiful world t \ " 
 
 "Ah! this beautiful world!" said Flemming, with a 
 smile. " Indeed, I know not what to think of it. Some 
 times 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 
 saddest of us there are bright days like this, when we feel 
 as if we could take the great world in our arms. 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 
 
HYPERION. 121 
 
 secret sorrows, which the world knows not ; and oftentimes 
 we call a man cold when he is only sad." 
 
 " And who says we do not ?" 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 your 
 self 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. 
 Hemming 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 lose, 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 the beauty and excellence of 
 woman s 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 
 
122 HYPERION. 
 
 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 un mingled 
 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 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 his head, 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 ! n 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A EAINY 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 inn, and then 
 back to the stable, but no farther. The sunburnt guide 
 may sit at the ale-house door, and welcome and the boat 
 man whistle and curse the clouds at his own sweet will ; but 
 no foot stirs abroad for all that no traveller moves if he 
 
HYPERION. 123 
 
 has time to stay. The rainy day gives 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 sound of the eaves-dropping 
 rain. It gives me time to finish some of these rough sketches." 
 
 " It is a pleasant pastime," said Flemming ; " and I per 
 ceive 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 absurU ! " 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 try 
 ing 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 
 Marlowe s Faust 
 
 " 0, thou art fairer than the evening air, 
 Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars J " 
 
i2 4 HYPERION. 
 
 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 j 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 favoured her with some 
 comments and bursts of admiration. 
 
 " This is truly a very beautiful sketch of Murten and the 
 battle-field ! How quietly the landscape sleeps there by the 
 lake, after the battle ! Did you ever read the ballad of 
 Veit Weber, the shoemaker, 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 : 
 
 1 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. " 
 
 c 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 
 Home, if I mistake not. This is surely a head of Homer 1 " 
 
 " 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 image 
 of 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 
 
HYPERION. 125 
 
 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 1 " 
 
 "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 canvas." 
 
 " And what is the image in your fancy 1 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 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 1 
 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 mean 
 ing of the word. It is the creative power by which the soul 
 of man makes itself known, through some external manifest 
 ation or outward sign. As we can always hear the voice of 
 
126 HYPERION. 
 
 God, walking in the garden, in the cool of the day, or under 
 the starlight, 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 pre 
 exists in Nature, and Nature is reproduced in Art. As 
 vapours from 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. 
 
 1 And the clear region where twas born 
 Round in itself encloses, 
 
 Taking this view of Art, I think we understand more 
 easily the skill of the artist, and the difference between 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 
 
HYPERION. 127 
 
 great soul. Statues, paintings, churches, poems, are but 
 shadows of himself ; shadows in marble, colours, 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 semblance 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 embody 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 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 home 
 like, 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 Frauleins so tender and true." 
 
 " I always think of men with pipes and beer, and women 
 with knitting- work." 
 
 " Oh ! those are English prejudices," exclaimed Flem 
 ming. " 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 one of your English 
 critics says, of groceries, of brown papers, filled with 
 greasy cakes and slices of bacon, and of fryings in frowsy 
 
128 HYPERION. 
 
 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 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 time out of mind. Their 
 names are written all over the walls perhaps some 
 further record of them is 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 vapours are already rolling away over the Campagna 
 seaward. 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, as of old. 
 Before him the antique house of Claude Lorraine casts its 
 
HYPERION. 129 
 
 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 weathercocks. 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 staircase 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, lifelike, godlike ! 
 
 " 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 
 for ever, 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 perfec 
 tion, having himself taken some of the first steps. Thus he 
 recalls the hour when that broad canvas was first stretched 
 upon its frame, and Raphael stood before it, and laid the 
 first colours 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 
 
 223 
 
130 HYPERION. 
 
 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 
 grey ruins of an antique world receive him. From the 
 palace of the Caesars he looks down int.o the Forum, or 
 towards the Coliseum ; or westward sees the last sun-sKine 
 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 canvas ? " 
 
 Fot>lish 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 
 her 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 of 
 hoar antiquity, and whose very bells have been baptised, 
 and see the carved oaken stalls in the choir where so many 
 generations of monks have sat and sung, and the tombs 
 where they now sleep in silence, to awake no more to their 
 
HYPERION. 131 
 
 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 colours. 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 unloosened 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, with apples in their hands; the patriarcli 
 Abraham, with a tree growing out of his body, and his 
 descendants sitting like owls 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 nai ve, so child 
 like, 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 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 bought as a present for himself. This 
 was the first time that Flemming had been sorry to see the 
 good-natured man, whose presence now interrupted the 
 delightful conversation he was carrying on "under four eyes" 
 with Mary Ashburton. He really thought him tedious, 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 
 
132 HYPERION. 
 
 too soon for Hemming. 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 
 Ang61ique, 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 Angelique, either with her 
 father s permission or without, to attend the dissection of 
 an author upon whom ho was to lecture. He soon gave 
 proofs of this to Mary Ashburton. 
 
 " What books have we here for afternoon reading 1 " said 
 Flemming, taking a volume from the table, when they had 
 returned from the dining-room. " O, it is Uhland s poems. 
 Have you read anything of his ^ He and Tieck are 
 generally considered 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. 
 Do you repeat the German after me, and I will translate to 
 you. Pfinysten ivar, das Fest der Freude / " 
 
HYPERION. 133 
 
 " I should never persuade my unwitting 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 : 
 
 " Twas 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. 
 
 1 Sir Knight ! your name and scutcheon ? say. 
 
 Should I speak it here, 
 
 Ye would stand aghast with fear 1 
 
 I m 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, 
 
 Torchlight 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, faded, to the ground. 
 
134 HYPERION. 
 
 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 : 
 
 1 that draught was very cool ! 
 
 Each the father s breast embraces, 
 Son and daughter ; and their faces 
 Colourless grew utterly, 
 Whichever way 
 
 Looks the fear- struck father grey, 
 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 tells its 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 f 
 Golden and red above it 
 The clouds float gorgeously. 
 
HYPERION. 135 
 
 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 mine eye. 
 
 c And sawest thou on the turrets 
 The king and his royal bride, 
 And the wave of their crimson mantl&s, 
 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 I hardly 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 when beholding a 
 perfect reflection of an old tower in the sea. We look at 
 it as if it were not a mere shadow in the water ; and yet 
 
136 HYPERION. 
 
 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 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 ; as glow-worms, which gleam with such a 
 spiritual light in the shadows of evening, when brought in 
 where the candles are 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 cool 
 ness 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. 
 
HYPERION. 137 
 
 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 1 
 
 Take, boatman, thrice thy fee ; 
 
 Take I give it willingly ; 
 
 For, invisible to thee, 
 
 Spirits twain have crossed with me ! " 
 
 "0, 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 striking picture. But 
 I cannot turn to it. No matter. He describes the spirit 
 of the good old man, returning to earth on a bright sum 
 mer morning, and standing amid the golden corn, and the 
 red and blue flowers, and mildly greeting the reapers as of 
 old. 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 1 " 
 
 " 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 a 
 grave. To read their poems is like wandering through a 
 village churchyard on a summer evening, reading the 
 inscriptions upon the grave-stones, and recalling sweet 
 images of the departed ; while above you, 
 
1^8 HYPERION. 
 
 " 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 Mat- 
 thisson s ? " 
 
 "Yes, and they dp 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, and seems to 
 have filled the melancholy bard with more than wonted 
 inspiration." 
 
 " I should very much like 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. In 
 stead 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, 0, thither, 
 Into the Silent Land ? 
 
 Into the Silent Land ! 
 
 To you, ye boundkss regions 
 
 Of all perfection ! Tender morning-visions 
 
 Of beauteous souls ! The Future s pledge and baud ! 
 
 Who in Life s battle firm doth stand 
 
 Shall bear Hope s tender blossoms 
 
 Into the Silent Land ! 
 
 Land ! Land ! 
 
 For all the broken-hearted, 
 
 The mildest herald by our fate allotted 
 
 Beckons, and with inverted torch doth stand, 
 
HYPERION. 139 
 
 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 conscious 
 ness of love the first fluttering of its silken wings the 
 first rising sound and breath of that wind 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 re 
 ceived 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 1 What had she done to be so tempted 
 in her weakness, and perish 1 Why didst thou suffer her 
 gentle affections to lead her thus astray 1 " 
 
 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 pro 
 vidence ! " 
 
140 HYPERION. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 TAKE CARE. 
 
 FAIR is the valley of Lauterbrunnen, with its green meadows 
 and overhanging cliffs. The ruined castle of TJnspunnen 
 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, yon 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 night rain. 
 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 Lauterbrunnen, 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 Sch reek-horn, and 
 the Schwarz-horn, all those sublime apostles of Nature, 
 whose sermons are avalanches. Did you ever behold 
 anything more grand 1 " 
 
 " 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 halfway 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 
 
HYPERION. 141 
 
 the glaciers stood 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 ! 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 it is possible you have 
 never been at Chamouni % " 
 
 " Never. The great marvel has never been seen 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 cool 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 beautiful valley lies between : and how, along 
 the dusty road, the herdsman blows his horn, and travellers 
 come and go in charabancs, like Punch and Judy in a 
 
i 4 2 HYPERION. 
 
 show -box. He knows already how romantic ladies sketch 
 romantic scenes ; 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 
 mechanic, 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 saluta 
 tion : and, after the manner of travelling apprentices, asked 
 charity with the confident a4r 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 a little distance, on the grass, and 
 began to play and sing. Wonderful and many were the 
 soft 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 strange 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 
 " 0, 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 
 
HYPERION. 143 
 
 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 : 
 
 11 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 j 
 
 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 ! 
 
 S he 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 Bias ; waved his hand in 
 the air, and walked quickly down the valley, singing 
 "Ade! Ade!" 
 
144 HYPERION. 
 
 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 spoke 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 the passing 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 ! " 
 
HYPERION. 145 
 
 0, 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 reveres, 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, arid the voices that praise are mute, and 
 reflection cometh like twilight, and the maiden, in her day 
 dreams, counted the number of her friends, some voice in 
 the sacred silence of her thoughts might whisper his name ! 
 
 They were sitting together one morning on the green 
 flowery meadow, under the ruins of Burg TJnspunnen. 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 about the Rhine, 
 and one very old one about 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." 
 
 224 
 
146 HYPERION. 
 
 " With the greatest pleasure. Where will you have the 
 scene 1 Here, or in the Black Forest 1 " 
 
 " In the Black Forest, by all means ! Begin." 
 
 "I will unite this ruin and the forest together. But 
 first promise not to interrupt me. If you snap the golden 
 threads of thought, they will float away on the air like the 
 film of the gossamer, and I shall never be able to recover 
 them." 
 
 "I promise." 
 
 " Listen, then, to the Tradition of THE FOUNTAIN os 1 
 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 
 Biilach, 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 little 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 a chamber of this old tower, with his 
 hands clasped together, and resting upon an open 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 
 
HYPERION. 147 
 
 soul through his eyes up into heaven, as the evening sun, 
 through parting summer clouds, seems to draw into its 
 bosom the vapours of the earth. O, it was a lovely 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 this 
 lofty tower, through the mist, and murk, 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, antiquated tome, it 
 seemed as if some angel opened for him the gates of Paradise; 
 and already he was known in the land 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 1 
 Lady, he was in love ! Have you ever been in love 1 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 crushed with 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 threadbare cassock, dared 
 
I 4 8 HYPERION. 
 
 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 have 
 forgotten ; but which, if he had forgotten them, he would 
 have wished again to remember. Such were the linden- 
 trees of Biilach, 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 music in his thoughts, which you, lady, mistook 
 for rhyme. 
 
 " Suddenly, with a melancholy clang, the convent clock 
 struck twelve. It roused the Student Hieronymus from 
 his dream ; and rang in his ears, like the iron hoofs of the 
 steeds of Time. The magic 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, sweet-chiming 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 his tears. 
 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 
 
HYPERION. 149 
 
 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 mingled with the roar of the pines 
 above him ; 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 perma 
 nent shapes arose, shapes familiar to his mind, yet 
 forgotten and remembered again, as the fragments of 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, nickering 
 motion. And, amid the crowd that thronged those streets, 
 he boheld faces once familiar and dear to him ; and heard 
 
150 HYPERION. 
 
 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 over it. Start 
 ling, 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. " 
 
HYPERION. 1.51 
 
 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. Oh, 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 for ever," said 
 Flemming, rather abruptly. 
 
 Berkley stared. 
 
 "Indeed! Pray what is the matter 1 You look as pale 
 as a ghost ! " 
 
 " And have good reason to look pale," replied Flemming, 
 bitterly. " Hoffman says, in one of his note-books, that on 
 the eleventh of March, at half-past eight o clock, precisely, 
 
ip HYPERION. 
 
 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 maiden s 
 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 excite 
 ment. " 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 way with 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 ; adorns 
 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 rarefied delights. 1 
 
 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 parlred. 
 
HYPERION. 153 
 
 She was married afterwards to another, who knew some 
 thing 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. 
 
 "0, 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 Flemimng, 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 
 
I 54 HYPERION. 
 
 flowers of life into love potions, which, after all, do not 
 immortalise, but only 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 proverb, The king never dies. But perhaps you 
 have never heard, that at the court of Naples, when 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 solemn 
 mockery we offer him his accustomed food, but are 
 constrained to 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." 
 
HYPERION. 155 
 
 "0, my friend," interrupted Berkley, "if you see the 
 finger of Providence so distinctly in every part 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 
 fore, 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 alike, 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 Berkley started 
 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 THE FOURTH. 
 
 "Mortal, they softly say, 
 
 Peace to thy heart ! 
 We, too, yes, mortal, 
 
 Have been as thou art ; 
 Hope-lifted, doubt-depressedj 
 
 Seeing in part, 
 Tried, troubled, tempted, 
 
 Sustained, as thou art." 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A MISERERE. 
 
 IN the Orlando Tnnamorato, 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 some 
 what 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." 
 
HYPERION. 157 
 
 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 divestures, called 
 weepers, stand in housings made about the tomb ; " and, 
 above all, swells the vast dome of heaven, with its star- 
 mouldings, and the naming constellations, like the mosaics 
 in the dome of St. Peter s. Have you not heard funeral 
 psalms from the chantry 1 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 1 
 
 I know not how this Romanesque, and at times flam 
 boyant, style of architecture may please the critics. They 
 may wish, perhaps, that I had omitted some of my many 
 ornaments my arabesques, and roses, and fantastic spouts, 
 and holy-roods, and Galilee-steeples. But would it then 
 have been Romanesque *? 
 
 But perhaps, gentle reader, thou art one of those who 
 think the days of romance gone for ever. 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 ! 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 
 
158 HYPERION. 
 
 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 birthright 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 outer 
 most 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 in 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 0, 
 this lassitude, this weariness, 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, 
 
HYPERION. 159 
 
 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 ear shall hear them, save thine own ! 
 And, to cheer thy solitary labour, 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 appre 
 hensions, carrying critic calumny and squint-eyed detraction 
 mainly against the wind of wisdom and judgment." 
 
 In secula seculorum ! Amen ! 
 
160 HYPERION. 
 
 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 pur 
 chase happiness at the expense of principle. But the 
 resolute will of a strong man scorns such means, and strug 
 gles nobly with his foe to achieve great deeds. Therefore, 
 whosoever thou art that sufferest, try not to dissipate tky 
 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 1 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 
 labour of his life foreshadowed from the beginning. But 
 
HYPERION. 161 
 
 the life 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 melan 
 choly 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 for ever 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 associa 
 tions are nought. The genius of the place speaks not to 
 them. Even on battle-fields, where the voice of this genius 
 is 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 Ron- 
 cesvalles 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 under 
 neath, 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 
 
 225 
 
1 62 HYPERION. 
 
 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 by 
 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 Linnseus 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 j 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 ! 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 women all say 
 he is a very domestic man, and makes a good husband ; 
 
HYPERION. 163 
 
 which, under the rose, is only a more polite way of saying 
 he is henpecked. 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 heyday 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 continually lantern-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 
 quickly 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 wriggling 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 humour. " 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 1 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 ? 
 
164 HYPERION. 
 
 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 1 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, natu 
 rally speak in figures and similitudes. They do not on that 
 account feel less deeply. This is obvious in our most 
 common modes of speech. It depends upon the individual." 
 
 "Kyrie Eleyson ! " 
 
 " 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 1 " 
 
 " 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 south-west, with almost unbroken volleys of distant 
 thunder. The wind seemed to be storming a cloud redoubt ; 
 
HYPERION. 165 
 
 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 iri the wet grass, by the 
 road-side, with their hands and eyes lifted to heaven, 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 Inns 
 bruck 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 rush 
 ing 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 appear 
 ance. 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 vapours heavenward, 
 and hear the startling blast of the archangel s trump sound 
 ing 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 
 
166 HYPERION. 
 
 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 succeed 
 ing hollow rolling and tramping on the wet earth; 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 inextinguishable laughter 
 of the gods. 
 
 The travellers on the morrow lingered not long in Inns 
 bruck. 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 re 
 minded 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 Angu- 
 laffer s castle in Oberon. After gazing awhile at these 
 motionless sentinels, they went forth, and strolled through 
 the 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. 
 
HYPERION. 167 
 
 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 was nearly dark. He was lying 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 Inter- 
 lachen, with its Franciscan cloister, and the Square Tower 
 of the ruins. In a pendant, overhead, stood the German 
 mechanic, as Saint Yitus ; 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, "To-whit ! to-whoo ! " Then the 
 whole scene changed, and he thought himself a monk s-head 
 on a gutter-spout ; and it rained dismally ; and Berkley was 
 standing under with an umbrella, laughing ! 
 
 In other words, Flemming was in a raging fever, and 
 delirious. He remained in this state for a week. The first 
 
1 68 HYPERION. 
 
 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 Flemmmg 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 Hoffman 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 fiowers, and perhaps 
 wearing on his head a little velvet cap. Or you will find 
 him sitting by the chimney-corner in the great chair, smok 
 ing his ancestral pipe, with shaggy eyebrows, and eyes like 
 birds nests under the eaves of a house, and a mouth like a 
 Nuremberg nut-cracker 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. 
 
 Deaths heads, and such mementoes, 
 Her grandmother and worm-eaten aunts left 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 
 
HYPERION. 169 
 
 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 
 Konigsberg ; 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 Konigsberg 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 himself many 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 grey, and his thin lips 
 closely pressed together with an expression of not unpleas- 
 ing irony. This strange-looking personage began to bow his 
 way through the crowd, with quick, nervous, hinge-like 
 
i 7 o HYPERION. 
 
 motions, much resembling those of a marionette. He had 
 a hoarse voice, and such a rapid utterance, that although 
 I understand 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 Hoffman, 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 
 grey 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 j 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 
 
HYPERION. 171 
 
 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 birthday 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 humour was gone. 
 Of all his gibes, 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 chapfallen. 
 The conversation was of death and the grave. And when 
 one of his friends said that life was not the highest good, 
 Hoffman interrupted him, exclaiming, with a startling earn 
 estness, * 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 aman 
 uensis 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 for ever 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 sensa 
 tion, though his mind remained vigorous. Feeling no more 
 
172 HYPERION. 
 
 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 bedside, and begged her to fold his motionless hands 
 together. Then, as he raised his eyes to heaven, she heard 
 him say, 4 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 in anger. 
 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 inquietude of hope and fear, the tears of regret, 
 the feebleness of purpose, the pressure of want, the deser 
 tion 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 
 
HYPERION, 173 
 
 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 humour, 
 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 un 
 healthy 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 firebrand, 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 mocking through 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 notic 
 ing 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. Sometimes we 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. Sea 
 sons of unhealthy, dreamy, vague delight are followed by 
 
174 HYPERION. 
 
 seasons of weariness 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 the 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 these 
 who bow down upon their knees to drink of those 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 Shakespeare 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 now go on with the Phantasy-Pieces in 
 Callot s manner." 
 
 " By-the-way, who was this Oallot ? " 
 
 " He was a Loraine painter of the seventeenth century, 
 celebrated for his wild and grotesque conceptions. These 
 sketches of Hoffmann are imitations of his style/ 
 
 "And which of them shall I read to you next? The 
 Bitter Gliick ; or the Musical Sufferings of John Kreisler ; 
 or that exquisite story of the Golden Jar, wherein is 
 depicted the life of Poesy, in this commonplace world of 
 ours ? " 
 
 " Bead the Golden Jar." 
 
 And thereupon Berkley began to read the story of the 
 Student Ansel mus, and his adventures with the gold-green 
 snakes, the bronzed apple-woman, and Veronica s blue 
 eyes, together with whatsoever more is written in that 
 incomprehensible tale of wonders. But long ere he had 
 made an end, Flemming was lapped in the Elysium of 
 
HYPERION. 175 
 
 CHAPTER IV, 
 
 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 labourers 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 handful of 
 houses on the brow of a breezy hill, the church and inn 
 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 inn-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 pro 
 fusion 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 calicoes ; and opposite sat an old woman 
 behind a table, which was loaded with gingerbread. 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. 
 
1 76 HYPERION. 
 
 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. 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 Schondorfer ; " 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. 
 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 in her girdle, came out of the inn, and asked 
 Flemming what he would please to order for breakfast. 
 
 Breakfast was soon ready, and was served 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 noon was over. Day, like a weary 
 pilgrim, had reached the western gate of heaven, and Evening 
 
HYPERION. 177 
 
 stooped down to unloose the latchets of his sandal-shoon. 
 Flemnring 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 fret-work 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 tornbs 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, no 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 visitor, 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 to 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 he is transformed into something 
 
 226 
 
178 HYPERION. 
 
 less 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 long delay. 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 ! He 
 spake well who said that graves are the footprints 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 Yaughan, wrote 
 those few lines which have made death lovely 
 
 " 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. 
 
 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. 
 
HYPERION. 179 
 
 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 ! 
 
 If a star were confined into a tomb, 
 
 Her captive flame must needs burn there ; 
 
 But when the hand that locked her up gave room, 
 She d shine through all the sphere. 
 
 Father of eternal life, and all 
 
 Created glories under thee ! 
 Resume thy spirit from this world of thrall 
 
 Into true liberty. 
 
 Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill 
 
 My perspective, still as they pass, 
 Or else remove me hence unto that hill 
 
 Where I shall need no glass." 
 
 Such were Flemnring 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 Ishel. 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 enjoyed the 
 silence within and without. Hour after hour slipped by 
 unheeded, as he sat lost in his reverie. At length, his 
 
i8o HYPERION. 
 
 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 V. 
 
 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 school-house. 
 There are two parasite trees, with their outspread branches 
 nailed against the white walls, ike 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 spoiling out of their lessons. The clock strikes twelve, 
 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 
 
HYPERION. 181 
 
 into a rough wooden trough. A travelling-carriage without 
 horses stands at the inn-door, and a postillion in red jacket 
 is talking with a blacksmith, who wears blue woollen 
 stockings and a leather apron. Beyond is a stable, and still 
 farther 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. 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 beheld from 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 about 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 one s face reflected from 
 the bowl of a spoon. 
 
 The child s deformity and the mother s tenderness 
 interested the feelings of Flemming. The landlady told 
 him something of the poor woman s history. She was the 
 widow of a blacksmith, who had died soon after their 
 marriage. But she survived to become a mother, as, in 
 oaks, immediately after fecundation, the male flower fades 
 and falls, while the female continues and ripens into perfect 
 fruit. Alas ! her child was deformed. Yet she looked 
 
1 82 HYPERION. 
 
 upon him with eyes of maternal fondness and pity, loving 
 him still more for his deformity. And in her heart she 
 said, as the Mexicans say to their new-born offspring, 
 " Child, thou art come into the world to suffer. Endure, 
 and hold thy peace." Though poor, she was not entirely 
 destitute ; for her husband had left her, beside the deformed 
 child, a life-estate in a tomb in the churchyard of Saint 
 Gilgen. During the week she laboured for other people, 
 and on Sundays for herself, by going to church and reading 
 the Bible. On one of the blank leaves she had recorded the 
 day of her birth, and that of her child s, likewise her 
 marriage, and her husband s death. Thus she lived, poor, 
 patient, and resigned. Her heart was a passion-flower, 
 bearing within it the crown of thorns and the cross of 
 Christ. Her ideas of heaven were few and simple. She 
 rejected the doctrine that it was a place of constant activity, 
 and not of repose ; and believed, that when she at length 
 reached it, she would work no more, but sit always in a 
 clean white apron, and sing psalms. 
 
 As Flemming sat meditating on these things, he paid new 
 homage in his heart to the beauty and excellence of the 
 female character. He thought of the absent and the dead ; 
 and said, with tears in his eyes 
 
 " Shall I thank God for the green summer, and the mild 
 air, and the flowers, and the stars, and all that makes this 
 world so beautiful, and not for the good and beautiful 
 beings I have known in it ? Has not their presence been 
 sweeter to me than flowers 1 Are they not higher and 
 holier than the stars ? Are they not more to me than all 
 things else ? " 
 
 Thus the morning passed away in musings, and in the 
 afternoon, when Flemming was preparing to go down to 
 the lake, as his custom was, a carriage drew up before the 
 door, and, to his great astonishment, out jumped Berkley. 
 The first thing he did was to give the postmaster, who stood 
 near the door, a smart cut with his whip. The sufferer 
 gently expostulated, saying 
 
 " Pray, sir, don t ; I am lame," 
 
HYPERION. 183 
 
 Whereupon Berkley desisted, and began instead to shake 
 the postmaster s wife by the shoulders, and order his dinner 
 in English. But all this was done so good-naturedly, and 
 with such a rosy, laughing face, that no offence was taken. 
 
 " So you have returned much sooner than you intended," 
 said Flemming, after the first friendly salutations. 
 
 "Yes," replied Berkley; "I became tired of Ischel very 
 tired. I did not find there the friends I expected. Now I 
 am going back to Salzburg, and then to Gastein. There I 
 shall certainly find them. You must go with me." 
 
 Flemming declined the invitation, and proposed to Berk 
 ley that he should join him in his excursion on the lake. 
 
 "You shall hear the grand echo of the Falkenstein," said 
 he, "and behold the scene of the Bridal Tragedy; and then 
 we will go on as far as the village of Saint Wolfgang, which 
 you have not yet seen, except across the lake." 
 
 "Well, this afternoon I devote to you for tomorrow 
 we part once more, and who knows when we shall meet 
 again ? " 
 
 They went down to the water s side without farther 
 delay, and taking a boat with two oars, struck across an 
 elbow of the lake towards a barren rock by the eastern 
 shore, from which a small white monument shone in the 
 sun. 
 
 "That monument," said one of the boatmen, a stout 
 young lad in leather breeches, " was built by a butcher, to 
 the glory of Saint Wolfgang, who saved him from drown 
 ing. He was one day riding an ox to market along the 
 opposite bank, when the animal, taking fright, sprang into 
 the water, and swam over to this place with the butcher on 
 his back." 
 
 "And do you think he could have done this," asked 
 Berkley, " if Saint Wolfgang had not helped him \ " 
 
 " Of course not ! " answered leather-breeches ; and the 
 Englishman laughed. 
 
 From this point they rowed along under the shore to a 
 low promontory, upon which stood another monument 
 commemorating a more tragical event, 
 
1 84 HYPERION. 
 
 " This is the place I was speaking of," said Flemming, 
 as the boatmen rested upon their oars. " The melancholy 
 and singular event it commemorates happened more 
 than two centuries ago. There was a bridal party here 
 upon the ice one winter, and in the midst of the dance 
 the ice broke, and the whole merry company were 
 drowned together, except the fiddlers, who were sitting on 
 the shore." 
 
 They looked in silence at the monument, and at the blue 
 quiet water, under which the bones of the dancers lay 
 buried, hand in hand. The monument is of stone, painted 
 white, with an overhanging roof to shelter it from storms. 
 In a niche in front is a small image of the Saviour, in a 
 sitting posture ; and an inscription, upon a marble tablet 
 below,- says that it was placed there by Longinus Walther, 
 and his wife, Barbara Juliana von Hainberg; themselves 
 long since peacefully crumbled to dust, side by side, in 
 some churchyard. 
 
 " That was breaking the ice with a vengeance ! " said 
 Berkley, as they pushed out into the lake again ; and ere 
 long they were floating beneath the mighty precipice of 
 Falkenstein, a steep wall of rock, crowned with a chapel 
 and a hermitage, where in days of old lived the holy Saint 
 Wolfgang. It is now haunted only by an echo, so distinct 
 and loud, that one might imagine the ghost of the departed 
 saint to be sitting there, and repeating the voices from 
 below, not word by word, but sentence by sentence, as if 
 he were passing them up to the recording angel. 
 
 " Ho ! ho ! ho ! " shouted Berkley ; and the sound 
 seemed to strike the wall of stone, like the flapping of steel 
 plates ; " Ho ! ho ! ho ! How are you to-day, Saint Wolf 
 gang ! You infernal old rascal ! How is the Frau von 
 Wolfgang ! God save great George our King ! Damn 
 your eyes ! Hold your tongue ! Ho ! ho ! ha ! ha ! hi ! 
 
 And the words were recorded above ; and a voice re 
 peated them with awful distinctness in the blue depths 
 overhead ; and Flemming felt in his inmost soul the 
 contrast between the holy heavens, and the mockery of 
 
HYPERION. 185 
 
 laughter, and the idle words which fall back from the sky 
 above us and soil not its purity. 
 
 In half an hour they were at the village of Saint Wolf 
 gang, threading a narrow street, about which the roofs of 
 quaint, picturesque old houses almost met. It led them to 
 a Gothic church a magnificent one for a village ; in front 
 of which was a small court, skut in by Italian-looking 
 houses, with balconies, and flowers at the windows. Here a 
 bronze fountain of elaborate workmanship was playing in 
 the shade. On its summit stood an image of the patron 
 saint of the village ; and, running round the underlip of the 
 water-basin below, they read this inscription in old German 
 rhymes 
 
 " I am in the honour of Saint "Wolfgang raised. Abbot 
 Wolfgang Habel of Emensee, he hath made me for the use 
 and delight of poor pilgrim wight. Neither gold nor wine 
 hath he ; at this water shall he merry be. In the year of 
 the Lord fifteen hundred and fifteen hath the work 
 completed been. God be praised ! " 
 
 As they were deciphering the rude characters of this 
 pious inscription, a village priest came down a high flight 
 of steps from the parsonage near the church, and courteously 
 saluted the strangers. After returning the salutation, the 
 mad Englishman, without preface, asked him how many 
 natural children were annually born in the parish. The 
 question seemed to astonish the good father ; but he 
 answered it civilly, as he did several other questions, 
 which Flemming thought rather indiscreet, to say the 
 least. 
 
 " You will excuse our curiosity," said he to the priest, by 
 way of apology. " We are strangers from distant countries. 
 My friend is an Englishman, and I am an American." 
 
 Berkley, however, was not so easily silenced. After a 
 few moments conversation, he broke out into most 
 audacious Latin, in which the only words clearly intelligible 
 were 
 
 " Plurimum reverende, in Christo religiosissime, ac claris- 
 sime Pomine. necnon et amice observandissime 1 Petrus sic 
 
186 HYPERION. 
 
 est locutus : * Nee argentum mihi, nee aurum est ; sed quod 
 habeo, hoc tibi do ; surge et ambula. " 
 
 He seemed to be speaking of the fountain. The priest 
 answered meekly 
 
 " Non intellexi, Domine ! " 
 
 But Berkley continued with great volubility to speak of 
 his being a stranger in the land, and all men being strangers 
 upon earth, and hoping to meet the good priest hereafter in 
 the kingdom of heaven. The priest seemed confounded and 
 abashed. Through the mist of a strange pronunciation he 
 could recognise only here and there a familiar word. He 
 took out his snuff-box ; and tried to quote a passage from 
 Saint Paul 
 
 " TJt dixit Sanctus Paulus ; Qui bene facit " 
 
 Here his memory failed him, or, as the French say, he 
 was at the end of his Latin, and, stretching forth his long 
 forefinger, he concluded in German 
 
 "Yes ; I don t so clearly remember what he did 
 say." 
 
 The Englishman helped him through with a moral 
 phrase ; and then, pulling off his hat, exclaimed very 
 solemnly 
 
 " Yale, Domine doctissime et reverendissime ! " 
 
 And the Dominie, as if pursued by a demon, made a 
 sudden and precipitate retreat down a flight of steps into 
 the street. 
 
 " There ! " said Berkley, laughing, " I beat him at his 
 own weapons. What do you say of my Latin 1 " 
 
 " I say of it," replied Flemming, " what Holofernes said 
 of Sir Nathaniel s, Priscian a little scratched ; twill serve. 
 I think I have heard better. But what a whim ! I thought 
 I should have laughed aloud." 
 
 They were still sitting by the bronze fountain, when the 
 priest returned, accompanied by a short man, with large 
 feet, and a long blue surtout, so greasy, that it reminded 
 one of Polilla s in the Spanish play, which was lined with 
 slices of pork. His countenance was broad and placid, but 
 his blue eyes gleamed with a wild, mysterious, sorrowful 
 
HYPERION. 187 
 
 expression. Flemraing thought the Latin contest was to be 
 renewed, with more powder and heavier guns. He was 
 mistaken. The stranger saluted him in German, and said, 
 that having heard he was from America, he had come to 
 question him about that distant country, for which he was 
 on the point of embarking. There was nothing peculiar in 
 his manner, nor in the questions he asked, nor the remarks 
 he made. They were the usual questions and remarks 
 about cities and climate and sailing the sea. At length 
 Flemming asked him the object of his journey to America. 
 The stranger came close to him, and lowering his voice, said 
 very solemnly 
 
 " That holy man, Frederick Baraga, missionary among 
 the Indians at Lacroix, on Lake Superior, has returned to 
 his fatherland, Krain ; and I am chosen by Heaven to go 
 forth as Minister Extraordinary of Christ, to unite all 
 nations and people in one church ! " 
 
 Flemming almost started at the singular earnestness with 
 which he uttered these words ; and looked at him atten 
 tively, thinking to see the face of a madman. But the 
 modest, unassuming look of that placid countenance was 
 unchanged, only in the eyes burned a mysterious light, as 
 if candles had been lighted in the brain, to magnify the 
 daylight there. 
 
 "It is truly a high vocation," said he in reply. "But 
 are you sure that this is no hallucination? Are you 
 certain that you have been chosen by Heaven for this great 
 work 1 " 
 
 " I am certain," replied the German, in a tone of great 
 calmness and sincerity ; " and if Saint Peter and Saint 
 Paul should come down from Heaven to assure me of it, 
 my faith would be no stronger than it now is. It has been 
 declared to me by many signs and wonders. I can no 
 longer doubt nor hesitate. I have already heard the voice 
 of the Spirit speaking to me at night ; and I know that I 
 am an apostle, and chosen for this work." 
 
 Such was the calm enthusiasm with which he spoke, that 
 Flemming could not choose but listen. He felt interested 
 
1 88 HYPERION. 
 
 in this strange being. There was something awe-inspiring 
 in the spirit that possessed him. After a short pause, he 
 continued 
 
 "If you wish to know who I am, I can tell you in 
 few words. I think you will not find the story without 
 interest." 
 
 He then went on to relate the circumstances recorded 
 in the following chapter. 
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 
 THE STORY OP BROTHER BERNARDUS. 
 
 " I WAS born in the city of Stein, in the land of Krain. My 
 pious mother, Gertrude, sang me psalms and spiritual songs 
 in childhood ; and often, when I awoke in the night, I saw 
 her still sitting patiently at her work by the stove, and heard 
 her singing those hymns of heaven, or praying in the mid 
 night darkness when her work was done. It was for me she 
 prayed. Thus, from my earliest childhood, I breathed the 
 breath of pious aspirations. Afterwards I went to Lay- 
 bach, as a student of theology ; and after the usual course 
 of study, was ordained a priest. I went forth to the care 
 of souls, my own soul filled with the faith that ere long all 
 people would be united in one church. Yet at times my 
 heart was heavy, to behold how many nations there are who 
 have not heard of Christ ; and how those who are called 
 Christians are divided into numberless sects, and how 
 among these are many who are Christians in name only. I 
 determined to devote myself to the great work of the one 
 church universal; and, for this purpose, to give myself 
 wholly up to the study of the Evangelists and the Fathers. 
 I retired to the Benedictine cloister of Saint Paul, in 
 the valley of Levant. The father confessor in the nunnery 
 
HYPERION. 189 
 
 of Laak, where I then lived, strengthened me in this resolve. 
 I had long walked with this angel of God in a human form, 
 and his parting benediction sank deep into my soul. The 
 Prince-Abbot Berthold, of blessed memory, was then head 
 of the Benedictine convent. He received me kindly, and 
 led me to the library, where I gazed with secret rapture on 
 the vast folios of the Christian fathers, from which, as from 
 an arsenal, I was to draw the weapons of holy warfare. In 
 the study of these the year of my noviciate passed. I 
 became a Franciscan Friar, and took the name of Brother 
 Bernardus. Yet my course of life remained unchanged. I 
 seldom left the cloister, but sat in my cell, and pored over 
 those tomes of holy wisdom. About this time the aged 
 confessor in Laak departed this life. His death was made 
 known to me in a dream. It must have been after mid 
 night, when I thought that I came into the church, which 
 was brilliantly lighted up. The dead body of the venerable 
 saint was brought in, attended by a great crowd. It 
 seemed to me, that I must go up into the pulpit and 
 pronounce his funeral oration ; and, as I ascended the 
 stairs, the words of my text came into my mind * Blessed 
 in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. My 
 funeral sermon ended in a strain of exultation, and I awoke 
 with Amen ! upon my lips. A few days afterwards, 
 I heard that on that night the old man died. After this 
 event I became restless and melancholy. I strove in vain 
 to drive from me my gloomy thoughts. I could no longer 
 study. I was no longer contented in the cloister. I even 
 thought of leaving it. 
 
 " One night I had gone to bed early, according to my 
 custom, and had fallen asleep. Suddenly I was awakened 
 by a bright and wonderful light, which shone all about me, 
 and filled me with heavenly rapture. Shortly after I heard 
 a voice, which pronounced distinctly these words, in the 
 Sclavonian tongue, * Remain in the cloister ! It was the 
 voice of my departed mother. I was fully awake, yet saw 
 nothing but the bright light, which disappeared when the 
 words had been spoken. Still it was broad daylight in my 
 
i go HYPERION. 
 
 chamber. I thought I had slept beyond my usual hour. I 
 looked at my watch. It was just one o clock after mid 
 night. Suddenly the daylight vanished, and it was dark. 
 In the morning I arose, as if new born, through the wonder 
 ful light, and the words of my mother s voice. It was no 
 dream. I knew it was the will of God that I should stay, 
 and I could again give myself up to quiet study. I read 
 the whole Bible through once more in the original text, and 
 went on with the Fathers in chronological order. Often, 
 after the apparation of the light, I awoke at the same hour ; 
 and though I heard no voice and saw no light, yet was 
 refreshed with heavenly consolation. 
 
 " Not long after this an important event happened in the 
 cloister. In the absence of the deacon of the abbey, I was 
 to preach the Thanksgiving Sermon of Harvest-home. 
 During the week the Prince- Abbot Berthold gave up the 
 ghost, and my sermon became at once a thanksgiving and 
 funeral sermon. Perhaps it may not be unworthy of notice, 
 that I was thus called to pronounce the burial discourse 
 over the body of the last reigning spiritual Prince- Abbot in 
 Germany. He was a man of God, and worthy of this 
 honour. 
 
 " One year after this event I was appointed Professor of 
 Biblical Hermeneutics in Klagenfurt, and left the abbey for 
 ever. In Klagenfurt I remained ten years, dwelling in the 
 same house, and eating at the same table, with seventeen 
 other professors. Their conversation naturally suggested new 
 topics of study, and brought to my notice books which I had 
 never before seen. One day I heard at table that Maurus 
 Cappellar, a monk of Camaldoli, had been elected Pope, 
 under the name of Gregory Sixteenth. He was spoken of 
 as a very learned man, who had written many books. At 
 this time I was a firm believer in the Pope s infallibility ; 
 and when I heard these books mentioned, there arose in me 
 an irresistible longing to read them. I inquired for them, 
 but they were nowhere to be had. At length I heard that 
 his most important work, The Triumph of the Holy See 
 and of the Church, had been translated into German, and 
 
HYPERION. 191 
 
 published in Augsburg. Ere long the precious volume was 
 in my hands. I began to read it with the profoundest awe. 
 The farther I read, the more my wonder grew. The subject 
 was of the deepest interest to me. I could not lay the book 
 out of my hand till I had read it through with the closest 
 attention. Now at length my eyes were opened. I saw 
 before me a monk, who had been educated in an Italian 
 cloister; who, indeed, had read much, and yet only what 
 was calculated to strengthen him in the prejudices of his 
 childhood, and who had entirely neglected those studies 
 upon which a bishop should most rely, in order to work out 
 the salvation of man. I perceived, at the same time, that 
 this was the strongest instrument for battering down the 
 walls which separate Christian from Christian. I saw, 
 though as yet dimly, the way in which the union of Christians 
 in the one true church was to be accomplished. I knew not 
 whether to be most astonished at my own blindness, that, 
 in all my previous studies, I had not perceived what the 
 reading of this single book made manifest to me, or at the 
 blindness of the Pope, who had undertaken to justify such 
 follies, without perceiving that at the same moment he was 
 himself lying in fatal error. But since I have learned more 
 thoroughly the ways of the Lord, I am now no more 
 astonished at this, but pray only to Divine Providence, who 
 so mysteriously prepares all people to be united in one true 
 church. I no longer believed in the Pope s infallibility ; 
 nay, I believed even, that, to the great injury of humanity, 
 he lay in fatal error. I felt, moreover, that now the time 
 had fully come when I should publicly show myself, and 
 found in America a parish and a school, and become the 
 spiritual guide of men, and the schoolmaster of children. 
 
 " It was then, and on that account, that I wrote in the 
 Latin tongue my great work on Biblical Hermeneutics. 
 But in Germany it cannot be published. The Austrian 
 censor of the press cannot find time to read it ; though I 
 think, that if I have spent so many laborious days and 
 sleepless nights in writing it, this man ought likewise to 
 find time enough not only to read it, but to examine all the 
 
1 92 HYPERION. 
 
 grounds of ray reasoning, and point out to me any errors, if 
 he can find any. Notwithstanding, the Spirit gave me no 
 repose, but urged me ever mightily on to the perfection of 
 my great work. 
 
 " One morning I sat writing, under peculiar influences of 
 the Spirit, upon the Confusion of Tongues, the Division of 
 the People, and the importance of the study of Comparative 
 Philology, in reference to their union in one church. So 
 wrapped was I in the thought, that I came late into my 
 lecture-room ; and after lecture returned to my chamber, 
 where I wrote till the clock struck twelve. At dinner, one 
 of the Professors asked if any one had seen the star, about 
 which so much was said. The Professor of Physics said, 
 that the student Johannes Schminke had come to him in the 
 greatest haste, and besought him to go out and see the 
 wonderful star ; but being incredulous about it, he made no 
 haste, and when they came into the street, the star had 
 disappeared. When I heard the star spoken of, my soul 
 was filled with rapture, and a voice within me seemed to say, 
 The great time is approaching labour unweariedly in thy 
 work. I sought out the student, and, like Herod, inquired 
 diligently at what time the star appeared. He informed me, 
 that just as the clock was striking eight in the morning, he 
 went out of his house to go to the college, and saw on the 
 square a crowd looking at a bright star. It was the very 
 hour when I was writing alone in my chamber on the 
 importance of Comparative Philology in bringing about the 
 union of all nations. I felt that my hour had come. 
 Strangely moved, I walked up and down my chamber. The 
 evening twilight came on. I lighted my lamp, and drew 
 the green curtains before the windows, and sat down to read. 
 But hardly had I taken the book into my hand, when the 
 Spirit began to move me, and urge me then to make my last 
 decision and resolve. I made a secret vow that I would 
 undertake the voyage to America. Suddenly my troubled 
 thoughts were still. An unwonted rapture filled my heart. 
 I sat and read till the supper-bell rang. They were speaking 
 at table of a red glaring meteor, which had just been seen 
 
HYPERION. 193 
 
 in the air, south-east from Klagenfurt, and had suddenly 
 disappeared with a dull, hollow sound. It was the very 
 moment at which I had taken my final resolution to leave 
 my native land. Every great purpose and event of my life 
 seemed heralded and attended by divine messengers ; the 
 voices of the dead ; the bright morning star, shining in 
 the clear sunshine ; and the red meteor, in the evening 
 twilight. 
 
 " I now began seriously to prepare for my departure. 
 The chamber I occupied had once been the library of a 
 Franciscan convent. Only a thick wall separated it from 
 the church. In this wall was a niche, with heavy folding 
 doors, which had served the Franciscans as a repository for 
 prohibited books. Here also I kept my papers, and my 
 great work on Biblical Hermeneutics. The inside of the 
 doors was covered with horrible caricatures of Luther, 
 Melancthon, Calvin, and other great men. I used often to 
 look at them with the deepest melancholy, when I thought 
 that these great men likewise had laboured upon earth, and 
 fought with Satan in the church. But they were perse 
 cuted, denounced, condemned to die. So, perhaps, it will 
 be with me. I thought of this often, and armed myself 
 against the fear of death. I was in constant apprehension 
 lest the police should search my chamber during my absence, 
 and, by examining my papers, discover my doctrine and 
 designs. But the Spirit said to me, Be of good cheer ; I 
 will so blind the eyes of thy enemies that it shall not once 
 occur to them to think of thy writings. 
 
 " At length, after many difficulties and temptations of 
 the Devil, I am on my way to America. Yesterday I took 
 leave of my dearest friend, Gregory Kuscher, in Hallstadt. 
 He seemed filled with the Spirit of God, and has wonder 
 fully strengthened me in rny purpose. All the hosts of 
 heaven looked on, and were glad. The old man kissed me 
 at parting, and I ascended the mountain as if angels bore 
 me up in their arms. Near the summit lay a newly-fallen 
 avalanche, over which, as yet, no footsteps had passed. This 
 was my last temptation. Ha ! cried I aloud, Satan has 
 
 227 
 
194 HYPERION, 
 
 prepared a snare for me ; but I will conquer him with 
 godly weapons. I sprang over the treacherous snow with 
 greater faith than Saint Peter walked the waters of the 
 Lake of Galilee ; and came down the valley, while the 
 mountain peaks yet shone in the setting sun. God smiles 
 upon me. I go forth full of hopeful courage. On Christmas 
 next I shall excommunicate the Pope ! " 
 
 Saying these words, he slowly and solemnly took his 
 leave, like one conscious of the great events which awaited 
 him, and withdrew with the other priest into the church. 
 Flemming could not smile as Berkley did ; for, in the soli 
 tary, singular enthusiast who had just left them, he saw 
 only another melancholy victim to solitude and over-labour 
 of the brain; and felt how painful a thing it is thus to 
 become unconsciously the almsman of other men s sym 
 pathies a kind of blind beggar for the charity of a good 
 wish or a prayer. 
 
 The sun was now setting. Silently they floated back to 
 Saint Gilgen, amid the cool evening shadows. The village 
 clock struck nine as they landed ; and as Berkley was to 
 depart early in the morning, he went to bed betimes. On 
 bidding Flemming good night, he said 
 
 "I shall not see you in the morning; so good-bye, and 
 God bless you. Remember my parting words. Never 
 mind trifles. In this world a man must either be anvil or 
 hammer. Care killed a cat ! " 
 
 " I have heard you say that so often," replied Flemming, 
 laughing, " that I begin to believe it. But I wonder if Care 
 shaved his left eyebrow after doing the deed, as the ancient 
 Egyptians used to do 1 " 
 
 "Aha! now you are sweeping cobwebs from the sky. 
 Good night ! good night ! " 
 
 A sorrowful event happened in the neighbourhood that 
 night. The widow s child died suddenly. " Woe is me ! " 
 thus mourns the childless mother in one of the funeral 
 songs of Greenland " Woe is me, that I should gaze upon 
 thy place and find it vacant. In vain for thee thy mother 
 dries the sea-drenched garments ! " Not in these words, 
 
HYPERION. 195 
 
 but in thoughts like these, did the poor mother bewail the 
 death of her child, thinking mostly of the vacant place, and 
 the daily cares and solicitudes of maternal love. Flemming 
 saw a light in her chamber, and shadows moving to and fro, 
 as he stood by the window, gazing into the starry, silent 
 sky ; but he little thought of the awful domestic tragedy 
 which was even then enacted behind those thin curtains. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 FOOTPRINTS OF ANGELS. 
 
 IT was Sunday morning, and the church bells were all 
 ringing together. From the neighbouring villages came the 
 solemn, joyful sounds, floating through the sunny air, 
 mellow and faint and low, all mingling into one harmonious 
 chime, like the sound of some distant organ in heaven. 
 Anon they ceased, and the woods, and the clouds, and the 
 whole village, and the very air itself, seemed to pray, so 
 silent was it everywhere. 
 
 Two venerable old men high priests and patriarchs 
 were they in the land went up the pulpit stairs, as 
 Moses and Aaron went up Mount Hor, in the sight of all 
 the congregation, for the pulpit stairs were in front, and 
 very high. 
 
 Paul Flemming will never forget the sermon he heard 
 that day no, not even if he should live to be as old as he 
 who preached it. The text was, "I know that my Redeemer 
 liveth." It was meant to console the pious poor widow, 
 who sat right below him at the foot of the pulpit stairs, all 
 in black, and her heart breaking. He said nothing of the 
 terrors of death, nor of the gloom of the narrow house, but, 
 looking beyond these things, as mere circumstances to which 
 the imagination mainly gives importance, he told his hearers 
 
196 HYPERION. 
 
 of the innocence of childhood upon earth, and the holiness 
 of childhood in heaven, and how the beautiful Lord Jesus 
 was once a little child, and how in heaven the spirits of 
 little children walked with him, and gathered flowers in the 
 fields of Paradise. Good old man 1 in behalf of humanity, 
 I thank thee for these benignant words. And still more 
 than I, the bereaved mother thanked thee ; and from that 
 hour, though she wept in secret for her child, yet 
 
 " She knew he was with Jesus, 
 
 Arid she asked him not again." 
 
 After the sermon Paul Flemming walked forth alone 
 into the churchyard. There was no one there, save a little 
 boy, who was fishing with a pin-hook in a grave half-full of 
 water. But a few moments afterwards, through the arched 
 gateway under the belfry, came a funeral procession. At 
 its head walked a priest in white surplice, chanting. 
 Peasants, old and young, followed him, with burning tapers 
 in their hands. A young girl carried in her arms a dead 
 child, wrapped in its little winding-sheet. The grave was 
 close under the wall, by the church door. A vase of holy 
 water stood beside it. The sexton took the child from the 
 girl s arms, and put it into a coffin ; and, as he placed it in 
 the grave, the girl held over it a cross, wreathed with roses, 
 and the priest and peasants sung a funeral hymn. When 
 this was over, the priests sprinkled the grave and the crowd 
 with holy water ; and then they all went into the church, 
 each one stopping, as he passed the grave, to throw 
 a handful of earth into it, and sprinkle it with the 
 hyssop. 
 
 A few moments afterwards the voice of the priest was 
 heard saying mass in the church, and Flemming saw the 
 toothless old sexton treading with his clouted shoes the 
 fresh earth into the grave of the little child. He approached 
 him and asked the age of the deceased. The sexton 
 leaned a moment on his spade, and shrugging his shoulders, 
 replied 
 
HYPERION. 197 
 
 " Only an hour or two. It was born in the night, and 
 died this morning early," 
 
 "A brief existence," said Flemming. "The child seems 
 to have been born only to be buried, and have its name 
 recorded on a wooden tombstone." 
 
 The sexton went on with his work, and made no reply. 
 Flemming still lingered among the graves, gazing with 
 wonder at the strange devices by which man has rendered 
 death horrible and the grave loathsome. 
 
 In the temple of Juno, at Elis, Sleep and his twin- 
 brother Death were represented as children reposing in the 
 arms of Night. On various funeral monuments of the 
 ancients the genius of death is sculptured as a beautiful 
 youth, leaning on an inverted torch, in the attitude of 
 repose, his wings folded and his feet crossed. In such 
 peaceful and attractive forms did the imagination of ancient 
 poets and sculptors represent death. And these were men 
 in whose souls the religion of nature was like the light of 
 stars, beautiful, but faint and cold. Strange, that in later 
 days this angel of God, which leads us with a gentle hand 
 into the " land of the great departed, into the silent land," 
 should have been transformed into a monstrous and terrific 
 thing. Such is the spectral rider on the white horse; such 
 the ghastly skeleton with scythe and hour-glass ! the 
 Reaper, whose name is Death ! 
 
 One of the most popular themes of poetry and painting 
 in the Middle Ages, and continuing down even into modern 
 times, was the Dance of Death. In almost all languages is 
 it written, the apparition of the grim spectre putting a 
 sudden stop to all business, and leading men away into the 
 tc remarkable retirement " of the grave. It is written in an 
 ancient Spanish poem, and painted on a wooden bridge in 
 Switzerland. The designs of Holbein are well known. The 
 most striking among them is that, where, from a group of 
 children sitting round a cottage hearth, Death has taken 
 one by the hand, and is leading it out of the door. Quietly 
 and unresisting goes the little child, and in its countenance 
 no grief, but wonder only ; while the other children are 
 
198 HYPERION. 
 
 weeping and stretching forth their hands in vain towards 
 their departing brother. It is a beautiful design, in all 
 save the skeleton. An angel had been better, with folded 
 win^rs, and torch inverted. 
 
 And now the sun was growing high and warm. A little 
 chapel, whose door stood open, seemed to invite Flemming 
 to enter and enjoy the grateful coolness. He went in. 
 There was no one there. The walls were covered with 
 paintings and sculpture of the rudest kind, and with a few 
 funeral tablets. There was nothing there to move the 
 heart to devotion ; but in that hour the heart of Flemming 
 was weak weak as a child s. He bowed his stubborn 
 knees, and wept. And oh ! how many disappointed hopes, 
 how many bitter recollections, how much of wounded pride 
 and unrequited love were in those tears through which he 
 read, on a marble tablet in the chapel wall opposite, this 
 singular inscription : 
 
 " Look not mournfully into the Past. It comes not back 
 again. Wisely improve the Present. It is thine. Go 
 forth to meet the shadowy Future without fear, and with a 
 manly heart." 
 
 It seemed to him as if the unknown tenant of that grave 
 had opened his lips of dust, and spoken to him the words of 
 consolation which his soul needed, and which no friend had 
 yet spoken. In a moment the anguish of his thoughts was 
 still. The stone was rolled away from the door of his 
 heart ; death was no longer there, but an angel clothed in 
 white. He stood up, and his eyes were no more bleared 
 with tears ; and looking into the bright morning heaven, 
 he said 
 
 " I will be strong." 
 
 Men sometimes go down into tombs, with painful long 
 ings to behold once more the faces of their departed friends; 
 and as they gaze upon them, lying there so peacefully with 
 the semblance that they wore on earth, the sweet breath of 
 heaven touches them, and the features crumble and fall 
 together, and are but dust. So did his soul then descend 
 for the last time into the great tomb of the past, with painful 
 
HYPERION. 199 
 
 longings to behold once more the dear faces of those he 
 had loved ; and the sweet breath of heaven touched them, 
 and they would not stay, but crumbled away and perished 
 as he gazed. They, too, were dust. And thus, far-sound 
 ing, he heard the great gate of the Past shut behind him, as 
 the Divine Poet did the gate of Paradise, when the angel 
 pointed him the way up to the Holy Mountain ; and to him 
 likewise was it forbidden to look back. 
 
 In the life of every man there are sudden transitions of 
 feeling which seem almost miraculous. At once, as if some 
 magician had touched the heavens and the earth, the dark 
 clouds melt into the air, the wind falls, and serenity 
 succeeds the storm. The causes which produce these sud 
 den changes may have been long at work within us, but 
 the changes themselves are instantaneous, and apparently 
 without sufficient cause. It was so with Flemming; and 
 from that hour forth he resolved that he would no longer 
 veer with every shifting wind of circumstance ; no longer 
 be a child s plaything in the hands of Fate, which we our 
 selves do make or mar. He resolved henceforward not to 
 lean on others, but to walk self-confident and self-possessed ; 
 no longer to waste his years in vain regrets, nor wait the 
 fulfilment of boundless hopes and indiscreet desires, but to 
 live in the Present wisely, alike forgetful of the Past, and 
 careless of what the mysterious Future might bring. And 
 from that moment he was calm and strong he was 
 reconciled with himself. His thoughts turned to his 
 distant home beyond the sea. An indescribable, sweet 
 feeling arose within him. 
 
 " Thither will I turn my wandering footsteps," said he, 
 " and be a man among men, and no longer a dreamer 
 among shadows. Henceforth be mine a life of action 
 and reality. I will work in my own sphere, nor wish it 
 other than it is. This alone is health and happiness. This 
 alone is Life, 
 
 1 Life that shall send 
 A challenge to its end. 
 And when it comes, say, \Veleome friend ! 
 
200 HYPERION. 
 
 Why have I not made these sage reflections, this wise 
 resolve, sooner ? Can such a simple result spring only 
 from the long and intricate process of experience *( Alas ! 
 it is not till Time, with reckless hand, has torn out 
 half the leaves from the Book of Human Life, to light 
 the fires of passion with, from day to day, that man 
 begins to see that the leaves which remain are few in 
 number, and to remember, faintly at first, and then more 
 clearly, that upon the earlier pages of that book was 
 written a story of happy innocence, which he would fain 
 read over again. Then come listless irresolution, and the 
 inevitable inaction of despair, or else the firm resolve 
 to record upon the leaves that still remain a more noble 
 history than the child s story, with which the book 
 began." 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE LAST PANG. 
 
 " FAREWELL to thee, Saint Gilgen ! " said Renaming, 
 as he turned on the brow of the hill to take his last 
 look at the lake and the village below, and felt that this 
 was one of the few spots on the wide earth to which 
 he could say farewell with regret. " Thy majestic hills 
 have impressed themselves upon my soul, as a seal upon 
 wax. The quiet beauty of thy lake shall be to me for 
 ever an image of peace and purity and stillness, and that 
 inscription in thy little churchyard a sentence of wisdom 
 for my after life." 
 
 Before the setting of the same sun which then shone on 
 that fair landscape, he was far on his way towards Munich. 
 He had left behind him the mountains of the Tyrol ; and 
 beheld them for the last time in the soft evening twilight, 
 
HYPERION. 201 
 
 their bases green with forest trees, and here and there a 
 sharp rocky spire, and a rounded summit capped with snow. 
 There they lay, their backs like the backs of camels ; a 
 mighty caravan, reposing at evening in its march across the 
 desert. 
 
 From Munich he passed through Augsburg and Ulm, on 
 his way to Stuttgard. At the entrances of towns and 
 villages he saw large crucifixes ; and on the fronts of many 
 houses, coarse paintings and images of saints. In Gunzburg 
 three priests in black were slowly passing down the street, 
 and women fell on their knees to receive a blessing. There 
 were many beggars, too, in the streets ; and an old man who 
 was making hay in a field by the road-side, when he saw 
 the carriage approaching, threw down his rake, and came 
 tumbling over the ditch, uttering the most dismal wail, with 
 his hat held out in both hands. The next day the bright 
 yellow jackets of the postillions, and the two great 
 tassels of their bugle horns, dangling down their backs 
 like cauliflowers, told him he was in Wiirtemberg ; and 
 late in the evening he stopped at an hotel in Stuttgard ; 
 and from his chamber window saw, in the bright 
 moonlight, the old Gothic cathedral, with its narrow 
 lancet windows, and jutting buttresses, right in front of 
 him. Ere long he had forgotten all his cares and sorrows 
 in sleep, and with them his hopes, and wishes, and good 
 resolves. 
 
 He was still sitting at breakfast in his chamber, the 
 next morning, when the great bell of the cathedral 
 opposite began to ring, and reminded him that it was 
 Sunday. Ere long the organ answered from within, 
 and from its golden lips breathed forth a psalm. The 
 congregation began to assemble, and Flemming went up 
 with them to the house of the Lord. In the body of 
 the church he found the pews all filled or locked; they 
 seemed to belong to families. He went up into the 
 gallery, and looked over the psalm-book of a peasant, 
 while the congregation sang the sublime old hymn of 
 Martin Luther 
 
202 HYPERION. 
 
 1 Our God, he is a tower of strength, 
 A trusty shield and weapon." 
 
 During the singing, a fat clergyman, clad in black, with a 
 surplice thrown loosely about him, came pacing along one 
 of the aisles from beneath the organ loft, and ascended the 
 pulpit. After the hymn he read a portion of Scripture, 
 and then said 
 
 " Let us unite in silent prayer." 
 
 And turning round, he knelt in the pulpit, while the 
 congregation remained standing. For a while there was a 
 breathless silence in the church, which to Flemming was 
 more solemnly impressive than any audible prayer. The 
 clergyman then rose and began his sermon. His theme 
 was the Reformation; and he attempted to prove how 
 much easier it was to enter the kingdom of Heaven 
 through the gateways of the reformed Evangelical Dutch 
 Church than by the aisles and penitential staircases of 
 Saint Peter s. He then gave a history of the Reforma 
 tion ; and when Flemming thought he was near the end, he 
 heard him say that he should divide his discourse into four 
 heads. This reminded him of the sturdy old Puritan, 
 Cotton Mather, who, after preaching an hour, would coolly 
 turn the hour-glass on the pulpit, and say, "Now, ray 
 beloved hearers, let us take another glass." He stole out 
 into the silent, deserted streets, and went to visit the 
 veteran sculptor, Dannecker. He found him sitting alone, 
 with his psalm-book, and the reminiscences of a life of 
 eighty years. As Flemming entered, he arose from the 
 sofa, and tottered towards him ; a venerable old man, of 
 low stature, and dressed in a loose white jacket, with a face 
 like Franklin s, his white hair flowing over his shoulders, 
 and a pale blue eye. 
 
 " So you are from America," said he. " But you have a 
 German name. Paul Flemming was one of our old poets. 
 I have never been in America, and never shall go there. I 
 am now too old. I have been in Paris and in Rome. But 
 that was long ago. I am now eight and-seventy years 
 old." 
 
HYPERION. 203 
 
 Here he took Flemming by the hand, and made him sit 
 down by his side, on the sofa; and Flemming felt a 
 mysterious awe creep over him, on touching the hand of the 
 good old man, who sat so serenely amid the gathering shade 
 of years, and listened to life s curfew bell, telling, with 
 eight-and-seventy solemn strokes, that the hour had come 
 when the fires of all earthly passion must be quenched 
 within, and man must prepare to lie down arid rest till 
 the morning. 
 
 "You see," he continued, in a melancholy tone, "my 
 hands are cold ; colder than yours. They were warmer 
 once. I am now an old man." 
 
 " Yes, these are the hands," answered Flemming, " that 
 sculptured the beauteous Ariadne and the Panther. The 
 soul never grows old." 
 
 " Nor does Nature," said the old man, pleased with this 
 allusion to his great work, and pointing to the green trees 
 before his window. " This pleasure I have left to me. My 
 sight is still good. I can even distinguish objects on the 
 side of yonder mountain. My hearing is also unimpaired. 
 For all which, I thank God." 
 
 Then, directing Flemming s attention to a fine engrav 
 ing which hung on the opposite wall of the room, he 
 continued 
 
 " That is an engraving of Canova s Religion. I love to 
 sit here and look at it, for hours together. It is beautiful. 
 He made the statue for his native town, where they had no 
 church, until he built them one. He placed the statue in 
 it. This engraving he sent me as a present. Ah, he was a 
 dear, good man. The name of his native town I have 
 forgotten. My memory fails me. I cannot remember 
 names." 
 
 Fearful that he had disturbed the,old man in his morning 
 devotions, Flemming did not remain long, but took his 
 leave with regret. There was something impressive in the 
 scene he had witnessed ; this beautiful old age of the 
 artist ; sitting by the open window, in the bright summer 
 morning the labour of life accomplished, the horizon 
 
204 HYPERION. 
 
 reached, where heaven and earth meet thinking it was 
 angel s music when he heard the church bells ring ; him 
 self too old to go. As he walked back to his chamber, he 
 thought within himself, whether he likewise might not 
 accomplish something which should live after him ; might 
 not bring something permanent out of this fast fleeting life 
 of man, and then sit down, like the artist, in serene old 
 age, and fold his hands in silence. He wondered how a 
 man felt when he grew so old that he could no longer go to 
 church, but must sit at home and read the Bible in large 
 print. His heart was full of indefinite longings, mingled 
 with regrets ; longings to accomplish something worthy of 
 life ; regret that as yet he had accomplished nothing, but 
 had felt and dreamed only. Thus the warm days in spring 
 bring forth passion-flowers and forget-me-nots. It is only 
 after midsummer, when the days grow shorter and hotter, 
 that fruit begins to appear. Then the heat of the day 
 brings forward the harvest, and after the harvest the leaves 
 fall, and there is a grey frost. Much meditating upon 
 these things, Paul Flemming reached his hotel. At that 
 moment a person clad in green came down the church steps, 
 and crossed the street. It was the German mechanic 
 of Interlachen. Flemming started as if a green snake 
 had suddenly crossed his path. He took refuge in his 
 chamber. 
 
 That night, as he was sitting alone in his chamber, hav 
 ing made his preparations to depart the following morning, 
 his attention was arrested by the sound of a female voice 
 in the next room. A thin partition, with a door, separated 
 it from his own. He had not before observed that the 
 room was occupied. But in the stillness of the night the 
 tones of that voice struck his ear. He listened. It was a 
 lady reading the prayers of the English Church. The 
 tones were familiar, and awakened at once a thousand 
 painfully sweet recollections. It was the voice of Mary 
 Ashburton ! His heart could not be deceived; and all its 
 wounds began to bleed afresh, like those of the murdered 
 man when the murderer approaches. His first impulse was 
 
HYPERION. 205 
 
 of affection only, boundless, irrepressible, delirious, as of 
 old, in the green valley of Interlachen. He waited for the 
 voice to cease, that he might go to her, and behold her face 
 once more. And then his pride rose up within him, and 
 he rebuked this weakness. He remembered his firm 
 resolve, and blushed to find himself so feeble. And the 
 voice ceased; and yet he did not go. Pride had so far 
 gained the mastery over affection. He lay down upon his 
 bed, like a child as he was. All about him was silence, and 
 the silence was holy, for she was near; so near, that he 
 could almost hear the beating of her heart. He knew now 
 for the first time how weak he was, and how strong was his 
 passion for that woman. His heart was like the altar of 
 the Israelites of old ; and, though drenched with tears, 
 as with rain, it was kindled at once by the holy fire from 
 heaven ! 
 
 Towards morning he fell asleep, exhausted with the 
 strong excitement ; and in that hour, when, sleep being 
 "nigh unto the soul," visions are deemed prophetic, he 
 dreamed. blessed vision of the morning, stay ! thou 
 wert so fair ! He stood again on the green sunny meadow, 
 beneath the ruined tower ; and she was by his side, with 
 her pale, speaking countenance, and holy eyes ; and he 
 kissed her fair forehead ; and she turned her face towards 
 him, beaming with affection, and said, " I confess it now ; 
 you are the Magician ! " and pressed him in a meek 
 embrace, that he " might rather feel than see the swelling 
 of her heart." And then she faded away from his arms, 
 and her face became transfigured, and her voice like the 
 voice of an angel in Heaven; and he awoke, and was 
 alone ! 
 
 It was broad daylight, and he heard the postillion, and 
 the stamping of horses hoofs on the pavement at the door. 
 At the same moment his servant came in with coffee, and 
 told him all was ready. He did not dare to stay. But 
 throwing himself into the carriage, he cast one look to wards 
 the window of the Dark Ladie, and a moment afterwards 
 had left her for ever ! He had drunk the last drop of the 
 
2o6 HYPERION. 
 
 bitter cup, and now laid the golden goblet gently down, 
 knowing that he should behold it no more ! 
 
 No more ! 0, how majestically mournful are those 
 words 1 They sound like the roar of the wind through a 
 forest of pines ! 
 
 END OF HYPERION. 
 
KAVANAGH. 
 
 A TALE. 
 
 {f The flighty purpose never is o ertook 
 Unless the deed go with it." 
 
 SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 I. 
 
 REAT men stand like solitary towers in the 
 city of God, and secret passages running deep 
 beneath external nature give their thoughts 
 intercourse with higher intelligences, which 
 strengthens and consoles them, and of which 
 the labourers on the surface do not even dream ! 
 
 Some such thought as this was floating vaguely through 
 the brain of Mr Churchill as he closed his school-house 
 door behind him ; and if in any degree he applied it to 
 himself, it may perhaps be pardoned in a dreamy, poetic 
 man like him ; for we judge ourselves by what we feel 
 capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have 
 already done. And, moreover, his wife considered him 
 equal to great things. To the people in the village he was 
 the schoolmaster, and nothing more. They beheld in his 
 form and countenance no outward sign of the divinity 
 within. They saw him daily moiling and delving in 
 the common path like a beetle, and little thought that 
 
208 KAVANAGH. 
 
 underneath that hard and cold exterior lay folded delicate 
 golden wings, wherewith, when the heat of the day was over, 
 he soared and revelled in the pleasant evening air. 
 
 To-day he was soaring and revelling before the sun had 
 set ; for it was Saturday. With a feeling of infinite relief 
 he left behind him the empty school-house, into which the 
 hot sun of a September afternoon was pouring. All the 
 bright young faces were gone; all the impatient little hearts 
 were gone ; all the fresh voices, shrill, but musical with the 
 melody of childhood, were gone ; and the lately busy realm 
 was given up to silence, and the dusty sunshine, and the 
 old grey flies, that buzzed and bumped their heads against 
 the window-panes. The sound of the outer door, creaking 
 on its hebdomadal hinges, was like a sentinel s challenge, to 
 which the key growled responsive in the lock ; and the 
 master casting a furtive glance at the last caricature of 
 himself in red chalk on the wooden fence close by, entered 
 with a light step the solemn avenue of pines that led to 
 the margin of the river. 
 
 At first -his step was quick and nervous ; and he swung 
 his cane as if aimirg blows at some invisible and retreating 
 enemy. Though a meek man, there were moments when 
 he remembered with bitterness the unjust reproaches of 
 fathers and their insulting words ; and then he fought 
 imaginary battles with people out of sight, and struck them 
 to the ground, and trampled upon them ; for Mr. Churchill 
 was not exempt from the weakness of human nature, nor 
 the customary vexations of a schoolmaster s life. Unruly 
 sons and unreasonable fathers did sometimes embitter his 
 else sweet days and nights. But as he walked his step 
 grew slower, and his heart calmer. The coolness and 
 shadows of the great trees comforted and satisfied him, and 
 he heard the voice of the wind as it were the voice of spirits 
 calling around him in the air. So that when he emerged 
 from the black woodlands into the meadows by the river s 
 side, all his cares were forgotten. 
 
 He lay down for a moment under a sycamore, and 
 thought of the Roman Consul Lucinius, passing a night 
 
KAVANAGH. 209 
 
 with eighteen of his followers in the hollow trunk of the 
 great Lycian plane-tree. From the branches overhead the 
 falling seeds were wafted away through the soft air on 
 plumy tufts of down. The continuous murmur of the 
 leaves, and of the swift running stream, seemed rather to 
 deepen than disturb the pleasing solitude and silence of 
 the place ; and for a moment he imagined himself far away 
 in the broad prairies of the West, and lying beneath the 
 luxuriant trees that overhang the banks of the Wabash and 
 the Kaskaskia. He saw the sturgeon leap from the river, 
 and flash for a moment in the sunshine. Then a flock of 
 wild-fowl flew across the sky towards the sea-mist that was 
 rising slowly in the east ; and his soul seemed to float 
 away on the river s current, till he had glided far out 
 into the measureless sea, and the sound of the wind 
 among the leaves was no longer the sound of the wind, 
 but of the sea. 
 
 Nature had made Mr. Churchill a poet, but destiny made 
 him a schoolmaster. This produced a discord between his 
 outward and his inward existence. Life presented itself to 
 him like the Sphinx, with its perpetual riddle of the real 
 and the ideal. To the solution of this dark problem he 
 devoted his days and his nights. He was forced to teach 
 grammar when he would fain have written poems ; and 
 from day to day, and from year to year, the trivial things of 
 life postponed the great designs which he felt capable of 
 accomplishing, but never had the resolute courage to begin. 
 Thus he dallied with his thoughts and with all things, and 
 wasted his strength on trifles ; like the lazy sea, that plays 
 with the pebbles on its beach, but under the inspiration of 
 the wind might lift great navies on its outstretched palms, 
 and toss them into the air as playthings. 
 
 The evening came. The setting sun stretched his celestial 
 rods of light across the level landscape, and, like the Hebrew 
 in Egypt, smote the rivers and the brooks and the ponds, 
 and they became as blood. 
 
 Mr. Churchill turned his steps homeward. He climbed the 
 hill with the old windmill on its summit, and below him saw 
 
 228 
 
210 RAVANAGH. 
 
 the lights of the village ; and around him the great landscape 
 sinking deeper and deeper into the sea of darkness. He 
 passed- an orchard. The air was filled with the odour of the 
 fallen fruit, which seemed to him as sweet as the fragrance of 
 the blossoms in June. A few steps farther brought him to an 
 old and neglected churchyard ; and he paused a moment to 
 look at the white gleaming stone, under which slumbered the 
 old clergyman, who came into the village in the time of the 
 Indian wars, and on which was recorded that for half a 
 century he had been "a painful preacher of the word." He 
 entered the village street, and interchanged a few words 
 with Mr. Pendexter, the venerable divine, whom he found 
 standing at his gate. He met, also, an ill-looking man, 
 carrying so many old boots, that he seemed literally buried 
 in them ; and at intervals encountered a stream of strong 
 tobacco smoke, exhaled from the pipe of an Irish labourer, 
 and pervading the damp evening air. At length he reached 
 his own door. 
 
 II. 
 
 WHEN Mr. Churchill entered his study, he found the lamp 
 lighted, and his wife waiting for him. The wood fire was 
 singing on the hearth, like a grasshopper in the heat and 
 silence of a summer noon ; and to his heart the chill autumnal 
 evening became a summer noon. His wife turned towards 
 him with looks of love in her joyous blue eyes ; and in the 
 serene expression of her face he read the Divine beatitude, 
 " Blessed are the pure in heart." 
 
 No sooner had he seated himself by the fireside, than the 
 door was swung wide open, and on the threshold stood, with 
 his legs apart, like a miniature colossus, a lovely, golden boy, 
 about three years old, with long, light locks, and very red 
 cheeks. After a moment s pause, he dashed forward into the 
 room with a shout, and established himself in a large arm- 
 
KAVANAGH. 211 
 
 chair, which he converted into a carrier s waggon, and over 
 the back of which he urged forward his imaginary horses. 
 He was followed by Lucy, the maid-of-all-work, bearing in 
 her arms the baby, with large round eyes and no hair. 
 In his mouth he held an India-rubber ring, and looked very 
 much like a street-door knocker. He came down to say 
 good night, but, after he had got down, could not say it ; 
 not being able to say anything but a kind of explosive 
 " Papa ! " He was then a good deal kissed, and tormented 
 in various ways, and finally sent off to bed, blowing little 
 bubbles with his mouth ; Lucy blessing his little heart, and 
 asseverating that nobody could feed him in the night with 
 out loving him ; and that if the flies bit him any more she 
 would pull out every tooth in their heads ! 
 
 Then came Master Alfred s hour of triumph and sovereign 
 sway. The firelight gleamed on his hard, red cheeks, and 
 glanced from his liquid eyes and small white teeth. He 
 piled his waggon full of books and papers, and dashed off to 
 town at the top of his speed ; he delivered and received 
 parcels and letters, and played the post-boy s horn with his 
 lips. Then he climbed the back of the great chair, sang 
 " Sweep ho ! " as from the top of a very high chimney, and 
 sliding down upon the cushion, pretended to fall asleep in a 
 little white bed, with white curtains ; from which imaginary 
 slumber his father awoke him by crying in his ear, in 
 mysterious tones, 
 
 " What little boy is this ! " 
 
 Finally he sat down in his chair at his mother s knee, arid 
 listened very attentively, and for the hundreth time, to the 
 story of the dog Jumper, which was no sooner ended, than 
 vociferously called for again and again. On the fifth repeti 
 tion it was cut as short as the dog s tail by Lucy, who, 
 having put the baby to bed, now came for Master Alfred. 
 He seemed to hope he had been forgotten, but was neverthe 
 less marched off to bed, without any particular regard to his 
 feelings, and disappeared in a kind of abstracted mood, 
 repeating softly to himself his father s words, 
 
 " Good night, Alfred ! " 
 
212 KAVANAGH. 
 
 His father looked fondly after him as he went upstairs, 
 holding Lucy by one hand, and with the other rubbing the 
 sleep out of his eyes. 
 
 "Ah ! these children, these children ! " said Mr. Churchill, 
 as he sat down at the tea-table ; " we ought to love 
 them very much now, for we shall not have them long 
 with us ! " 
 
 " Good heavens 1 " exclaimed his wife, " what do you 
 mean ? Does anything ail them ? Are they going to die ? " 
 
 "I hope not. But they are going to grow up, and be no 
 longer children." 
 
 " And yet it seems impossible that they should ever grow 
 to be men, and drag the heavy artillery along the dusty 
 roads of life." 
 
 " 0, you foolish man ! You gave me such a fright ! " 
 
 " And I hope they never will. That is the last thing I 
 want either of them to do." 
 
 "0, I do not mean literally, only figuratively. By-the- 
 way, speaking of growing up and growing old, I saw Mr. 
 Pendexter this evening as I carne home." 
 
 " And what had he to say ?" 
 
 " He told me he should preach his farewell sermon 
 to-morrow. 
 
 " Poor old man ! I really pity him." 
 
 " So do I. But it must be confessed he is a dull preacher ; 
 and I dare say it is as dull work for him as for his hearers." 
 
 " Why are they going to send him away \ " 
 
 " O, there are a great many reasons. He does not give 
 time and attention enough to his sermons and to his parish. 
 He is always at work on his farm ; always wants his salary 
 raised ; and insists upon his right to pasture his horse in the 
 parish fields." 
 
 " Hark ! " cried his wife, lifting up her face in a listening 
 attitude. 
 
 "What is the matter?" 
 
 " I thought I heard the baby ! " 
 
 There was a short silence. Then Mr. Churchill said, 
 
 " It was only the cat in the cellar." 
 
KAVANAGH. 213 
 
 At this moment Lucy came in. She hesitated a little, 
 and then, in a submissive voice, asked leave to go down to 
 the village to buy some ribbon for her bonnet. Lucy was a 
 girl of fifteen, who had been taken a few years before from 
 an Orphan Asylum. Her dark eyes had a gipsy look, and 
 she wore her brown hair twisted round her head, after 
 the manner of some of Murillo s girls. She had Milesian 
 blood in her veins, and was impetuous and impatient of 
 contradiction. 
 
 When she had left the room the schoolmaster resumed 
 the conversation by saying, 
 
 " I do not like Lucy s going out so much in the evening. 
 I am afraid she will get into trouble. She is really very 
 pretty." 
 
 Then there was another pause ; after which he added, 
 
 "My dear wife, one thing puzzles me exceedingly." 
 
 "And what is that?" 
 
 " It is to know what that man does with all the old boots 
 he picks up about the village. I met him again this evening. 
 He seemed to have as many feet as Briareus had hands. He 
 is a kind of centipede. 
 
 " But what has that to do with Lucy ? " 
 
 " Nothing. It only occurred to me at the moment ; and 
 I can never imagine what he does with so many old boots." 
 
 III. 
 
 WHEN tea was over, Mr. Churchill walked to and fro in 
 his study, as his custom was. And as he walked, he gazed 
 with secret rapture at the books which lined the walls, and 
 thought how many bleeding hearts and aching heads had 
 found consolation for themselves, and imparted it to others, 
 by writing those pages. The books seemed to him almost 
 as living beings, so instinct were they with human thoughts 
 
214 KAVANAGH. 
 
 and sympathies. It was as if the authors themselves were 
 gazing at him from the walls, with countenances neither 
 sorrowful nor glad, but full of calm indifference to fate, like 
 those of the poets who appeared to Dante in his vision, 
 walking together on the dolorous shore. And then he 
 dreamed of fame, and thought that perhaps hereafter he 
 might be in some degree, and to some one, what these men 
 were to him ; and in the enthusiasm of the moment he 
 exclaimed aloud, 
 
 " Would you have me be like these, dear Mary 1 " 
 
 " Like these what ? " asked his wife, not comprehending 
 him. 
 
 "Like these great and good men, like these scholars 
 and poets, the authors of all these books ! " 
 
 She pressed his hand and said, in a soft but excited tone 
 
 " O, yes ! Like them, only perhaps better ! " 
 
 " Then I will write a romance ! " 
 
 " Write it ! " said his wife, like the angel. For she 
 believed that then he would become famous for ever ; and 
 that all the vexed and busy world would stand still to hear 
 him blow his little trumpet, whose sound was to rend the 
 adamantine walls of time, and reach the ears of a far-off and 
 startled posterity. 
 
 IV. 
 
 " I WAS thinking to-day," said Mr. Churchill, a few minutes 
 afterwards, as he took some papers from a drawer scented 
 with a quince, and arranged them on the study table, while 
 his wife as usual seated herself opposite to him with her 
 work in her hand, " I was thinking to-day how dull and 
 prosaic the study of mathematics is made in our school- 
 books ; as if the grand science of numbers had been dis 
 covered and perfected merely to further the purposes of 
 trade." 
 
KAVANAGH. 215 
 
 " For ray part," answered his wife, c: I do not see how 
 you can make mathematics poetical. There is no poetry in 
 them." 
 
 " Ah, that is a very great mistake ! There is something 
 divine in the science of numbers. Like God, it holds the 
 sea in the hollow of its hand. It measures the earth ; it 
 weighs the stars; it illumines the universe \ it is law, it is 
 order, it is beauty. And yet we imagine that is, most of 
 us that its highest end and culminating point is book 
 keeping by double entry. It is our way of teaching it that 
 makes it so prosaic." 
 
 So saying, he arose, and went to one of his bookcases, 
 from the shelf of which he took down a little old quarto 
 volume, and laid it upon the table. 
 
 "Now here," he continued, " is a book of mathematics of 
 quite a different stamp from ours." 
 
 " It looks very old. What is it 1 " 
 
 "It is the Lilawati of Bhascara Acharya, translated from 
 the Sanscrit." 
 
 "It is a pretty name. Pray what does it mean ? " 
 
 " Lilawati was the name of Bhascara s daughter ; and 
 the book was written to perpetuate it. Here is an account 
 of the whole matter." 
 
 He then opened the volume, and read as follows : 
 
 "It is said that the composing of Lilawati was occasioned 
 by the following circumstance : Lilawati was the name of 
 the author s daughter, concerning whom it appeared, from 
 the qualities of the Ascendant at her birth, that she was 
 destined to pass her life unmarried, and to remain without 
 children. The father ascertained a lucky hour for contract 
 ing her in marriage, that she might be firmly connected, and 
 have children. It is said that, when that hour approached, 
 he brought his daughter and his intended son near him. 
 He left the hour-cup on the vessel of water, and kept in 
 attendance a time-knowing astrologer, in order that, when 
 the cup should subside in the water, those two precious 
 jewels should be united. But as the intended arrangement 
 not according to destiny, it happened that the jrirl, 
 
216 KAVANAGH. 
 
 from a curiosity natural to children, looked into the cup to 
 observe the water coming in at the hole ; when by chance a 
 pearl separated from her bridal dress, fell into the cup, and, 
 rolling down to the hole, stopped the influx of the water. 
 So the astrologer waited in expectation of the promised 
 hour. When the operation of the cup had thus been 
 delayed beyond all moderate time, the father was in con 
 sternation, and examining, he found that a small pearl 
 had stopped the course of the water, and the long-expected 
 hour was passed. In short, the father, thus disappointed, 
 said to his unfortunate daughter, I will write a book of 
 your name, which shall remain to the latest times, for a 
 good name is a second life, and the groundwork of eternal 
 existence." 
 
 As the schoolmaster read, the eyes of his wife dilated 
 and grew tender, and she said 
 
 < l What a beautiful story ! When did it happen ? " 
 
 " Seven hundred years ago, among the Hindoos." 
 
 " Why not write a poem about it ? " 
 
 " Because it is already a poem of itself, one of those 
 things of which the simplest statement is the best, and 
 which lose by embellishment. The old Hindoo legend, 
 brown with age, would not please me so well if decked in 
 gay colours, and hung round with the tinkling bells of 
 rhyme. Now hear how the book begins." 
 
 Again he read 
 
 " Salutation to the elephant-headed Being who infuses 
 joy into the minds of his worshippers, who delivers from 
 every difficulty those that call upon him, and whose feet 
 are reverenced by the gods ! Reverence to Ganesa, who is 
 beautiful as the pure purple lotos, and around whose neck 
 the black curling snake winds itself in playful folds ! " 
 
 " That sounds rather mystical," said his wife. 
 
 " Yes, the book begins with a salutation to the Hindoo 
 deities, as the old Spanish Chronicles begin in the name of 
 God and the Holy Virgin. And now see how poetical some 
 of the examples are." 
 
 He then turned over the leaves slowly and read : 
 
KAVANAGH. 217 
 
 "One-third of a collection of beautiful water-lilies is 
 offered to Mahadev, one-fifth to Huri, one-sixth to the Sun, 
 one-fourth to Devi, and six which remain are presented to 
 the spiritual teacher. Required the whole number of 
 water-lilies." 
 
 " That is very pretty," said the wife, " and would put it 
 into the boys heads to bring you pond-lilies." 
 
 " Here is a prettier one still. One-fifth of a hive of bees 
 flew to the Kadamba flower ; one-third flew to the 
 Silandhara ; three times the difference of these two numbers 
 flew to an arbour ; and one bee continued flying about, 
 attracted on each side by the fragrant Ketaki and the 
 Malati. What was the number of the bees ? " 
 
 " I am sure I should never be able to tell." 
 
 " Ten times the square root of a flock of geese " 
 
 Here Mrs. Churchill laughed aloud ; but he continued 
 very gravely 
 
 " Ten times the square root of a flock of geese, seeing the 
 clouds collect, flew to the Manus lake ; one-eighth of the 
 whole flew from the edge of the water amongst a multitude 
 of water-lilies, and three couple were observed playing in 
 the water. Tell me, my young girl with beautiful locks, 
 what was the whole number of geese ? " 
 
 " Well, what was it ? " 
 
 " What should you think ? " 
 
 " About twenty." 
 
 " No, one hundred and forty-four. Now try another. 
 The square root of half a number of bees, and also eight- 
 ninths of the whole, alighted on the jasmines, and a female 
 bee buzzed responsive to the hum of the male inclosed 
 at night in a water-lily. O, beautiful damsel, tell me the 
 number of bees 1 " 
 
 " That is not there, You made it." 
 
 (t No, indeed I did not. I wish I had made it. Look 
 and see." 
 
 He showed her the book, and she read it herself. He 
 then proposed some of the geometrical questions. 
 
 ** In a lake the bud of a water-lily was observed, one span 
 
2i8 KAVANAGH. 
 
 above the water, and when moved by the gentle breeze, it 
 sunk in the water at two cubits distance. Required the 
 depth of the water." 
 
 " That is charming, but must be very difficult. I could 
 not answer it." 
 
 " A tree one hundred cubits high is distant from a well 
 two hundred cubits ; from this tree one monkey descends 
 and goes to the well \ another monkey takes a leap upwards, 
 and then descends by the hypothenuse ; and both pass over 
 an equal space. Required the height of the leap." 
 
 " I do not believe you can answer that question yourself 
 without looking into the book," said the laughing wife, 
 laying her hand over the solution. " Try it." 
 
 " With great pleasure, my dear child," cried the confident 
 schoolmaster, taking a pencil and paper. After making a 
 few figures and calculations, he answered 
 
 " There, my young girl with beautiful locks, there is the 
 answer forty cubits." 
 
 His wife removed her hand from the book, and then, 
 clapping both in triumph, she exclaimed 
 
 " No, you are wrong, you are wrong, my beautiful youth 
 with a bee in your bonnet. It is fifty cubits ! " 
 
 " Then I must have made some mistake." 
 
 " Of course you did. Your monkey did not jump high 
 enough." 
 
 She signalised his mortifying defeat as if it had been a 
 victory, by showering kisses, like roses, upon his forehead 
 and cheeks, as he passed beneath the triumphal archway of 
 her arms, trying in vain to articulate 
 
 " My dearest Lilawati, what is the whole number of the 
 seese f" 
 
 V. 
 
 AFTER extricating himself from this pleasing dilemma, he 
 said 
 
 "But I am now going to write. I must really begin in 
 
KAVANAGH. 219 
 
 sober earnest, or I shall never get anything finished. And 
 you know I have so many things to do, so many books to 
 write, that really I do not know where to begin. I think I 
 will take up the Romance first." 
 
 " It will not make much difference, if you only begin ! " 
 
 "That is true. I will not lose a moment." 
 
 " Did you answer Mr. Cartwright s letter about the 
 cottage bedstead 1 " 
 
 " Dear me, no ! I forgot it entirely. That must be 
 done first, or he will make it all wrong." 
 
 " And the young lady who sent you the poetry to look 
 over and criticise ? " 
 
 " No ; I have not had a single moment s leisure. And 
 there is Mr. Hanson, who wants to know about the cooking- 
 range. Confound it ! there is always something interfering 
 with my Romance. However, I will despatch those 
 matters very speedily." 
 
 And he began to write with great haste. For awhile 
 nothing was heard but the scratching of his pen. Then he 
 said, probably in connection with the cooking-range 
 
 " One of the most convenient things in house-keeping is 
 a ham. It is always ready, and always welcome. You can 
 eat it with anything and without anything. It reminds me 
 always of the great wild boar Scrimner, in the Northern 
 Mythology, who is killed every day for the gods to feast on 
 in Valhalla, and comes to life again every night." 
 
 " In that case I should think the gods would have the 
 nightmare," said his wife. 
 
 "Perhaps they do." 
 
 And then another long silence, broken only by t.ho 
 skating of the swift pen over the sheet. Presently Mrs. 
 Churchill said as if following out her own train of thought, 
 while she ceased plying her needle to bite off the thread, 
 which ladies will sometimes do, in spite of all that is said 
 against it 
 
 "A man came here to-day, calling himself the agent of an 
 extensive house in the needle trade. He left this sample, 
 and said the drill of the eye was superior to any other, and 
 
220 KAVANAGH. 
 
 they are warranted not to cut the thread. He puts them 
 at the wholesale price ; and if I do not like the sizes, 
 he offers to exchange them for others, either sharps or 
 betweens." 
 
 To this remark the abstracted schoolmaster vouchsafed 
 no reply. He found his half-dozen letters not so easily 
 answered, particularly that to the poetical young lady, and 
 worked away busily at them. Finally, they were finished 
 and sealed ; and he looked up to his wife. She turned her 
 eyes dreamily upon him. Slumber was hanging in their 
 blue orbs, like snow in the heavens, ready to fall. It was 
 quite late, and he said to her 
 
 " I am too tired, my charming Lilawati, and you too 
 sleepy to sit here any longer to-night. And as I do not 
 wish to begin my Romance without having you at my side, 
 so that I can read detached passages to you as I write, I 
 will put it off till to-morrow or the next day." 
 
 He watched his wife as she went upstairs with the light. 
 It was a picture always new and always beautiful, and like 
 a painting of Gherardo della Notte. As he followed her, he 
 paused to look at the stars. The beauty of the heavens 
 made his soul overflow. 
 
 " How absolute," he exclaimed, " how absolute and omni 
 potent is the silence of the night ! And yet the stillness 
 seems almost audible ! From all the measureless depths of 
 air around us comes a half-sound, a half-whisper, as if we 
 could hear the crumbling and falling away of earth and all 
 created things, in the great miracle of nature, decay and 
 reproduction, ever beginning, never ending, the gradual 
 lapse and running of the sand in the great hour-glass of 
 Time ! " 
 
 In the night, Mr. Churchill had a singular dream. He 
 thought himself in school, where he was reading Latin to his 
 pupils. Suddenly all the genitive cases of the first declension 
 began to make faces at him, and to laugh immoderately ; 
 and when he tried to lay hold of them, they jumped down 
 into the ablative, and the circumflex accent assumed the 
 form of a great moustache. Then the little village school- 
 
RAVANAGH. 221 
 
 house was transformed into a vast and endless school-house 
 of the world, stretching forward, form after form, through 
 all the generations of coming time ; and on all the forms sat 
 young men and old, reading and transcribing his Romance, 
 which now in his dream was completed, and smiling and 
 passing it onward from one to another, till at last the clock 
 in the corner struck twelve, and the weights ran down with 
 a strange, angry whirr, and the school broke up ; and the 
 schoolmaster awoke to find this vision of fame only a dream, 
 out of which his alarm-clock had aroused him at an untimely 
 hour. 
 
 VI. 
 
 MEANWHILE a different scene was taking place at the parson 
 age. Mr. Pendexter had retired to his study to finish his 
 farewell sermon. Silence reigned through the house. Sunday 
 had already commenced there. The week ended with the 
 setting of the sun, and the evening and the morning were 
 the first day. 
 
 The clergyman was interrupted in his labours by the old 
 sexton, who called as usual for the key of the church. He 
 was gently rebuked for coming so late, and excused himself 
 by saying that his wife was worse. 
 
 " Poor woman ! " said Mr. Pendexter ; " has she her 
 mind ? " 
 
 " Yes," answered the sexton, " as much as ever." 
 
 " She has been ill a long time," continued the clergyman. 
 " We have had prayers for her a great many Sundays." 
 
 " It is very true, sir," replied the sexton, mournfully ; 
 " I have given you a great deal of trouble. But you need 
 not pray for her any more. It is of no use." 
 
 Mr. Pendexter s mind was in too fervid a state to notice 
 the extreme and hopeless humility of his old parishioner, and 
 
222 KAVANAGH. 
 
 the unintentional allusion to the inefficacy of his prayers. 
 He pressed the old man s hand warmly, and said, with much 
 emotion 
 
 " To-morrow is the last time that I shall preach in this 
 parish, where I have preached for twenty-five years. But 
 it is not the last time that I shall pray for you and your 
 family." 
 
 The sexton retired also much moved ; and the clergyman 
 again resumed his task. His heart glowed and burned 
 within him. Often his face Hushed and his eyes filled with 
 tears, so that he could not go on. Often he rose and paced 
 the chamber to and fro, and wiped away the large drops 
 that stood on his red and feverish forehead. 
 
 At length the sermon was finished. He rose and looked 
 out of the window. Slowly the clock struck twelve. He 
 had not heard it strike before, since six. The moonlight 
 silvered the distant hills, and lay white almost as snow, on 
 the frosty roofs of the village. Not a light could be seen at 
 any window. 
 
 " Ungrateful people ! Could you not watch with me one 
 hour 1 " exclaimed he, in that excited and bitter moment ; 
 as if he had thought that on that solemn night the whole 
 parish would have watched while he was writing his fare 
 well discourse. He pressed his hot brow against the 
 window-pane to allay its fever ; and across the tremulous 
 wavelets of the river the tranquil moon sent towards him a 
 silvery shaft of light, like an angelic salutation. And the 
 consoling thought came to him, that not only this river, but 
 all the rivers and lakes, and the great sea itself, were flash 
 ing with this heavenly light, though he beheld it as a single 
 ray only ; and that what to him were the dark waves were 
 the dark providences of God, luminous to others, and even 
 to himself should he change his position. 
 
KAVANAGH. 223 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE morning came j the dear, delicious, silent Sunday ; to 
 the weary workman, both of brain and hand, the beloved 
 day of rest. When the first bell rang, like a brazen mortar, 
 it seemed from its gloomy fortress to bombard the village 
 with bursting shells of sound, that exploded over the houses, 
 shattering the ears of all the parishioners, and shaking the 
 consciences of many. 
 
 Mr. Pendexter was to preach his farewell sermon. The 
 church was crowded, and only one person came late. It 
 was a modest, meek girl, who stole silently up one of the 
 side aisles not so silently, however, but that the pew door 
 creaked a little as she opened it ; and straightway a 
 hundred heads were turned in that direction, although it 
 was in the midst of the prayer. Old Mrs. Fairfield did not 
 turn round, but she and her daughter looked at each other, 
 and their bonnets made a parenthesis in that prayer, 
 within which, one asked what that was, and the other 
 replied 
 
 " It is only Alice Archer. She always comes late." 
 
 Finally the long prayer was ended, and the congregation 
 sat down, and the weary children who are always restless 
 during prayers, and had been for nearly half-an-hour twist 
 ing and turning, and standing first on one foot and then on 
 the other, and hanging their heads over the backs of the 
 pews, like tired colts looking into neighbouring pastures 
 settled suddenly down, and subsided into something like 
 rest. 
 
 The sermon began such a sermon as had never been 
 preached, or even heard of before. It brought many tears 
 into the eyes of the pastor s friends, and made the stoutest 
 hearts among his foes quake with something like remorse. 
 As he announced the text fc " Yea, I think it meet as long 
 as I am in this tabernacle to stir you up, by putting you in 
 remembrance," it seemed as if the apostle Peter himself. 
 
22 4 KAVANAGH. 
 
 from whose pen the words first proceeded, were calling them 
 to judgment. 
 
 He. began by giving a minute sketch of his ministry and 
 the state of the parish, with all its troubles and dissensions, 
 social, political, and ecclesiastical. He concluded by thank 
 ing those ladies who had presented him with a black silk 
 gown, and had been kind to his wife during her long 
 illness; by apologising for having neglected his own 
 business, which was to study and preach, in order to attend 
 to that of the parish, which was to support its minister 
 stating that his own shortcomings had been owing to 
 theirs, which had driven him into the woods in winter, 
 and into the fields in summer ; and finally, by telling the 
 congregation in general, that they were so confirmed in 
 their bad habits, that no reformation was to be expected in 
 them under his ministry, and that to produce one would 
 require a greater exercise of Divine power than it did to 
 create the world ; for in creating the world there had been 
 no opposition, whereas, in their reformation, their own 
 obstinacy, and evil propensities, and self-seeking, and 
 worldly-mindedness, were all to be overcome ! 
 
 VIII. 
 
 WHEN Mr. Pendexter had finished his discourse, and pro 
 nounced his last benediction upon a congregation to whose 
 spiritual wants he had ministered for so many years, his 
 people, now his no more, returned home in very various 
 states of mind. Some were exasperated, others mortified, 
 and others filled with pity. 
 
 Among the last was Alice Archer, a fair, delicate girl, 
 whose whole life had been saddened by a too sensitive 
 organisation, and by somewhat untoward circumstances. 
 She had a pale, transparent complexion, and large grey eyes 
 
KAVANAGH. 22$ 
 
 that seemed to see visions. Her figure was slight, almost 
 fragile ; her hands white, slender, diaphanous. With these 
 external traits her character was in unison. She was 
 thoughtful, silent, susceptible ; "often sad, often in tears, 
 often lost in reveries. She led a lonely life with her mother, 
 who was old, querulous, and nearly blind. She had herself 
 inherited a predisposition to blindness ; and in her disease 
 there was this peculiarity that she could see in Summer, 
 but in Winter the power of vision failed her. 
 
 The old house they lived in, with its four sickly Lombardy 
 poplars in front, suggested gloomy and mournful thoughts. 
 It was one of those houses that depress you as you enter, as 
 if many persons had died in it, sombre, desolate, silent. 
 The very clock in the hall had a dismal sound, gasping, and 
 catching its breath at times, and striking the hour with a 
 violent, determined blow, reminding one of Jael driving the 
 nail into the head of Sisera. 
 
 One other inmate the house had, and only one. This was 
 Sally Manchester, or Miss Sally Manchester, as she preferred 
 to be called ; an excellent chamber-maid, and a very bad 
 cook, for she served in both capacities. She was, indeed, 
 an extraordinary woman, of large frame and masculine 
 features, one of those who are born to work, and accept 
 their inheritance of toil as if it were play, and who con 
 sequently, in the language of domestic recommendations, are 
 usually styled " a treasure if you can get her." A treasure 
 she was to this family ; for she did all the house- work, 
 and, in addition, took care of the cow and the poultry, 
 occasionally venturing into the field of veterinary practice, 
 and administering lamp-oil to the cock when she thought 
 he crowed hoarsely. She had on her forehead what is 
 sometimes denominated a " widow s peak," that is to say, 
 her hair grew down to a point in the middle j and on 
 Sundays she appeared at church in a blue poplin gown, with 
 a large pink bow on what she called " the congregation side 
 of her bonnet." Her mind was strong, like her person ; 
 her disposition not sweet, but as is sometimes said of apples 
 by way of recommendation, a pleasant sour. 
 
 229 
 
226 KAVANAGH. 
 
 Such were the inmates of the gloomy house, from which 
 the last-mentioned frequently expressed her intention of 
 retiring, being engaged to a travelling dentist, who, in filling 
 her teeth with amalgam, had seized the opportunity to fill a 
 soft place in her heart with something still more dangerous 
 and mercurial. The wedding-day had been from time to 
 time postponed, and at length the family hoped and believed 
 it never would come, a wish prophetic of its own fulfilment. 
 
 Almost the only sunshine that from without shone into 
 the dark mansion came from the face of Cecilia Vaughan, 
 the schoolmate and bosom-friend of Alice Archer. They 
 were nearly of the same age, and had been drawn together 
 by that mysterious power which covers and selects friends 
 for us in our childhood. They sat together in school ; they 
 walked together after school ; they told each other their 
 manifold secrets ; they wrote long and impassioned letters 
 to each other in the evening ; in a word, they were in love 
 witli each other. It was, so to speak, a rehearsal in girlhood 
 of the great drama of woman s life. 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE golden tints of Autumn now brightened the shrubbery 
 around this melancholy house, and took away something of 
 its gloom. The four poplar-trees seemed all a-blaze, and 
 nickered in the wind like huge torches. The little border 
 of box filled the air with fragrance, and seemed to welcome 
 the return of Alice, as she ascended the steps, and entered 
 the house with a lighter heart than usual. The brisk 
 autumnal air had quickened her pulse and given a glow to 
 her cheek. 
 
 She found her mother alone in the parlour, seated in 
 her large arm-chair. The warm sun streamed in at the 
 uncurtained windows ; and lights and shadows from the 
 
KAVANAGH. 227 
 
 leaves lay upon her face. She turned her head as Alice 
 entered, and said 
 
 " Who is it *{ Is it you, Alice ? " 
 
 " Yes, it is I, mother." - 
 
 "Where have you been so long? " 
 
 "I have been nowhere, dear mother. I have come 
 directly home from church." 
 
 " How long it seems to me ! It is very late. It is 
 growing quite dark. I was just going to call for the lights." 
 
 "Why, mother!" exclaimed Alice, in a startled tone, "what 
 do you mean *{ The sun is shining directly into your face ! " 
 
 "Impossible, my dear Alice. It is quite dark. I cannot 
 see you. Where are you 1 " 
 
 She leaned over her mother and kissed her. Both were 
 silent both wept. They knew that the hour, so long 
 looked forward to with dismay, had suddenly come. Mrs. 
 Archer was blind ! 
 
 This scene of sorrow was interrupted by the abrupt 
 entrance of Sally Manchester. She, too, was in tears ; but 
 she was weeping for her own affliction. In her hand she 
 held an open letter, which she gave to Alice, exclaiming, 
 amid sobs 
 
 " Read this, Miss Archer, and see how false man can be ! 
 Never trust any man ! They are all alike ; they are all 
 false false false ! " 
 
 Alice took the letter, and read as follows : 
 
 "It is with pleasure, Miss Manchester, I sit down to 
 write you a few lines. I esteem you as highly as ever, but 
 Providence has seemed to order and direct my thoughts 
 and affections to another -one in my own neighbourhood. 
 It was rather unexpected to me. Miss Manchester, I 
 suppose you are well aware that we, as professed Christians, 
 ought to be resigned to our lot in this world. May God 
 assist you, so that we may be prepared to join the great 
 company in heaven. Your answer would be very desirable. 
 I respect your virtue, and regard you as a friend. 
 
 " MARTIN CHERRYFIELD. 
 
328 KAVANAGH. 
 
 " P.S. The society is generally pretty good here, but the 
 state of religion is quite low." 
 
 " That is a cruel letter, Sally,", said Alice, as she handed 
 it back to her. " But we all have our troubles. That man 
 is unworthy of you. Think no more about him." 
 
 " What is the matter 1 " inquired Mrs. Archer, hearing 
 the counsel given and the sobs with which it was received. 
 " Sally, what is the matter 1 " 
 
 Sally made no answer ; but Alice said 
 
 " Mr. Cherryfield has fallen in love with somebody else." 
 
 " Is that all 1 " said Mrs. Archer, evidently relieved. 
 " She ought to be very glad of it. Why does she want to 
 be married ? She had much better stay with us ; particularly 
 now that I am blind." 
 
 When Sally heard this last word, she looked up in con 
 sternation. In a moment she forgot her own grief to 
 sympathise with Alice and her mother. She wanted to do 
 a thousand things at once ; to go here ; to send there ; 
 to get this and that; and particularly to call all the 
 doctors in the neighbourhood. Alice assured her it would 
 be of no avail, though she finally consented that one should 
 be sent for. 
 
 Sally went in search of him. On her way her thoughts 
 reverted to herself; and, to use her own phrase, "she 
 curbed in like a stage-horse," as she walked. This state of 
 haughty and offended pride continued for some hours after 
 her return home. Later in the day she assumed a decent 
 composure, and requested that the man she scorned to 
 name him might never again be mentioned in her hearing. 
 Thus was her whole dream of felicity swept away by the 
 tide of fate, as the nest of a ground-swallow by an inundation* 
 It had been built too low to be secure. 
 
 Some women, after a burst of passionate tears, are soft, 
 gentle, affectionate ; a warm and genial air succeeds the 
 rain. Others clear up cold, and are breezy, bleak, and 
 dismal. Of the latter class was Sally Manchester. She 
 became embittered against all men on account of one ; and 
 
KAVANAGH. 229 
 
 was often heard to say, that she thought women were fools 
 to be married, and that, for one, she would not marry any 
 man, let him be who he might, not she ! 
 
 The village doctor came. He was a large man, of the 
 cheerful kind ; vigorous, florid, encouraging ; and pervaded 
 by an indiscriminate odour of drugs. Loud voice, large 
 cane, thick boots ; everything about him synonymous with 
 noise. His presence in the sick-room was like martial 
 music, inspiriting, but loud. He seldom left it without 
 saying to the patient, " I hope you will feel more comfort 
 able to-morrow," or, u When your fever leaves you, you 
 will be better." But, in this instance, he could not go so 
 far. Even his hopefulness was not sufficient for tne 
 emergency. Mrs. Archer was blind, beyond remedy, 
 beyond hope, irrevocably blind ! 
 
 ON the following morning, very early, as the schoolmaster 
 stood at his door, inhaling the bright, wholesome air, and 
 beholding the shadows of the rising sun, and the flashing 
 dew-drops on the red vine-leaves, he heard the sound of 
 wheels, and saw Mr. Pendexter and his wife drive down the 
 village street in their old-fashioned chaise, known by all the 
 boys in town as " the ark." The old white horse, that for 
 so many years had stamped at funerals, and gnawed the 
 tops of so many posts, and imagined he killed so many flies 
 because he wagged the stump of a tail, and finally had been 
 the cause of so much discord in the parish, seemed now to 
 make common cause with his master, and stepped as if 
 endeavouring to shake the dust from his feet as he passed 
 through the ungrateful village. Under the axle-tree hung 
 suspended a leather trunk ; and in the chaise, between the 
 two occupants, was a large bandbox, which forced Mr. 
 
230 KAVANAGH. 
 
 Pendexter to let his legs hang out of the vehicle, and gave 
 him the air of imitating the Scriptural behaviour of his 
 horse. Gravely and from a distance he saluted the school 
 master, who saluted him in return, with a tear in his eye, 
 that no man saw, but which, nevertheless, was not unseen. 
 
 " Farewell, poor old man ! " said the schoolmaster within 
 himself, as he shut out the cold autumnal air, and entered 
 his comfortable study. " We are not worthy of thee, or we 
 should have had thee with us for ever. Go back again to 
 the place of thy childhood, the scene of thine early labours 
 and thine early love ; let thy days end where they began, 
 and, like the emblem of eternity, let the serpent of life coil 
 itself round and take its tail into its mouth, and be still 
 from all its hissings for evermore ! I would not call thee 
 back ; for it is better thou should st be where thou art, than 
 amid the angry contentions of this little town." 
 
 Not all took leave of the old clergyman in so kindly a 
 spirit. Indeed, there was a pretty general feeling of relief 
 in the village, as when one gets rid of an ill-fitting garment, 
 or old-fashioned hat, which one neither wishes to wear, nor 
 is quite willing to throw away. 
 
 Thus Mr. Pendexter departed from the village. A few 
 days afterwards he was seen at a full training, or general 
 muster of the militia, making a prayer on horseback, with 
 his eyes wide open ; a performance in which he took evident 
 delight, as it gave him an opportunity of going quite at 
 large into some of the bloodiest campaigns of the ancient 
 Hebrews. 
 
 XI. 
 
 FOR awhile the schoolmaster walked to and fro, looking at 
 the gleam of the sunshine on the carpet, and revelling in 
 his day-dreams of unwritten books, and literary fame. 
 With these day-dreams mingled confusedly the pattering of 
 
KAVANAGH. 231 
 
 little feet, and the murmuring and cooing of his children 
 overhead. His plans that morning, could he have executed 
 them, would have filled a shelf in his library with poems and 
 romances of his own creation. But suddenly the vision 
 vanished ; and another from the actual world took its place. 
 It was the canvas-covered cart of the butcher, that, like the 
 flying wigwam of the Indian tale, flitted before his eyes. 
 It drove up the yard and stopped at the back door ; and 
 the poet felt that the sacred rest of Sunday, the God s truce 
 with worldly cares, was once more at an end. A dark hand 
 passed between him and the land of light. Suddenly closed 
 the ivory gate of dreams, and the horn gate of every-day 
 life opened, and he went forth to deal with the man of flesh 
 and blood. 
 
 " Alas ! " said he, with a sigh ; " and must my life, then, 
 always be like the Sabbatical river of the Jews, flowing in 
 full stream only on the seventh day, and sandy and arid all 
 the rest ?" 
 
 Then he thought of his beautiful wife and children, and 
 added, half aloud 
 
 " No ; not so ! Rather let me look upon the seven days 
 of the week as the seven magic rings of Jarchas, each 
 inscribed with the name of a separate planet, and each 
 possessing a peculiar power ; or as the seven sacred and 
 mysterious stones which the pilgrims of Mecca were forced 
 to throw over their shoulders in the valleys of Menah and 
 Akbah, cursing the devil and saying at each throw, God is 
 great. " 
 
 He found Mr. Wilmerdings, the butcher, standing beside 
 his cart, and surrounded by five cats, that had risen simul 
 taneously on their hind legs, to receive their quotidian 
 morning s meal. Mr. Wilmerdings not only supplied the 
 village with fresh provisions daily, but he likewise weighed 
 all the babies. There was hardly a child in town that had 
 not hung beneath his steelyards, tied in a silk handkerchief, 
 the movable weight above sliding along the notched beam 
 from eight pounds to twelve. He was a young man with a 
 very fresh and rosy complexion, and every Monday morning 
 
232 KAVANAGH 
 
 he appeared dressed in an exceedingly white frock. He had 
 lately married a milliner, who sold " Dunstable and eleven- 
 braid, open-work and coloured straws," and their bridal tour 
 had been to a neighbouring town to see a man hanged for 
 murdering his wife. A pair of huge ox-horns branched 
 from the gable of his slaughter-house ; and near it stood the 
 great pits of the tannery, which all the school-boys thought 
 were filled with blood ! 
 
 Perhaps no two men could be more unlike than Mr. 
 Churchill and Mr. Wilmerdings. Upon such a grating, iron 
 hinge opened the door of his daily life ; opened into the 
 school-room, the theatre of those life-long labours, which 
 theoretically are the most noble, and practically the most 
 vexatious, in the world. Towards this, as soon as breakfast 
 was over, and he had played awhile with his children, he 
 directed his steps. On his way he had many glimpses into 
 the lovely realms of Nature, and one into those of Art, 
 through the medium of a placard pasted against a wall. It 
 was as follows : 
 
 "The subscriber professes to take profiles, plain and shaded, 
 which, viewed at right-angles with the serious countenance, 
 are warranted to be infallibly correct. 
 
 "No trouble of adorning or dressing the person is required. 
 He takes infants and children at sight, and has frames of 
 all sizes to accommodate. 
 
 " A profile is a delineated outline of the exterior form of 
 any person s face and head, the use of which when seen tends 
 to vivify the affections of those whom we esteem or love. 
 
 " WILLIAM BANTAM." 
 
 Ere long even this glimpse into the ideal world had 
 vanished ; and he felt himself bound to the earth with a 
 hundred invisible threads, by which a hundred urchins were 
 tugging and tormenting him ; and it was only with consider 
 able effort, and at intervals, that his mind could soar to the 
 moral dignity of his profession. 
 
 Such was the schoolmaster s life ; and a dreary, weary 
 
KAVANAGH. 233 
 
 life it would have been, had not poetry from within gushed 
 through every crack and crevice in it. This transformed it, 
 and made ifc resemble a well, into which stones and rubbish 
 have been thrown ; but underneath is a spring of fresh, pure 
 water, which nothing external can ever check or defile. 
 
 XII. 
 
 MR. PENDEXTER had departed. Only a few old and 
 middle-aged people regretted him. To these few some 
 thing was wanting in the service ever afterwards. They 
 missed the accounts of the Hebrew massacres, and the 
 wonderful tales of the Zumzummims; they missed the 
 venerable grey hair, and the voice that had spoken to them 
 in childhood, and for ever preserved the memory of it in 
 their hearts, as in the Russian church the old hymns of the 
 earliest centuries are still piously retained. 
 
 The winter came with all its affluence of snows, and its 
 many candidates for the vacant pulpit. But the parish was 
 difficult to please, as all parishes are; and talked of dividing 
 itself, and building a new church, and other extravagances, 
 as all parishes do. Finally it concluded to remain as it was, 
 and the choice of a pastor was made. 
 
 The events of the winter were few in number, and can be 
 easily described. The following extract from a school-girl s 
 letter to an absent friend contains the most important : 
 
 " At school things have gone on pretty much as usual. 
 Jane Brown has grown very pale. They say she is in a 
 consumption ; but I think it is because she eats so many 
 slate pencils. One of her shoulders has grown a good deal 
 higher than the other. Billy Wilmerdings has been turned 
 out of school for playing truant. He promised his mother, 
 if she would not whip him, he would experience religion. 
 I am sure I wish he would ; for then he would stop looking 
 at me through the hole in the top of his desk. Mr. 
 
234 KAVANAGH. 
 
 Churchill is a very curious man. To-day he gave us this 
 question in arithmetic : One-fifth of a hive of bees flew to 
 the Kadamba flower ; one-third flew to the Silanhara ; three 
 times the difference of these two numbers flew to an arbour; 
 and one bee continued flying about, attracted on each side 
 by the fragrant Ketaki and the Malati. What was the 
 number of bees ? Nobody could do the sum. 
 
 "The church has been repaired, and we have a new 
 mahogany pulpit. Mr. Churchill bought the old one, and 
 had it put up in his study. What a strange man he is ! A 
 good many candidates have preached for us. The only one 
 we like is Mr. Kavanagh. Arthur Kavanagh ! is not that a 
 romantic name ? He is tall, very pale, with beautiful black 
 eyes and hair ! Sally Alice Archer s Sally says he is 
 not a man ; he is a Thaddeus of Warsaw ! I think he is 
 very handsome. And such sermons ! So beautifully written, 
 so different from old Mr. Pendexter s ! He has been invited 
 to settle here ; but he cannot come till Spring. Last Sun 
 day he preached about the ruling passion. He said that 
 once a German nobleman, when he was dying, had his 
 hunting-horn blown in his bedroom, and his hounds let in, 
 springing and howling about him ; and that so it was with 
 the ruling passions of men ; even around the death-bed, at 
 the well-known signal, they howled and leaped about those 
 that had fostered them ! Beautiful, is it not ? and so 
 original ! He said in another sermon that disappointments 
 feed and nourish us in the desert places of life, as the 
 ravens did the Prophet in the wilderness ; and that as, in 
 Catholic countries, the lamps lighted before the images of 
 saints, in narrow and dangerous streets, not only served as 
 offerings of devotion, but likewise as lights to those who 
 passed, so, in the dark and dismal streets of the city of 
 Unbelief, every good thought, word, and deed of a man, 
 not only was an offering to Heaven, but likewise served to 
 light him and others on their way homeward ! I have taken 
 a good many notes of Mr. Kavanagh s sermons, which you 
 shall see when you come back. 
 
 " Last week we had a sleigh-ride, with six white horses. 
 
KAVANAGH, 235 
 
 We went like the wind over the hollows in the snow ; the 
 driver called them thank-you-ma ams, because they make 
 everybody bow. And such a frantic ball as we had at 
 Beaverstock ! I wish you had been there ! We did not 
 get home till two o clock in the morning ; and the next day 
 Hester Green s minister asked her if she did not feel the 
 fire of a certain place growing hot under her feet while she 
 was dancing ! 
 
 " The new fashionable boarding-school begins next week. 
 The prospectus has been sent to our house. One of the 
 regulations is, Young ladies are not allowed to cross their 
 benders in school ! Papa says he never heard them called 
 so before. Old Mrs. Plainfield is gone at last. Just before 
 she died, her Irish chamber-maid asked her if she wanted 
 to be buried with her false teeth in ! There has not been a 
 single new engagement since you went away. But some 
 body asked me the other day if you were engaged to Mr. 
 Pillsbury. I was very angry. Pillsbury, indeed ! He is 
 old enough to be your father ! 
 
 " What a long, rambling letter I am writing you ! and 
 only because you will be so naughty as to stay away and 
 leave me all alone. If you could have seen the moon last 
 night ! But what a goose I am ! as if you did not see it ! 
 Was it not glorious? You cannot imagine, dearest, how 
 every hour in the day I wish you were here with me. I 
 know you would sympathise with all my feelings, which 
 Hester does not at all. For, if I admire the moon, she 
 says I am romantic, and, for her part, if there is anything 
 she despises, it is the moon ! and that she prefers a* snug, 
 warm bed (O, horrible !) to all the moons in the universe ! " 
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE events mentioned in this letter were the principal ones 
 that occurred during the winter. The case of Billy Wilmer- 
 dings grew quite desperate. In vain did his father threaten, 
 
236 KAVANAGH. 
 
 and the schoolmaster expostulate ; he was only the more 
 sullen and stubborn. In vain did his mother represent to 
 his weary mind, that if he did not study, the boys who knew 
 the dead languages would throw stones at him in the street ; 
 he only answered that he should like to see them try it. 
 Till, finally, having lost many of his illusions, and having 
 even discovered that his father was not the greatest man in 
 the world, on the breaking up of the ice in the river, to his 
 own infinite relief and that of the whole village, he departed 
 on a coasting trip in a fore-and-aft schooner, which 
 constituted the entire navigation of Fairmeadow. 
 
 Mr. Churchill had really put up in his study the old 
 white, wine-glass shaped pulpit. It served as a play-house 
 for his children, who, whether in it or out of it, daily 
 preached to his heart, and were a living illustration of the 
 way to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Moreover, he 
 himself made use of it externally as a note-book, recording 
 his many meditations with a pencil on the white panels. 
 The following will serve as a specimen of this pulpit 
 eloquence : 
 
 Morality, without religion, is only a kind of dead-reckon 
 ing an endeavour to find our place on a cloudy sea by 
 measuring the distance we have run, but without any 
 observation of the heavenly bodies. 
 
 Many readers judge of the power of a book by the shock 
 it gives their feelings, as some savage tribes determine the 
 power of muskets by their recoil; that being considered best 
 which fairly prostrates the purchaser. 
 
 Men of genius are often dull and inert in society ; as the 
 blazing meteor, when it descends to earth, is only a stone. 
 
 The natural alone is permanent. Fantastic idols may be 
 worshipped for awhile ; but at length they are overturned by 
 the continual and silent progress of Truth, as the grim 
 statues of Copan have been pushed from their pedestals by 
 
KAVANAGH. 237 
 
 the growth of forest trees, whose seeds were sown by the 
 wind in the ruined walls. 
 
 The every-day cares and duties, which men call drudgery, 
 are the weights and counterpoises of the clock of time, 
 giving its pendulum a true vibration, and its hands a regular 
 motion ; and when they cease to hang upon the wheels, the 
 pendulum no longer swings, the hands no longer move, the 
 clock stands still. 
 
 The same object, seen from the three different points of 
 view, the Past, the Present, and the Future, often 
 exhibits three different faces to us ; like those sign-boards 
 over shop-doors which represent the face of a lion as we 
 approach, of a man when we are in front, and of an ass 
 when we have passed. 
 
 In character, in manners, in style, in all things, the 
 supreme excellence is simplicity. 
 
 With many readers brilliancy of style passes for affluence 
 of thought; they mistake butter-cups in the grass for 
 immeasurable gold mines underground. 
 
 The motives and purposes of authors are not always so 
 pure and high as, in the enthusiasm of youth, we sometimes 
 imagine. To many, the trumpet of fame is nothing but a 
 tin horn to call them home, like labourers from the field, at 
 dinner-time; and they think themselves lucky to get the 
 dinner. 
 
 The rays of happiness, like those of light, are colourless 
 when unbroken. 
 
 Critics are sentinels in the grand army of letters, stationed 
 at the corners of newspapers and reviews, to challenge every 
 new author. 
 
 The country is lyric, the town dramatic. When mingled, 
 they make the most perfect musical drama. 
 
238 KAVANAGH. 
 
 Our passions never wholly die ; but in the last cantos of 
 life s romantic epos, they rise up again and do battle, like 
 some of Ariosto s heroes, who have already been quietly 
 interred, and ought to be turned to dust. 
 
 This country is not priest-ridden, but press-ridden. 
 
 Some critics have the habit of rowing up the Heliconian 
 rivers with their backs turned, so as to see the landscape 
 precisely as the poet did not see it. Others see faults in a 
 book much larger than the book itself; as Sancho Panza, 
 with his eyes blinded, beheld from his wooden horse the 
 earth no larger than a grain of mustard-seed, and the men 
 and women on it as large as hazel-nuts. 
 
 Like an inundation of the Indus is the course of Time. 
 We look for the homes of our childhood, they are gone ; for 
 the friends of our childhood, they are gone. The loves 
 and animosities of youth, where are they? Swept away, 
 like the camps that had been pitched in the sandy bed of 
 the river. 
 
 As no saint can be canonised until the Devil s Advocate 
 has exposed all his evil deeds, and showed why he should 
 not be made a saint, so no poet can take his station among 
 the gods until the critics have said all that can be said 
 against him. 
 
 It is curious to note the old sea^margins of human 
 thought ! Each subsiding century reveals some new 
 mystery j we build where monsters used to hide themselves. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 AT length the Spring came, and brought the birds, and the 
 flowers, and Mr. Kavanagh, the new clergyman, who was 
 ordained with all the pomp and ceremony usual on such 
 
KAVANAGH. 239 
 
 occasions. The opening of the season furnished also the 
 theme of his first discourse, which some of the congregation 
 thought very beautiful, and others very incomprehensible. 
 
 Ah, how wonderful is the advent of the Spring ! the 
 great annual miracle of the blossoming of Aaron s rod, 
 repeated on myriads and myriads of branches ! the gentle 
 progression and growth of herbs, flowers, trees gentle, and 
 yet irrepressible which no force can stay, no violence 
 restrain, like love, that wins its way and cannot be withstood 
 by any human power, because itself is divine power. If 
 Spring came but once in a century, instead of once a-year, 
 or burst forth with the sound of an earthquake, and not in 
 silence, what wonder and expectation would there be in all 
 hearts to behold the miraculous change ! 
 
 But now the silent succession suggests nothing but 
 necessity. To most men only the cessation of the miracle 
 would be miraculous, and the perpetual exercise of God s 
 power seems less wonderful than its withdrawal would be. 
 We are like children who are astonished and delighted only 
 by the second-hand of the clock, not by the hour hand. 
 
 Such was the train of thought with which Kavanagh 
 commenced his sermon. And then, with deep solemnity 
 and emotion, he proceeded to speak of the Spring of the 
 soul, as from its cheerless wintry distance it turns nearer 
 and nearer to the great Sun, and clothes its dry and 
 withered branches anew with leaves and blossoms, unfolded 
 from within itself, beneath the penetrating and irresistible 
 influence. 
 
 While delivering the discourse, Kavanagh had not 
 succeeded so entirely in abstracting himself from all 
 outward things as not to note in some degree its effects upon 
 his hearers. As in modern times no applause is permitted 
 in our churches, however moved the audience may be, and, 
 consequently, no one dares wave his hat and shout 
 " Orthodox Chrysostom ! Thirteenth Apostle ! Worthy 
 the Priesthood ! " as was done in the days of the Christian 
 Fathers : and, moreover, as no one after church spoke to 
 him of his sermon, or of anything else, he went home with 
 
2 4 o KAVANAGH. 
 
 rather a heavy heart, and a feeling of discouragement. One 
 thing had cheered and consoled him. It was the pale 
 countenance of a young girl, whose dark eyes had been 
 fixed upon him during the whole discourse with unflagging 
 interest and attention. She sat alone in a pew near the 
 pulpit. It was Alice Archer. Ah ! could he have known 
 how deeply sank his words into that simple heart, he might 
 have shuddered with another kind of fear than that of not 
 moving his audience sufficiently ! 
 
 XV. 
 
 ON the following morning Kavanagh sat musing upon his 
 worldly affairs, and upon various little household arrange 
 ments which it would be necessary for him to make. To 
 aid him in these, he had taken up the village paper, and 
 was running over the columns of advertisements, those 
 narrow and crowded thoroughfares, in which the wants and 
 wishes of humanity display themselves like mendicants 
 without disguise. His eye ran hastily over the advantageous 
 offers of the cheap tailors and the dealers in patent medicines. 
 He wished neither to be clothed nor cured. In one place 
 he saw that a young lady, perfectly competent, desired to 
 form a class of young mothers and nurses, and to instruct 
 them in the art of talking to infants so as to interest and 
 amuse them; and in another, that the firemen of Fairmeadow 
 wished well to those hostile editors who had called them 
 gamblers, drunkards, and rioters, and hoped that they might 
 be spared from that great fire which they were told could 
 never be extinguished ! Finally, his eye rested on the 
 advertisement of a carpet warehouse, in which the one-price 
 system was strictly adhered to. It was farther stated that a 
 discount would be made " to clergymen on small salaries, 
 feeble churches, and charitable institutions." Thinking that 
 
KAVANAGH. 241 
 
 this was doubtless the place for one who united in himself 
 two of these qualifications for a discount, with a smile on 
 his lips, he took his hat and sallied forth into the street. 
 
 A few days previous Kavanagh had discovered in the 
 tower of the church a vacant room, which he had imme 
 diately determined to take possession of, and to convert into 
 a study. From this retreat, through the four oval windows, 
 fronting the four corners of the heavens, he could look down 
 upon the streets, the roofs, and gardens of the village, on 
 the winding river, the meadows, the farms, the distant blue 
 mountains. Here he could sit and meditate, in that peculiar 
 sense of seclusion and spiritual elevation, that entire separa 
 tion from the world below, which a chamber in a tower 
 always gives. Here, uninterrupted and aloof from all 
 intrusion, he could pour his heart into those discourses 
 with which he hoped to reach and move the hearts of his 
 parishioners. 
 
 It was to furnish this retreat that he went forth on the 
 Monday morning after his first sermon. He was not long 
 in procuring the few things needed the carpet, the table, 
 the chair, the shelves for books ; and was returning thought 
 fully homeward, when his eye was caught by a sign-board on 
 the corner of the street, inscribed " Moses Merryweather, 
 Dealer in Singing Birds, foreign and domestic." He saw 
 also a whole chamber window transformed into a cage, in 
 which sundry canary-birds, and others of gayer plumage, 
 were jargoning together, like people in the market-places of 
 foreign towns. At the sight of these old favourites, a long- 
 slumbering passion awoke within him ; and he straightway 
 ascended the dark wooden staircase, with the intent of 
 enlivening his solitary room with the vivacity and song of 
 these captive ballad-singers. 
 
 In a moment he found himself in a little room hung 
 round with cages, roof and walls ; full of sunshine ; full of 
 twitterings, cooings, and flutterings, full of downy odours, 
 suggesting nests, and dovecots, and distant islands inhabited 
 only by birds. The taxidermist the Selkirk of the sunny 
 island was not there ; but a young lady of noble mien, 
 
 230 
 
2 42 KAVANAGH. 
 
 who was looking at an English goldfinch in a square cage 
 with a portico, turned upon him, as he entered, a fair and 
 beautiful face, shaded by long, light locks, in which the 
 sunshine seemed entangled, as among the boughs of trees. 
 That face he had never seen before, and yet it seemed 
 familiar to him ; and the added light in her large, celestial 
 eyes, and the almost imperceptible expression that passed 
 over her face, showed that she knew who he was. 
 
 At the same moment the taxidermist presented himself, 
 coming from an inner room ; a little man in grey, with 
 spectacles upon his nose, holding in his hands, with wings 
 and legs drawn close and smoothly together, like the green 
 husks of the maize ear, a beautiful carrier-pigeon, who turned 
 up first one bright eye and then the other, as if asking, 
 " What are you going to do with me now ? " This silent 
 inquiry was soon answered by Mr. Merry weather, who said 
 to the young lady 
 
 " Here, Miss Vaughan, is the best carrier-pigeon in my 
 whole collection. The real Columba Tabullaria. He is 
 about three years old, as you can see by his wattle." 
 
 " A very pretty bird," said the lady ; " and how shall I 
 train it ? " 
 
 " O, that is very easy. You have only to keep it shut up 
 for a few days, well fed and well treated. Then take it in 
 an open cage to the place you mean it to fly to, and do the 
 same thing there. Afterwards it will give you no trouble ; 
 it will always fly between those two places." 
 
 "That, certainly, is not very difficult. At all events, I 
 will make the trial. You may send the bird home to me. 
 On what shall I feed it?" 
 
 " On any kind of grain, barley and buckwheat are best; 
 and remember to let it have plenty of gravel in the bottom 
 of its cage." 
 
 "I will not forget Send me the bird to-day if possible." 
 
 With these words she departed, much too soon for 
 Kavanagh, who was charmed with her form, her face, her 
 voice : and who, when left alone with the little taxidermist, 
 felt that the momentary fascination of the place was gone. 
 
KAVANAGH. 243 
 
 He heard no longer the singing of the birds ; he saw no 
 longer their gay plumage ; and having speedily made the 
 purchase of a canary and a cage, he likewise departed, 
 thinking of the carrier-pigeons of Bagdad, and the colum- 
 baries of Egypt, stationed at fixed intervals as relays and 
 resting-places for the flying post. With an indefinable 
 feeling of sadness, too, came wafted like a perfume through 
 his memory those tender melancholy lines of Maria del 
 Occidente : 
 
 " And as the dove, to far Palmyra flying, 
 
 From where her native founts of Antioch beam, 
 Weary, exhausted, longing, panting, sighing, 
 Lights sadly at the desert s bitter stream ; 
 
 So many a soul, o er life s drear desert faring, 
 
 Love s pure, congenial spring unfound, unquaffed, 
 
 Suffers, recoils, then, thirsty and despairing 
 
 Of what it would, descends and sips the nearest draught." 
 
 Meanwhile, Mr. Merryweather, left to himself, walked 
 about his aviary, musing, and talking to his birds. Finally 
 he paused before the tin cage of a grey African parrot, 
 between which and himself there was a strong family 
 likeness, and giving it his finger to peck and perch upon, 
 conversed with it in that peculiar dialect with which it had 
 often made vocal the distant groves of Zanguebar. He then 
 withdrew to the inner room, where he resumed his labour of 
 stuffing a cardinal grossbeak, saying to himself between 
 whiles 
 
 " I wonder what Miss Cecilia Vaughan means to do with 
 a carrier-pigeon ! " 
 
 Some mysterious connection he had evidently established 
 already between this pigeon and Mr. Kavanagh; for, 
 continuing his reverie, he said, half aloud 
 
 " Of course she would never think of marrying a poor 
 clergyman." 
 
244 KAVANAGIL 
 
 XVI. 
 
 THE old family mansion of the Vaughans stood a little out 
 of town, in the midst of a pleasant farm. The county road 
 was not near enough to annoy ; and the rattling wheels and 
 little clouds of dust seemed like friendly salutations from 
 travellers as they passed. They spoke of safety and 
 companionship, and took away all loneliness from the 
 solitude. 
 
 On three sides the farm was enclosed by willow and 
 alder hedges, and the flowing wall of a river ; nearer the 
 house were groves clear of all underwood, with rocky knolls, 
 and breezy bowers of beech; and afar off the blue hills 
 broke the horizon, creating secret longings for what lay 
 beyond them, and filling the mind with pleasant thoughts of 
 Prince Rasselas and the Happy Valley. 
 
 The house was one of the few old houses still standing in 
 New England ; a large, square building, with a portico in 
 front, whose door in summer-time stood open from morning 
 until night. A pleasing stillness reigned about it ; and soft 
 gusts of pine-embalmed air, and distant cawings from the 
 crow-haunted mountains, filled its airy and ample halls. 
 
 In this old-fashioned house had Cecilia Vaughan grown up 
 to maidenhood. The travelling shadows of the clouds on 
 the hill-sides, the sudden Summer wind, that lifted the 
 languid leaves, and rushed from field to field, from grove to 
 grove, the forerunner of the rain, and, most of all, the 
 mysterious mountain, whose coolness was a perpetual invita 
 tion to her, and whose silence a perpetual fear, fostered her 
 dreamy and poetic temperament. Not less so did the 
 reading of the poetry and romance in the long, silent, 
 solitary winter evenings. Her mother had been dead for 
 many years, and the memory of that mother had become 
 almost a religion to her. She recalled it incessantly ; and 
 the reverential love which it inspired completely filled her 
 soul with melancholy delight. Her father was a kindly old 
 
KAVANAGH. 245 
 
 man ; a judge in one of the courts ; dignified, affable, some 
 what bent by his legal erudition, as a shelf is by the weight 
 of the books upon it. His papers encumbered the study 
 table j his law books the study floor. They seemed to 
 shut out from his mind the lovely daughter who had grown 
 up to womanhood by his side, but almost without its 
 recognition. Always affectionate, always indulgent, he left 
 her to walk alone, without his stronger thought and firmer 
 purpose to lean upon ; and though her education had been, 
 on this account, somewhat desultory, and her imagination 
 indulged in many dreams and vagaries, yet, on the whole, 
 the result had been more favourable than in many cases 
 where the process of instruction has been too diligently 
 carried on, and where, as sometimes on the roofs of farm 
 houses and barns, the scaffolding has been left to deform 
 the building. 
 
 Cecilia s bosom-friend at school was Alice Archer ; and, 
 after they left school, the love between them, and con 
 sequently the letters, rather increased than diminished. 
 These two young hearts found not only a delight, but a 
 necessity in pouring forth their thoughts and feelings to 
 each other, and it was to facilitate this intercommunication, 
 for whose exigencies the ordinary methods were now found 
 inadequate, that the carrier-pigeon had been purchased. 
 He was to be the flying-post ; their bedrooms the dovecots, 
 the pure and friendly columbaria. 
 
 Endowed with youth, beauty, talent, fortune, and, more 
 over, with that indefinable fascination which has no name, 
 Cecilia Vaughan was not without lovers, avowed and 
 unavowed ; young men who made an ostentatious display 
 of their affection ; boys, who treasured it in their bosoms, 
 as something indescribably sweet and precious, perfuming 
 all the chambers of the heart with its celestial fragrance. 
 Whenever she returned from a visit to the city, some un 
 known youth of elegant manners and varnished leather 
 boots was sure to hover round the village inn for a few 
 days, was known to visit the Vaughans assiduously, and 
 then silently to disappear, and be seen no more. Of course, 
 
246 KAVANAGH. 
 
 nothing could be known of the secret history of such indi 
 viduals ; but shrewd surmises were formed as to their 
 designs and their destinies ; till finally, any well-dressed 
 stranger, lingering in the village without ostensible business, 
 was set down as "one of Miss Vaughan s lovers." 
 
 In all this, what a contrast was there between the two 
 young friends ! The wealth of one and the poverty of the 
 other were not so strikingly at variance as this affluence 
 and refluence of love. To the one so much was given that 
 she became regardless of the gift ; from the other, so much 
 withheld, that, if possible, she exaggerated its importance. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 IN addition to these transient lovers, who were but birds of 
 passage, winging their way, in an incredibly short space of 
 time, from the torrid to the frigid zone, there was in the 
 village a domestic and resident adorer, whose love for him 
 self, for Miss Vaughan, and for the beautiful, had trans 
 formed his name from Hiram A. Hawkins to H. Adolphus 
 Hawkins. He was a dealer in English linens and carpets ; 
 a profession which of itself fills the mind with ideas of 
 domestic comfort. His waistcoats were made like Lord 
 Melbourne s in the illustrated English papers, and his shiny 
 hair went off to the left in a superb sweep, like the hand-rail 
 of a banister. He wore many rings on his fingers, and 
 several breast-pins and gold chains disposed about his 
 person. On all his bland physiognomy was stamped, as on 
 some of his linens, " Soft finish for family use." Everything 
 about him spoke the lady s man. He was, in fact, a perfect 
 ringdove ; and like the rest of his species, always walked up 
 to the female, and bowing his head, swelled out his white 
 crop, and uttered a very plaintive murmur. 
 
 Moreover, Mr. Hiram Adolphus Hawkins was a poet, 
 so much a poet, that, as his sister frequently remarked, he 
 
KAVANAGH. 247 
 
 " spoke blank verse in the bosom of his family." The 
 general tone of his productions was sad, desponding, per 
 haps slightly morbid. How could it be otherwise with the 
 writings of one who had never been the world s friend, nor 
 the world his ? who looked upon himself as " a pyramid of 
 mind on the dark desert of despair ? " and who, at the age of 
 twenty-five, had drunk the bitter draught of life to the dregs, 
 and dashed the goblet down ? His productions were pub 
 lished in the Poet s Corner of the Fairmeadow Advertiser ; 
 and it was a relief to know, that, in private life, as his sister 
 remarked, he was " by no means the censorious and moody 
 person some of his writings might imply." 
 
 Such was the personage who assumed to himself the 
 perilous position of Miss Vaughan s permanent admirer. 
 He imagined that it was impossible for any woman to look 
 upon and not love him. Accordingly, he paraded himself 
 at his shop-door as she passed ; he paraded himself at the 
 corners of the streets ; he paraded himself at the church- 
 steps on Sunday. He spied her from the window ; he 
 sallied from the door ; he followed her with his eyes ; he 
 followed her with his whole august person ; he passed her 
 and repassed her, and turned back to gaze ; he lay in wait 
 with dejected countenance and desponding air ; he per 
 secuted her with his looks ; he pretended that their souls 
 could comprehend each other without words ; and whenever 
 her lovers were alluded to in his presence, he gravely 
 declared, as one who had reason to know, that, if Miss 
 Vaughan ever married, it would be some one of gigantic 
 intellect ! 
 
 Of these persecutions Cecilia was for a long time the un 
 conscious victim. She saw this individual, with rings and 
 strange waistcoats, performing his gyrations before her, but 
 did not suspect that she was the centre of attraction, not 
 imagining that any man would begin his wooing with such 
 outrages. Gradually the truth dawned upon her, and be 
 came the source of indescribable annoyance, which was 
 augmented by a series of anonymous letters, written in a 
 female hand, and setting forth the excellences of a certain 
 
248 KAVANAGH. 
 
 mysterious relative, his modesty, his reserve, his extreme 
 delicacy, his talent for poetry, rendered authentic by 
 extracts from his papers, made, of course, without the 
 slightest knowledge or suspicion on his part. Whence 
 came these sibylline leaves ? At first Cecilia could not 
 divine : but, ere long, her woman s instinct traced them to 
 the thin and nervous hand of the poet s sister. This 
 surmise was confirmed by her maid, who asked the boy 
 that brought them. 
 
 It was with one of these missives in her hand that Cecilia 
 entered Mrs. Archer s house, after purchasing the carrier- 
 pigeon. Unannounced she entered, and walked up the 
 narrow and imperfectly lighted stairs to Alice s bedroom, 
 that little sanctuary draped with white, that columbarium 
 lined with warmth, and softness, and silence. Alice was 
 not there ; but the chair by the window, the open volume 
 of poems on the table, the note to Cecilia by its side, and 
 the ink not yet dry in the pen, were like the vibration of a 
 bough, when the bird has just left it, like the rising of the 
 grass, when the foot has just pressed it. In a moment she 
 returned. She had been down to her mother, who sat talk 
 ing, talking, talking with an old friend in the parlour below, 
 even as these young friends were talking together in the 
 bedroom above. Ah, how different were their themes ! 
 Death and Love, apples of Sodom, that crumble to ashes 
 at a touch, golden fruits of the Hesperides, golden fruits 
 of Paradise, fragrant, ambrosial, perennial ! 
 
 " I have just been writing to you," said Alice ; " I 
 wanted so much to see you this morning ! " 
 
 " Why this morning in particular ? Has anything 
 happened ? " 
 
 " Nothing, only I had such a longing to see you ! " 
 
 And, seating herself in a low chair by Cecilia s side, she 
 laid her head upon the shoulder of her friend, who, taking 
 one of her pale thin hands in both her own, silently kissed 
 her forehead again and again. 
 
 Alice was not aware that, in the words she uttered, there 
 was the slightest shadow of untruth. And yet had nothing 
 
KAVANAGH. 249 
 
 happened? Was it nothing that among her thoughts a 
 new thought had risen, like a star, whose pale effulgence, 
 mingled with common daylight, was not yet distinctly visible 
 even to herself, but would grow brighter as the sun grew 
 lower, and the rosy twilight darker ? Was it nothing that 
 a new fountain of affection had suddenly sprung up within 
 her, which she mistook for the freshening and overflowing 
 of the old fountain of friendship, that hitherto had kept the 
 lowland landscape of her life so green, but now, being 
 flooded by more affection, was not to cease, but only to 
 disappear in the greater tide, and flow unseen, beneath it ? 
 Yet so it was ; and this stronger yearning this unappeas 
 able desire for her friend was only the tumultuous swelling 
 of a heart that as yet knows not its own secret. 
 
 " I am so glad to see you, Cecilia ! " she continued. 
 " You are so beautiful ! I love so much to sit and look at 
 you ! Ah, how I wish Heaven had made me as tall, and 
 strong, and beautiful as you are ! " 
 
 " You little flatterer ! What an affectionate, lover-like 
 friend you are ! What have you been doing all the 
 morning ? " 
 
 " Looking out of the window, thinking of you, and writing 
 you this letter, to beg you to come and see me." 
 
 "And I have been buying a carrier-pigeon, to fly between 
 us, and carry all our letters." 
 
 " That will be delightful." 
 
 " He is to be sent home to-day ; and after he gets accus 
 tomed to my room, I shall send him here, to get acquainted 
 with yours ; an lachimo in my Imogen s bedchamber, to 
 spy out its secrets." 
 
 " If he sees Cleopatra in these white curtains, and silver 
 Cupids in these andirons, he will have your imagination." 
 
 " He will see the book with the leaf turned down, and 
 you asleep, and tell me all about you." 
 
 " A carrier-pigeon ! What a charming idea ! and how 
 like you to think of it ! " 
 
 " But to-day I have been obliged to bring my own letters. 
 I have some more sibylline leaves from my anonymous 
 
* 5 o KAVANAGH. 
 
 correspondent, in laud and exaltation of her modest relative, 
 who speaks blank verse in the bosom of his family. I have 
 brought them to read you some extracts, and to take your 
 advice ; for really and seriously, this must be stopped. It 
 has grown too annoying." 
 
 " How much love you have offered you ! " said Alice, 
 sighing. 
 
 " Yes, quite too much of this kind. On my way here I 
 saw the modest relative, standing at the corner of the street, 
 hanging his head in this way." 
 
 And she imitated the melancholy Hiram Adolphus, and 
 the young friends laughed. 
 
 " I hope you did not notice him ? " resumed Alice. 
 
 " Certainly not. But what do you suppose he did ? As 
 soon as he saw me, he began to walk backward down the 
 street, only a short distance in front of me, staring most 
 impertinently. Of course I took no notice of this strange 
 conduct. I felt myself blushing to the eyes with indig 
 nation, and yet could hardly suppress my desire to laugh." 
 
 " If you had laughed, he would have taken it for an en 
 couragement : and I have no doubt it would have brought 
 on the catastrophe." 
 
 " And that would have ended the matter. I half wished 
 I had laughed." 
 
 " But think of the immortal glory of marrying a poet ! " 
 
 " And of inscribing on my cards, Mrs. Hiram Adolphus 
 Hawkins ! " 
 
 " A few days ago I went to buy something at his shop ; 
 and, leaning over the counter, he asked me if I had seen 
 the sun setting the evening before, adding, that it was 
 gorgeous, and that the grass and trees were of a beautiful 
 Paris green ! " 
 
 And again the young friends gave way to their mirth. 
 
 " One thing, dear Alice, you must consent to do for me. 
 You must write to Miss Martha Amelia, the author of all 
 these epistles, and tell her very plainly how indelicate her 
 conduct is, and how utterly useless all such proceedings will 
 prove in effecting her purpose." 
 
KAVANAGH. 251 
 
 " I will write this very day. You shall be no longer 
 persecuted." 
 
 "And now let me give you a few extracts from these 
 wonderful epistles." 
 
 So saying, Cecilia drew forth a small package of three- 
 cornered billets, tied with a bit of pink ribbon. Taking 
 one of them at random, she was on the point of beginning, 
 but paused, as if her attention had been attracted by some 
 thing out of doors. The sound of passing footsteps was 
 heard on the gravel walk. 
 
 " There goes Mr. Kavanagh," said she, in a half-whisper. 
 
 Alice rose suddenly from her low chair at Cecilia s side, 
 and the young friends looked from the window to see the 
 clergyman pass. 
 
 " How handsome he is ! " said Alice, involuntarily. 
 
 " He is, indeed." 
 
 At that moment Alice started back from the window. 
 Kavanagh had looked up in passing, as if his eye had been 
 drawn by some secret magnetism. A bright colour flushed 
 the cheek of Alice ; her eyes fell ; but Cecilia continued to 
 look steadily into the street Kavanagh passed on, and in 
 a few moments was out of sight. 
 
 The two friends stood silent, side by side. 
 
 XYIII. 
 
 ARTHUR KAVANAGH was descended from an ancient Catholic 
 family. His ancestors had purchased from the Baron 
 Yictor of St. Castine a portion of his vast estates, lying 
 upon that wild and wonderful sea-coast of Maine, which, 
 even upon the map, attracts the eye by its singular 
 and picturesque indentations, and fills the heart of the 
 beholder with something of that delight which throbbed in 
 the veins of Pierre du Gast, when, with a royal charter of 
 
252 KAVANAGH. 
 
 the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific, he sailed down 
 the coast in all the pride of one who is to be prince of such 
 a vast domain. Here, in the bosom of the solemn forests, 
 they continued the practice of that faith which had first been 
 planted there by Rasle and St. Castine; and the little 
 church where they worshipped is still standing, though now 
 as closed and silent as the graves which surround it, and in 
 which the dust of the Kavanaghs lies buried. 
 
 In these solitudes, in this faith, was Kavanagh born, and 
 grew to childhood, a feeble, delicate boy, watched over by a 
 grave and taciturn father, and a mother who looked upon 
 him with infinite tenderness, as upon a treasure she should 
 not long retain. She walked with him by the sea-side, and 
 spake to him of God, and the mysterious majesty of the 
 ocean, with its tides and tempests. She sat with him on 
 the carpet of golden threads beneath the aromatic pines, 
 and, as the perpetual melancholy sound ran along the 
 rattling boughs, his soul seemed to rise and fall, with a 
 motion and a whisper like those in the branches over him. 
 She taught him his letters from the " Lives of the Saints," 
 a volume full of wondrous legends, and illustrated with 
 engravings from pictures by the old masters, which opened 
 to him at once the world of spirits and the world of art ; 
 and both were beautiful. She explained to him the 
 pictures ; she read to him the legends the lives of holy 
 men and women, full of faith and good works things 
 which ever afterward remained associated together in his 
 mind. Thus holiness of life, and self-renunciation, and 
 devotion to duty, were early impressed upon his soul. To 
 his quick imagination the spiritual world became real ; the 
 holy company of the saints stood round about the solitary 
 boy ; his guardian angels led him by the hand by clay, and 
 sat by his pillow at night. At times, even, he wished to 
 die, that he might see them and talk with them, and return 
 no more to his weak and weary body. 
 
 Of all the legends of the mysterious book, that which 
 most delighted and most deeply impressed him was the 
 legend of St. Christopher. The picture was from a painting 
 
KAVANAGH. 253 
 
 of Paolo Farinato, representing a figure of gigantic strength 
 and stature, leaning upon a staff, and bearing the infant 
 Christ on his bending shoulders across the rushing river. 
 The legend related that St. Christopher, being of huge 
 proportions and immense strength, wandered long about 
 the world before his conversion, seeking for the greatest 
 king, and willing to obey no other. After serving various 
 masters, whom he in turn deserted, because each recognised 
 by some word or sign another greater than himself, he 
 heard by chance of Christ, the king of heaven and earth, 
 and asked of a holy hermit where he might be found, and 
 how he might serve him. The hermit told him he must 
 fast and pray ; but the giant replied that if he fasted he 
 should lose his strength, and that he did not know how to 
 pray. Then the hermit told him to take up his abode on 
 the banks of a dangerous mountain torrent, where travellers 
 were often drowned in crossing, and to rescue any that 
 might be in peril. The giant obeyed ; and tearing up a 
 palm-tree by the roots for a staff, he took his station by the 
 river s side, and saved many lives. And the Lord looked 
 down from heaven and said, " Behold this strong man, who 
 knows not yet the way to worship, but has found the way 
 to seivj me!" And one night he heard the voice of a 
 child crying in the darkness, and saying, " Christopher ! 
 come and bear me over the river ! " And he went out, and 
 found the child sitting alone on the margin of the stream ; 
 and taking him upon his shoulders, he waded into the water. 
 Then the wind began to roar, and the waves to rise higher 
 and higher about him, and his little burden, which at 
 first had seemed so light, grew heavier and heavier as he 
 advanced, and bent his huge shoulders down, and put his 
 life in peril ; so that, when he reached the shore, he said, 
 " Who art thou, O child, that has weighed upon me with 
 a weight as if I had borne the whole world upon my 
 shoulders ^ " And the little child answered, " Thou hast 
 borne the whole world upon thy shoulders, and Him who 
 created it. I am Christ, whom thou by thy deeds of charity 
 wouldst serve. Thou and thy service are accepted. Plant 
 
254 KAVANAGH. 
 
 thy staff in the ground, and it shall blossom and bear 
 fruit ! " With these words the child vanished away. 
 
 There was something in this beautiful legend that entirely 
 captivated the heart of the boy, and a vague sense of its 
 hidden meaning seemed at times to seize him and control 
 him. Later in life it became more and more evident to 
 him, and remained for ever in his mind as a lovely allegory 
 of active charity and a willingness to serve. Like the 
 giant s staff, it blossomed and bore fruit. 
 
 But the time at length came when his father decreed 
 that he must be sent away to school. It was not meet that 
 his son should be educated as a girl. He must go to the 
 Jesuit college in Canada. Accordingly, one bright Summer 
 morning, he departed with his father, on horseback, through 
 those majestic forests that stretch with almost unbroken 
 shadows from the sea to the St. Lawrence, leaving behind 
 him all the endearments of home, and a wound in his 
 mother s heart that never ceased to ache, a longing, 
 unsatisfied and insatiable, for her absent Arthur, who had 
 gone from her perhaps for ever. 
 
 At college he distinguished himself by his zeal for study, 
 by the docility, gentleness, and generosity of his nature. 
 There he was thoroughly trained in the classics, and the 
 dogmas of that august faith, whose turrets gleam with such 
 crystalline light, and whose dungeons are so deep, and dark, 
 and terrible. The study of philosophy and theology was 
 congenial to his mind. Indeed, he often laid aside Homer 
 for Parrnenides, and turned from the odes of Pindar and 
 Horace to the mystic hymns of Cleanthes and Synesius. 
 
 The uniformity of college life was broken only by the 
 annual visit home in the Summer vacation ; the joyous 
 meeting, the bitter parting ; the long journey to and fro 
 through the grand, solitary, mysterious forest. To his 
 mother these visits were even more precious than to him 
 self ; for ever more and more they added to her boundless 
 affection the feeling of pride, and confidence, and satisfac 
 tion, the joy and beauty of a youth unspotted from the 
 world, and glowing with the enthusiasm of virtue. 
 
KAVANAGH. 255 
 
 At length his college days were ended. He returned 
 home full of youth, full of joy and hope ; but it was only 
 to receive the dying blessing of his mother, who expired in 
 peace, having seen his face once more. Then the house 
 became empty to him. Solitary was the sea-shore, solitary 
 were the woodland walks. But the spiritual world seemed 
 nearer and more real. For affairs he had no aptitude ; and 
 he betook himself again to his philosophic and theological 
 studies. He pondered with fond enthusiasm on the rap 
 turous pages of Molinos and Madame Guyon ; and in a spirit 
 akin to that which wrote, he read the writings of Santa 
 Theresa, which he found among his mother s books, the 
 Meditations, the Road to Perfection, and the Moradas, or 
 Castle of the Soul. She, too, had lingered over these pages 
 with delight, and there were many passages marked by her 
 own hand. Among them was this, which he often repeated 
 to himself in his lonely walks : "0 Life, Life ! how canst 
 thou sustain thyself, being absent from thy Life ? In so 
 great a solitude, in what shalt thou employ thyself ? 
 What shalt thou do, since all thy deeds are faulty and 
 imperfect?" 
 
 In such meditations passed many weeks and months. 
 But mingled with them, continually and ever with more 
 distinctness, arose in his memory from the days of child 
 hood the old tradition of Saint Christopher, the beautiful 
 allegory of humility and labour. He and his service had 
 been accepted, though he would not fast, and had not 
 learned to pray ! It became more and more clear to him 
 that the life of man consists not in seeing visions, and 
 in dreaming dreams, but in active charity and willing 
 service. 
 
 Moreover, the study of ecclesiastical history awoke within 
 him many strange and dubious thoughts. The books 
 taught him more than their writers meant to teach. It was 
 impossible to read of Athanasius without reading also of 
 Arian ; it was impossible to hear of Calvin without hearing 
 of Servetus. Reason began more energetically to vindicate 
 itself : that Reason which is a light in darkness, not that 
 
256 KAVANAGH. 
 
 which is " a thorn in Revelation s side." The search after 
 Truth and Freedom, both intellectual and spiritual, became 
 a passion in his soul ; and he pursued it until he had left 
 far behind him many dusky dogmas, many antique super 
 stitions, many time-honoured observances, which the lips of 
 her alone, who first taught them to him in his childhood, 
 had invested with solemnity and sanctity. 
 
 By slow degrees, and not by violent spiritual conflicts, he 
 became a Protestant. He had but passed from one chapel 
 to another in the same vast cathedral. He was still 
 beneath the same ample roof, still heard the same divine 
 service chanted in a different dialect of the same universal 
 language. Out of his old faith he brought with him all he 
 had found in it that was holy and pure and of good report. 
 Not its bigotry, and fanaticism, and intolerance ; but its 
 zeal, its self-devotion, its heavenly aspirations, its human 
 sympathies, its endless deeds of charity. Not till after his 
 father s death, however, did he become a clergyman. Then 
 his vocation was manifest to him. He no longer hesitated, 
 but entered upon its many duties and responsibilities, its 
 many trials and discouragements, with the zeal of Peter 
 and the gentleness of John. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 A WEEK later, and Kavanagh was installed in his little 
 room in the church-tower. A week later, and the carrier- 
 pigeon was on the wing. A week later, and Martha 
 Amelia s anonymous epistolary eulogies of her relative had 
 ceased for ever. 
 
 Swiftly and silently the Summer advanced, and the 
 following announcement in the Fairmeadow Advertiser 
 proclaimed the hot weather and its alleviations : 
 
 " I have the pleasure of announcing to the Ladies and 
 Gentlemen of Fairmeadow and its vicinity that my Bath 
 
KAVANAGH. 257 
 
 House is now completed, and ready for the reception of 
 those who are disposed to regale themselves in a luxury 
 peculiar to the once polished Greek and noble Roman. 
 
 " To the Ladies I will say, that Tuesday of each week 
 will be appropriated to their exclusive benefit ; the white 
 flag will be the signal ; and I assure the Ladies that due 
 respect shall be scrupulously observed, and that they shall 
 be guarded from each vagrant foot and each licentious 
 eye. "EDWARD DIMPLE." 
 
 Moreover, the village was enlivened by the usual travel 
 ling shows, the waxwork figures, representing Eliza 
 Wharton and the Salem Tragedy, to which clergymen and 
 their families were " respectfully invited, free on presenting 
 their cards;" a stuffed shark, that had eaten the exhibitor s 
 father in Lynn Bay ; the menagerie, with its loud music 
 and its roars of rage ; the circus, with its tan and tinsel, 
 its faded columbine and melancholy clown; and, finally, 
 the standard drama, in which Elder Evans, like an ancient 
 Spanish Bululii, impersonated all the principal male charac 
 ters, and was particularly imposing in lago and the Moor, 
 having half his face lamp-blacked, and turning now the 
 luminous, now the eclipsed side to the audience, as the 
 exigencies of the dialogue demanded. 
 
 There was also a great Temperance Jubilee, with a pro 
 cession, in which was conspicuous a large horse, whose 
 shaven tail was adorned with gay ribbons, and whose rider 
 bore a banner with the device, " Shaved in the Cause ! " 
 Moreover, the Grand Junction Railroad was opened through 
 the town, running in one direction to the city, and in the 
 other into unknown northern regions, stringing the white 
 villages like pearls upon its black thread. By this, the 
 town lost much of its rural quiet and seclusion. The 
 inhabitants became restless and ambitious. They were in 
 constant excitement and alarm, like children in story 
 books, hidden away somewhere by an ogre, who visits them 
 regularly every day and night, and occasionally devours one 
 of them for a meal. 
 
 231 
 
258 KAVANAGH. 
 
 Nevertheless, most of the inhabitants considered the 
 railroad a great advantage to the village. Several ladies 
 were heard to say that Fairmeadow had grown quite 
 metropolitan ; and Mrs. Wilmerdings, who suffered under 
 a chronic suspension of the mental faculties, had a vague 
 notion, probably connected with the profession of her son, 
 that it was soon to become a seaport. 
 
 In the fields and woods, meanwhile, there were other 
 signs and signals of the Summer. The darkening foliage ; 
 the embrowning grain ; the golden dragon-fly haunting the 
 blackberry-bushes ; the cawing crows, that looked down 
 from the mountain on the corn-field, and waited day after 
 day for the scarecrow to finish his work and depart ; and 
 the smoke of the far-off burning woods, that pervaded the 
 air and hung in purple haze about the summits of the 
 mountains, these were the avant-couriers and attendants 
 of the hot August. 
 
 Kavanagh had now completed the first great cycle of 
 parochial visits. He had seen the Vaughans, the Archers, 
 the Churchills, and also the Hawkinses and the Wilmer- 
 dingses, and many more. With Mr. Churchill he had 
 become intimate. They had many points of contact and 
 sympathy. They walked together on leisure afternoons ; 
 they sat together through long summer evenings ; they 
 discoursed with friendly zeal on various topics of literature, 
 religion, and morals. 
 
 Moreover, he worked assiduously at his sermons. He 
 preached the doctrines of Christ. He preached holiness, 
 self-denial, love ; and his hearers remarked that he almost 
 invariably took his text from the Evangelists, as much as 
 possible from the words of Christ, and seldom from Paul, or 
 the Old Testament. He did not so much denounce vice as 
 inculcate virtue; he did not deny, but affirm; he did 
 not lacerate the hearts of his hearers with doubt and 
 disbelief, but consoled, and comforted, and healed them 
 with faith. 
 
 The only danger was that he might advance too far, and 
 leave his congregation behind him ; as a piping shepherd, 
 
KAVANAGH. 259 
 
 who, charmed with his own music, walks over the flowery 
 mead, not perceiving that his tardy flock is lingering far 
 behind, more intent upon cropping the thymy food around 
 them than upon listening to the celestial harmonies that are 
 gradually dying away in the distance. 
 
 His words were always kindly ; he brought no railing 
 accusation against any man ; he dealt in no exaggerations 
 nor over-statements. But while he was gentle, he was firm. 
 He did not refrain from reprobating intemperance because 
 one of his deacons owned a distillery; nor war, because 
 another had a contract for supplying the army with 
 muskets ; nor slavery, because one of the great men of the 
 village slammed his pew-door, and left the church with a 
 grand air, as much as to say, that all that sort of thing 
 would not do, and the clergy had better confine itself to 
 abusing the sins of the Hindoos, and let our domestic 
 institutions alone. 
 
 In affairs ecclesiastical he had not suggested many 
 changes. One that he had much at heart was, that the 
 partition wall between parish and church should be quietly 
 taken down, so that all should sit together at the Supper of 
 the Lord. He also desired that the organist should relin 
 quish the old and pernicious habit of preluding with 
 triumphal marches, and running his fingers at random 
 over the keys of his instrument, playing scraps of secular 
 music very slowly to make them sacred, and substitute 
 instead some of the beautiful symphonies of Pergolesi, 
 Palestrina, and Sebastian Bach. 
 
 He held that sacred melodies were becoming to sacred 
 themes ; and did not wish that, in his church, as in some of 
 the French Canadian churches, the holy profession of reli 
 gion should be sung to the air of "When one is dead t is 
 for a long time," the commandments, aspirations for 
 heaven, and the necessity of thinking of one s salvation, to 
 " The Follies of Spain," " Louisa was sleeping in a grove," 
 or a grand " March of the French Cavalry." 
 
 The study in the tower was delightful. There sat the 
 young apostle, and meditated the great design and purpose 
 
260 KAVANAGH. 
 
 of his life the removal of all prejudice, and uncharitable- 
 ness, and persecution, and the union of all sects into one 
 church universal. Sects themselves he would not destroy, 
 but sectarianism ; for sects were to him only as separate 
 converging roads, leading all to the same celestial city of 
 peace. As he sat alone, and thought of these things, he 
 heard the great bell boom above him, and remembered the 
 ages when in all Christendom there was but one Church ; 
 when bells were anointed, baptised, and prayed for, that, 
 wheresoever those holy bells should sound, all deceits of 
 Satan, all danger of whirlwinds, thunders, lightnings, and 
 tempests, might be driven away, that devotion might 
 increase in every Christian when he heard them, and that 
 the Lord would sanctify them with his Holy Spirit, and 
 infuse into them the heavenly dew of the Holy Ghost. 
 He thought of the great bell Guthlac, which an abbot of 
 Croyland gave to his monastery, and of the six others given 
 by his successor, so musical, that, when they all rang 
 together, as Ingulphus affirms, there was no ringing in 
 England equal to it. As he listened, the bell seemed to 
 breathe upon the air such clangorous sentences as 
 
 " Laudo Deum verum, plebem voco, congrego clerura, 
 Defunctos ploro, nimbum fugo, festaque honoro." 
 
 Possibly, also, at times, it interrupted his studies and 
 meditations with other words than these. Possibly it sang 
 into his ears, as did the bells of Varennes into the ears of 
 Panurge " Marry thee, marry thee, marry, marry ; if thou 
 shouldst marry, marry, marry, thou shalt find good therein, 
 therein, therein, so marry, marry." 
 
 From this tower of contemplation he looked down with 
 mingled emotions of joy and sorrow on the toiling world 
 below. The wide prospect seemed to enlarge his sympathies 
 and his charities \ and he often thought of the words of 
 Plato : " When we consider human life, we should view as 
 from a high tower all things terrestrial ; such as herds, 
 armies, men employed in agriculture, in marriages, 
 divorces, births, deaths ; the tumults of courts of justice ; 
 
KAVANAGH. 261 
 
 desolate lands ; various barbarous nations ; feasts, wailings, 
 markets ; a medley of all things, in a system adorned by 
 contrarieties." 
 
 On the outside of the door Kavanagh had written the 
 vigorous line of Dante 
 
 " Think that To-day shall never dawn again ! " 
 
 that it might always serve as a salutation and memento to 
 him as he entered. On the inside, the no less striking lines 
 of a more modern bard 
 
 " Lose this day loitering, t will be the same story 
 To-inorrow, and the next more dilatory. 
 The indecision brings its own delays, 
 And days are lost lamenting o er lost days. 
 Are you in earnest ? Seize this very minute ! 
 What you can do, or think you can, begin it ! 
 Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it ! 
 Only engage, and then the mind grows heated : 
 Begin it, and the work will be completed." 
 
 Once, as he sat in this retreat near noon, enjoying the 
 silence, and the fresh air that visited him through the 
 oval windows, his attention was arrested by a cloud of dust, 
 rolling along the road, out of which soon emerged a white 
 horse, and then a very singular, round-shouldered, old- 
 fashioned chaise, containing an elderly couple, both in 
 black. What particularly struck him was the gait of the 
 horse, who had a very disdainful fling to his hind legs. 
 The slow equipage passed, and would have been for ever 
 forgotten, had not Kavanagh seen it again at sunset, 
 stationary at Mr. Churchill s door, towards which he was 
 directing his stops. 
 
 As he entered he met Mr. Churchill, just taking leave of 
 an elderly lady and gentleman in black, whom he recognised 
 as the travellers in the old chaise. Mr. Churchill looked a 
 little flushed and disturbed, and bade his guests farewell 
 with a constrained air. On seeing Kavanagh, he saluted 
 him, and called him by name, whereupon the lady pursed 
 up her mouth, and, after a quick glance, turned away her 
 
262 KAVANAGH. 
 
 face ; and the gentleman passed with a lofty look, in which 
 curios.ity, reproof, and pious indignation were strangely 
 mingled. They got into the chaise, with some such feelings 
 as Noah and his wife may be supposed to have had 
 on entering the ark ; the whip descended upon the old 
 horse with unusual vigour, accompanied by a jerk of the 
 reins that caused him to say within himself, " What is the 
 matter now 1 " He then moved off at his usual pace, and 
 with that peculiar motion of the hind legs which Kavanagh 
 had perceived in the morning. 
 
 Kavanagh found his friend not a little disturbed, and 
 evidently by the conversation of the departed guests. 
 
 " That old gentleman," said Mr. Churchill, " is your pre 
 decessor, Mr. Pendexter. He thinks we are in a bad way 
 since he left us. He considers your liberality as nothing 
 better than rank Arianism and infidelity. The fact is, the 
 old gentleman is a little soured ; the vinous fermentation in 
 his veins is now over, and the acetous has commenced." 
 
 Kavanagh smiled, but made no answer. 
 
 "I, of course, defended you stoutly," continued Mr. 
 Churchill ; " but if he goes about the village sowing such 
 seed, there will be tares growing with the wheat." 
 
 " I have no fears," said Kavanagh, very quietly. 
 
 Mr. Churchill s apprehensions were not, however, ground 
 less ; for in the course of the week it came out that doubts, 
 surmises, and suspicions of Kavanagh s orthodoxy were 
 springing up in many weak but worthy minds. And it was 
 ever after observed, that, whenever that fatal, apocalyptic 
 white horse and antediluvian chaise appeared in town, 
 many parishioners were harassed with doubts and perplexed 
 with theological difficulties and uncertainties. 
 
 Nevertheless, the main current of opinion was with him .; 
 and the parish showed their grateful acknowledgment of his 
 zeal and sympathy, by requesting him to sit for his portrait 
 to a great artist from the city, who was passing the summer 
 months in the village for recreation, using his pencil only 
 on rarest occasions and as a particular favour. To this 
 martyrdom the meek Kavanagh submitted without a 
 
KAVANAGH. 263 
 
 murmur. During the progress of this work of art he was 
 seldom left alone ; some one of his parishioners was there to 
 enliven him ; and most frequently it was Miss Martha 
 Amelia Hawkins, who had become very devout of late, 
 being zealous in the Sunday School, and requesting her 
 relative not to walk between churches any more. She took 
 a very lively interest in the portrait, and favoured with 
 many suggestions the distinguished artist, who found it 
 difficult to obtain an expression which would satisfy the 
 parish, some wishing to have it grave, if not severe, and 
 others with " Mr. Kavanagh s peculiar smile." Kavanagh 
 himself was quite indifferent about the matter, and met his 
 fate with Christian fortitude, in a white cravat and sacer 
 dotal robes, with oe hand hanging down from the back of 
 his chair, and the other holding a large book, with the fore 
 finger between its leaves, reminding Mr. Churchill of Milo 
 with his fingers in the oak. The expression of the face 
 was exceedingly bland and resigned ; perhaps a little want 
 ing in strength, but, on the whole, satisfactory to the parish. 
 So was the artist s price ; nay, it was even held by some 
 persons to be cheap, considering the quantity of background 
 he had put in. 
 
 XX. 
 
 MEANWHILE, things had gone on very quietly and monoton 
 ously in Mr. Churchill s family. Only one event, and that 
 a mysterious one, had disturbed its serenity. It was the 
 sudden disappearance of Lucy, the pretty orphan girl ; and 
 as the booted centipede, who had so much excited Mr. 
 Churchill s curiosity, disappeared at the same time, there 
 was little doubt that they had gone away together. But 
 whither gone, and wherefore, remained a mystery. 
 
 Mr. Churchill, also, had had his profile, and those of his 
 
264 KAVANAGH. 
 
 wife and children, taken, in a very humble style, by Mr. 
 Bantam, whose advertisement he had noticed on his way to 
 school nearly a year before. His own was considered the 
 best as a work of art. The face was cut out entirely ; the 
 collar of the coat velvet; the shirt-collar very high and 
 white ; and the top of his head ornamented with a crest of 
 hair turning up in front, though his own turned down, 
 which slight deviation from nature was explained and 
 justified by the painter as a license allowable in art. 
 
 One evening, as he was sitting down to begin for at least 
 the hundredth time the great Romance, subject of so many 
 resolves and so much remorse, so often determined upon 
 but never begun, a loud knock at the street door, which 
 stood wide open, announced a visitor. Unluckily the study- 
 door was likewise open ; and consequently being in full 
 view, he found it impossible to refuse himself ; nor, in fact, 
 would he have done so had all the doors been shut and 
 bolted the art of refusing one s self being at that time but 
 imperfectly understood in Fairmeadow. Accordingly, the 
 visitor was shown in. 
 
 He announced himself as Mr. Hathaway. Passing 
 through the village, he could not deny himself the pleasure 
 of calling on Mr. Churchill, whom he knew by his writings 
 in the periodicals, though not personally. He wished, more 
 over, to secure the co-operation of one already so favourably 
 known to the literary world, in a new magazine he was 
 about to establish, in order to raise the character of 
 American literature, which, in his opinion, the existing 
 reviews and magazines had entirely failed to accomplish. 
 A daily increasing want of something better was felt by the 
 public ; and the time had come for the establishment of 
 such a periodical as he proposed. After explaining in 
 rather a florid and exuberant manner his plan and pros 
 pects, he entered more at large into the subject of 
 American literature, which it was his design to foster and 
 patronise. 
 
 " I think, Mr. Churchill," said he, " that we want a 
 national literature commensurate with our mountains and 
 
KAVANAGH. 265 
 
 rivers, commensurate with Niagara, and the Allcghanes, 
 and the Great Lakes ! " 
 
 " Oh ! " 
 
 " We want a national epic that shall correspond to the 
 size of the country ; that shall be to all other epics what 
 Banvard s Panorama of the Mississippi ia to all other 
 paintings, the largest in the world ! " 
 
 " Ah ! " 
 
 " We want a national drama, in which scope enough shall 
 be given to our gigantic ideas, and to the unparalleled 
 activity and progress of our people ! " 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 " In a word, we want a national literature altogether 
 shaggy and unshorn, that shall shake the earth, like a herd 
 of buffaloes thundering over the prairies ! " 
 
 " Precisely," interrupted Mr. Churchill ; " but excuse 
 me ! are you not confounding things that have no analogy 1 
 Great has a very different meaning when applied to a river 
 and when applied to a literature. Large and shallow may 
 perhaps be applied to both. Literature is rather an image 
 of the spiritual world than of the physical, is it not ? of 
 the internal rather than the external. Mountains, lakes, 
 and rivers are, after all, only its scenery and decorations, 
 not its substance and essence. A man will not necessarily 
 be a great poet because he lives near a great mountain. 
 Nor, being a poet, will he necessarily write better poems 
 than another, because he lives nearer Niagara." 
 
 " But, Mr. Churchill, you do not certainly mean to deny 
 the influence of scenery on the mind 1 " 
 
 " No, only to deny that it can create genius. At best, it 
 can only develop it. Switzerland has produced no extra 
 ordinary poet ; nor, as far as I know, have the Andes, or 
 the Himalaya mountains, or the Mountains of the Moon in 
 Africa." 
 
 " But, at all events," urged Mr. Hathaway, " let us have 
 our literature national. If it is not national, it is nothing." 
 
 " On the contrary, it may be a great deal. Nationality 
 is a good thing to a certain extent, but universality is 
 
266 KAVANAGH. 
 
 better. All that is best in the great poets of all countries 
 is not what is national in them, but what is universal. 
 Their roots are in their native soil ; but their branches wave 
 in the unpatriotic air that speaks the same language unto 
 all men, and their leaves shine with the illimitable light 
 that pervades all lands. Let us throw all the windows 
 open ; let us admit the light and air on all sides ; that we 
 may look towards the four corners of the heavens, and not 
 always in the same direction. 
 
 " But you admit nationality to be a good thing ? " 
 
 " Yes, if not carried too far ; still, I confess, it rather 
 limits one s views of truth. I prefer what is natural. Mere 
 nationality is often ridiculous. Every one smiles when he 
 hears the Icelandic proverb, Iceland is the best land the 
 sun shines upon. Let us be natural, and we shall be 
 national enough. Besides, our literature can be strictly 
 national only so far as our character and modes of thought 
 differ from those of other nations. Now, as we are very 
 like the English, are, in fact, English under a different 
 sky, I do not see how our literature can be very different 
 from theirs. Westward from hand to hand we pass the 
 lighted torch, but it was lighted at the old domestic fireside 
 of England." 
 
 " Then you think our literature is never to be anything 
 but an imitation of the English 1 " 
 
 " Not at all. It is not an imitation, but, as some one 
 has said, a continuation." 
 
 " It seems to me that you take a very narrow view of the 
 subject." 
 
 " On the contrary, a very broad one. No literature is 
 complete until the language in which it is written is dead. 
 We may well be proud of our task and of our position. 
 Let us see if we can build in any way worthy of our 
 forefathers." 
 
 " But I insist upon originality." 
 
 " Yes ; but without spasms and convulsions. Authors 
 must not, like Chinese soldiers, expect to win victories 
 by turning somersets in the air." 
 
KAVANAGH. 267 
 
 " Well, really, the prospect from your point of view 
 is not very brilliant. Pray, what do you think of national 
 literature 1 " 
 
 " Simply, that a national literature is not the growth of 
 a day. Centuries must contribute their dew and sun 
 shine to it. Our own is growing slowly but surely, 
 striking its roots downward, and its branches upward, as is 
 natural ; and I do not wish, for the sake of what some 
 people call originality, to invert it, and try to make it grow 
 with its roots in the air. And as for having it so savage 
 and wild as you want it, I have only to say, that all 
 literature, as well as all art, is the result of culture and 
 intellectual refinement." 
 
 " Ah ! we do not want art and refinement ; we want 
 genius, untutored, wild, original, free." 
 
 " But, if this genius is to find any expression, it must 
 employ art; for art is the external expression of our 
 thoughts. Many have genius, but, wanting art, are for 
 ever dumb. The two must go together to form the great 
 poet, painter, or sculptor." 
 
 " In that sense, very well." 
 
 " I was about to say also that I thought our literature 
 would finally not be wanting in a kind of universality." 
 
 " As the blood of all nations is mingling with our own, 
 so will their thoughts and feelings finally mingle in our 
 literature. We shall draw from the Germans, tenderness ; 
 from the Spaniards, passion ; from the French, vivacity, to 
 mingle more and more with our English solid sense. And 
 this will give us universality, so much to be desired." 
 
 " If that is your way of thinking," interrupted the visitor, 
 " you will like the w^ork I am now engaged upon." 
 
 " What is it ? " 
 
 "A great national drama, the scene of which is laid in 
 New Mexico. It is called Don Serafin, or the Marquis 
 of the Seven Churches. The principal characters are Don 
 Seratin, an old Spanish hidalgo ; his daughter Deseada ; 
 and Fra Serapion, the Curate. The play opens with Fra 
 Serapion at breakfast ; on the table a game-cock, tied by 
 
268 KAVANAGH. 
 
 the leg, sharing his master s meal. Then follows a scene at 
 the cock-pit, where the Marquis stakes the remnant of his 
 fortune his herds and hacienda on a favourite cock, and 
 
 " But what do you know about cock-fighting ? " demanded, 
 rather than asked, the astonished and half-laughing 
 schoolmaster. 
 
 " I am not very well informed on that subject, and I was 
 going to ask you if you could not recommend some work." 
 
 "The only work I am acquainted with," replied Mr. 
 Churchill, " is the Reverend Mr. Pegge s Essay on Cock- 
 fighting among the Ancients ; and I hardly see how you 
 could apply that to the Mexicans." 
 
 "Why, they are a kind of ancients, you know. I 
 certainly will hunt up the essay you mention, and see what 
 I can do with it." 
 
 " And all I know about the matter itself," continued Mr. 
 Churchill, "is, that Mark Antony was a patron of the pit, 
 and that his cocks were always beaten by Csesar s ; and 
 that, when Themistocles, the Athenian general, was march 
 ing against the Persians, he halted his army to see a 
 cock-fight, and made a speech to his soldiery, to the effect, 
 that those animals fought not for the gods of their country, 
 nor for the monuments of their ancestors, nor for glory, nor 
 for freedom, nor for their children, but only for the sake of 
 victory. On his return to Athens he established cock 
 fights in that capital. But how this is to help you in 
 Mexico I do not see, unless you introduce Santa Anna, 
 and compare him to Caesar and Themistocles." 
 
 " That is it ; I will do so. It will give historic interest 
 to the play. I thank you for the suggestion." 
 
 "The subject is certainly very original; but it does 
 not strike me as particularly national." 
 
 " Prospective, you see 1 ; said Mr. Hathaway, with a 
 penetrating look. 
 
 " Ah, yes ; I perceive you fish with a heavy sinker, 
 down, far down in the future, among posterity, as it were." 
 
 "You have seized the idea. Besides, I obviate your 
 
KAVANAGH. 269 
 
 objection, by introducing an American circus company from 
 the United States, which enables me to bring horses on the 
 stage and produce great scenic effect." 
 
 "That is a bold design. The critics will be out upon 
 you without fail." 
 
 " Never fear that. I know the critics root and branch, 
 out and out, have summered them and wintered them, 
 in fact, am one of them myself. Very good fellows 
 are the critics ; are they not ? " 
 
 " O, yes ; only they have such a pleasant way of talking 
 down upon authors." 
 
 " If they did not talk down upon them they would show 
 no superiority ; and, of course, that would never do." 
 
 " Nor is it to be wondered at that authors are sometimes 
 a little irritable. I often recall the poet in the Spanish 
 fable, whose manuscripts were devoured by mice, till at 
 length he put some corrosive sublimate into his ink, and 
 was never troubled again." 
 
 " Why don t you try it yourself ? " said Mr. Hathaway, 
 rather sharply. 
 
 " O," answered Mr. Churchill, with a smile of humility, 
 " I and my writings are too insignificant. They may gnaw 
 and welcome. I do not like to have poison about, even for 
 such purposes." 
 
 " By-the-way, Mr. Churchill," said the visitor, adroitly 
 changing the subject, " do you know Honeywell ? " 
 
 "No, I do not. Who is he?" 
 
 u Honeywell the poet, I mean." 
 
 "No, I never even heard of him. There are so many 
 poets now-a-days ! " 
 
 " That is very strange indeed 1 Why, I consider 
 Honeywell one of the finest writers in the country, quite 
 in the front rank of American authors. He is a real poet, 
 and no mistake, Nature made him with her shirt-sleeves 
 rolled up." 
 
 " What has he published ?" 
 
 " He has not published anything yet, except in the 
 newspapers. But, this Autumn, he is going to bring out a 
 
270 KAVANAGH. 
 
 volume of poems. I could not help having ray joke with 
 him about it. I told him he had better print it on 
 cartridge-paper." 
 
 "Why so?" 
 
 " Why, to make it go off better ; don t you understand 1 " 
 
 " O, yes ; now that you explain it. Very good." 
 
 " Honeywell is going to write for the Magazine he 
 is to furnish a poem for every number ; and as he succeeds 
 equally well in the plaintive and didactic style of 
 Wordsworth, and the more vehement and impassioned 
 style of Byron, I think we shall do very well." 
 
 "And what do you mean to call the New Magazine*?" 
 inquired Mr. Churchill. 
 
 "We think of calling it The Niagara." 
 
 " Why, that is the name of our fire-engine ! Why not 
 call it The Extinguisher ? " 
 
 " That is also a good name ; but I prefer The Niagara, as 
 more national. And I hope, Mr. Churchill, you will let us 
 count upon you. We should like to have an article from 
 your pen for every number." 
 
 " Do you mean to pay your contributors ? " 
 
 " Not the first year, I am sorry to say. But after that, 
 if the work succeeds, we shall pay handsomely. And, of 
 course, it will succeed, for we mean it shall ; and we never 
 say fail. There is no such word in our dictionary. Before 
 the year is out we mean to print fifty thousand copies ; 
 and fifty thousand copies will give us, at least, one hundred 
 and fifty thousand readers ; and, with such an audience, 
 any author might be satisfied." 
 
 He had touched at length the right strings in Mr. 
 Churchill s bosom ; and they vibrated to the touch with 
 pleasant harmonies. Literary vanity ! literary ambition ! 
 The editor perceived it ; and so cunningly did he play 
 upon these chords, that, before he departed, Mr. Churchill 
 had promised to write for him a series of papers on Obscure 
 Martyrs, a kind of tragic history of the unrecorded and 
 life-long sufferings of women, which hitherto had found no 
 historian, save now and then a novelist. 
 
KAVANAGH. 271 
 
 Notwithstanding the certainty of success, notwithstand 
 ing the fifty thousand subscribers and the one hundred and 
 fifty thousand readers, the Magazine never went into 
 operation. Still the dream was enough to occupy Mr. 
 Churchill s thoughts, and to withdraw them entirely from 
 his Romance for many weeks together. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 EVERY state, and almost every county, of New England has 
 its Roaring Brook, a mountain streamlet, overhung by 
 woods, impeded by a mill, encumbered by falling trees, but 
 ever racing, rushing, roaring down through gurgling gullies, 
 and filling the forest with its delicious sound and freshness ; 
 the drinking-place of home-returning herds ; the mysterious 
 haunt of squirrels and blue-jays; the sylvan retreat of 
 school-girls, who frequent it on Summer holidays, and 
 mingle their restless thoughts, their overflowing fancies, 
 their fair imaginings, with its restless, exuberant, and 
 rejoicing stream. 
 
 Fairmeadow had no Roaring Brook. As its name indi 
 cates, it was too level a land for that. But the neighbouring 
 town of Westwood, lying more inland, and among the hills, 
 had one of the fairest and fullest of all the brooks that roar. 
 It was the boast of the neighbourhood. Not to have seen 
 it was to have seen no brook, no waterfall, no mountain 
 ravine. And, consequently, to behold it and admire was 
 Kavanagh taken by Mr. Churchill, as soon as the Summer 
 vacation gave leisure and opportunity. The party consisted 
 of Mr. and Mrs. Churchill, and Alfred, in a one-horse 
 chaise ; and Cecilia, Alice, and Kavanagh, in a carry -all, 
 the fourth seat in which was occupied by a large basket, 
 containing what the Squire of the Grove, in Don Quixote 
 call his " fiambreras," that magniloquent Castilian word 
 
272 KAVANAGH. 
 
 for cold collation. Over warm uplands, smelling of clover 
 and mint ; through cool glades, still wet with the rain of 
 yesterday ; along the river ; across the rattling and tilting 
 planks of wooden bridges; by orchards; by the gates of 
 fields, with the tall mulleii growing at the bars ; by stone 
 walls overrun with privet and barberries ; in sun and heat, 
 in shadow and coolness, forward drove the happy party 
 on the pleasant summer morning. 
 
 At length they reached the Roaring Brook. From a 
 gorge in the mountains, through a long winding gallery of 
 birch, and beech, and pine, leaped the bright brown waters 
 of the jubilant streamlet ; out of the woods, across the 
 plain, under the rude bridge of logs, into the woods again, 
 a day between two nights. With it went a song that 
 made the heart sing likewise ; a song of joy, and exulta 
 tion, and freedom ; a continuous and unbroken song of life, 
 and pleasure, and perpetual youth. Like the old Icelandic 
 Scald, the streamlet seemed to say 
 
 " I am possessed of songs such as neither the spouse of a 
 king, nor any son of man, can repeat : one of them is called 
 the Helper ; it will help thee at thy need, in sickness, grief, 
 and all adversity." 
 
 The little party left their carriages at a farm-house by 
 the bridge, and followed the rough road on foot along the 
 brook ; now close upon it, now shut out by intervening 
 trees. Mr. Churchill, bearing the basket on his arm, 
 walked in front with his wife and Alfred. Kavanagh 
 came behind him with Cecilia and Alice. The music of the 
 brook silenced all conversation ; only occasional exclama 
 tions of delight were uttered, the irrepressible applause of 
 fresh and sensitive natures, in a scene so lovely. Presently 
 turning off from the road, which led directly to the mill, 
 and was rough with the tracks of heavy wheels, they went 
 down to the margin of the brook. 
 
 " How indescribably beautiful this brown water is ! " ex 
 claimed Kavanagh. " It is like wine, or the nectar of the 
 gods of Olympus ; as if the falling Hebe had poured it from 
 the goblet." 
 
KAVANAGH. 273 
 
 "More like the mead or metheglin of the northern 
 gods," said Mr. Churchill, " spilled from the drinking horns 
 of Valhalla." 
 
 But all the ladies thought Kavanagh s comparison the 
 better of the two, and in fact the best that could be 
 made ; and Mr. Churchill was obliged to retract and 
 apologise for his allusion to the celestial ale-house of Odin. 
 
 Ere long they were forced to cross the brook, stepping from 
 stone to stone, over the little rapids and cascades. All 
 crossed lightly, easily, safely ; even " the sumpter mule," 
 as Mr. Churchill called himself on account of the pannier. 
 Only Cecilia lingered behind, as if afraid to cross. Cecilia, 
 who had crossed at the same place a hundred times before, 
 Cecilia, who had the surest foot and the firmest nerves of 
 all the village maidens, she now stood irresolute, seized 
 with a sudden tremor ; blushing and laughing at her own 
 timidity, and yet unable to advance. Kavanagh saw her 
 embarrassment, and hastened back to help her. Her hand 
 trembled in his ; she thanked him with a gentle look and 
 word. His whole soul was softened within him. His 
 attitude, his countenance, his voice, were alike submissive 
 and subdued. He was as one penetrated with tenderest 
 emotions. 
 
 It is difficult to know at what moment love begins ; it is 
 less difficult to know that it has begun. A thousand 
 heralds proclaim it to the listening air ; a thousand 
 ministers and messengers betray it to the eye. Tone, act, 
 attitude, and look, the signals upon the countenance, the 
 electric telegraph of touch ; all these betray the yielding 
 citadel before the word itself is uttered, which, like the key 
 surrendered, opens every avenue and gate of entrance, and 
 makes retreat impossible. 
 
 The day passed delightfully with all. They sat upon the 
 stones and the roots of the trees. Cecilia read, from a 
 volume she had brought with her, poems that rhymed with 
 the running water. The others listened and commented. 
 Little Alfred waded in the stream, with his bare white feet, 
 and launched boats over the falls. Noon had been fixed 
 
 232 
 
274 KAVANAGH. 
 
 upon for dining, but they anticipated it by at least an hour. 
 The great basket was opened ; endless sandwiches were 
 drawn forth, and a cold pasty, as large as that of the 
 Squire of the Grove. During the repast, Mr. Churchill 
 slipped into the brook, while in the act of handing a sand 
 wich to his wife, which caused unbounded mirth ; and 
 Kavanagh. sat down on a mossy trunk, that gave way 
 beneath him, and crumbled into powder. This, also, was 
 received with great merriment. 
 
 After dinner they ascended the brook still further, 
 indeed, quite to the mill, which was not going. It had 
 been stopped in the midst of its work. The saw still held 
 its hungry teeth fixed in the heart of a pine. Mr. 
 Churchill took occasion to make known to the company his 
 long cherished purpose of writing a poem called " The Song 
 of the Saw Mill," and enlarged on the beautiful associations 
 of flood and forest connected with the theme. He delighted 
 himself and his audience with the fine fancies he meant to 
 weave into his poem, and wondered nobody had thought 
 of the subject before. Kavanagh said it had been thought 
 of before ; and cited Kerner s little poem, so charmingly 
 translated by Bryant. Mr. Churchill had not seen it. 
 Kavanagh looked into his pocket-book for it, but it was not 
 to be found ; still he was sure there was such a poem. 
 Mr. Churchill abandoned his design. He had spoken, 
 and the treasure, just as he touched it with his hand, 
 was gone for ever. 
 
 The party returned home as it came, all tired and happy, 
 excepting little Alfred, who was tired and cross, and sat 
 sleepy and sagging on his father s knee, with his hat cocked 
 rather fiercely over his eyes. 
 
KAVANAGH. 275 
 
 XXII. 
 
 THE brown Autumn came. Out of doors it brought to the 
 fields the prodigality of the yellow harvest, to the forest, 
 revelations of light, and to the sky, the sharp air, the 
 morning mist, the red clouds at evening. Within doors, 
 the sense of seclusion, the stillness of closed and curtained 
 windows, musings by the fireside, books, friends, conversa 
 tion, and the long meditative evenings. To the farmer 
 it brought surcease of toil, to the scholar, that sweet 
 delirium of the brain which changes toil to pleasure. It 
 brought the wild duck back to the reedy marshes of the 
 south ; it brought the wild song back to the fervid brain of 
 the poet. Without, the village street was paved with gold ; 
 the river ran red with the reflection of the leaves. Within, 
 the faces of friends brightened the gloomy walls ; the 
 returning footsteps of the long-absent gladdened the 
 threshold ; and all the sweet amenities of social life again 
 resumed their interrupted reign. 
 
 Kavanagh preached a sermon on the coming of Autumn. 
 He chose his text from Isaiah "Who is this that cometh 
 from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah ? this that is 
 glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his 
 strength? Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and 
 thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine-vat ? " 
 
 To Mr. Churchill this beloved season this Joseph with 
 his coat of many colours, as he was fond of calling it 
 brought an unexpected guest, the forlorn, forsaken Lucy. 
 The surmises of the family were too true. She had 
 wandered away with the Briareus of boots. She returned 
 alone, in destitution and despair ; and often, in the grief 
 of a broken heart and a bewildered brain, was heard to 
 say, 
 
 " O, how I wish I was a Christian ! If I were only a 
 Christian, I would not live any longer ; I would kill 
 myself ! I am too wretched ! " 
 
 A few days afterwards a gloomy-looking man rode 
 
276 KAVANAGH. 
 
 through the town on horseback, stopping at every corner, 
 and crying into every street, with a loud and solemn 
 voice 
 
 " Prepare ! prepare ! prepare to meet the living God ! " 
 It was one of that fanatical sect who believed the end of 
 the world was imminent, and had prepared their ascension 
 robes to be lifted up in clouds of glory, while the worn-out, 
 weary world was to burn with fire beneath them, and a new 
 and fairer earth to be prepared for their inheritance. The 
 appearance of this forerunner of the end of the world was 
 followed by numerous camp-meetings, held in the woods near 
 the village, to whose white tents and leafy chapels many 
 went for consolation and found despair. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 AGAIN the two crumbly old women sat and talked together 
 in the little parlour of the gloomy house under the poplars, 
 and the two girls sat above, holding each other by the hand, 
 thoughtful, and speaking only at intervals. 
 
 Alice was unusually sad and silent. The mists were 
 already gathering over her vision, those mists that were to 
 deepen and darken as the season advanced, until the 
 external world should be shrouded and finally shut from 
 her view. Already the landscape began to wear a pale and 
 sickly hue, as if the sun were withdrawing farther and 
 farther, and were soon wholly to disappear, as in a northern 
 winter. But to brighten this northern winter there now 
 arose within her a soft, auroral light. Yes, the auroral 
 light of love, blushing through the whole heaven of her 
 thoughts. She had not breathed that word to herself, nor 
 did she recognise any thrill of passion in the new emotion 
 she experienced. But love it was ; and it lifted her soul 
 into a region which she at once felt was native to it, into 
 a subtler ether, which seemed its natural element. 
 
KAVANAGH. 277 
 
 This feeling, however, was not all exhilaration. It 
 brought with it its own peculiar languor and sadness, its 
 fluctuations and swift vicissitudes of excitement and 
 depression. To this the trivial circumstances of life con 
 tributed. Kavanagh had met her in the street, and had 
 passed her without recognition, and, in the bitterness of the 
 moment, she forgot that she wore a thick veil, which entirely 
 concealed her face. At an evening party at Mr. Churchill s, 
 by a kind of fatality, Kavanagh had stood very near her for 
 a long time, but with his back turned, conversing with Miss 
 Hawkins, from whose toils he was, in fact, though vainly, 
 struggling to extricate himself ; and, in the irritation of 
 supposed neglect, Alice had said to herself 
 
 " This is the kind of woman which most fascinates men !" 
 
 But these cruel moments of pain were few and short, 
 while those of delight were many and lasting. In a life so 
 lonely, and with so little to enliven and embellish it as 
 hers, the guest in disguise was welcomed with ardour, and 
 entertained without fear or suspicion. Had he been feared 
 or suspected, he would have been no longer dangerous. 
 He came as friendship, where friendship was most needed ; 
 he came as devotion, where her only ministrations were 
 always welcome. 
 
 Somewhat differently had the same passion come to the 
 heart of Cecilia ; for as the heart is, so is love to the heart. 
 It partakes of its strength or weakness, its health or disease. 
 In Cecilia it but heightened the keen sensation of life. To 
 all eyes, she became more beautiful, more radiant, more 
 lovely, though they knew not why. When she and 
 Kavanagh first met, it was hardly as strangers meet, but 
 rather as friends long separated. When they first spoke to 
 each other it seemed but as the renewal of some previous 
 interrupted conversation. Their souls flowed together at 
 once, without turbulence or agitation, like waters on the 
 same level. As they found each other without seeking, 
 so their intercourse was without affectation and without 
 embarrassment. 
 
 Thus, while Alice, unconsciously to herself, des-ired the 
 
278 KAVANAGff. 
 
 love of Kavanagh, Cecilia, as unconsciously, assumed it as 
 already her own. Alice keenly felt her own unworthiness ; 
 Cecilia 1 made no comparison of merit. When Kavanagh 
 was present, Alice was happy, but embarrassed ; Cecilia, 
 joyous and natural. The former feared she might displease; 
 the latter divined from the first that she already pleased. 
 In both this was the intuition of the heart. 
 
 So sat the friends together, as they had done so many 
 times before. But now, for the first time, each cherished a 
 secret, which she did not confide to the other. Daily, for 
 many weeks, the feathered courier had come and gone from 
 window to window, but this secret had never been entrusted 
 to his keeping. Almost daily the friends had met and 
 talked together, but this secret had not been told. That 
 could not be confided to another which had not been con 
 fided to themselves; that could not be fashioned into words 
 which was not yet fashioned into thoughts, but was still 
 floating, vague and formless, through the mind. Nay, had 
 it been stated in words, each, perhaps, would have denied 
 it. The distinct apparition of this fair spirit in a visible 
 form would have startled them ; though, while it haunted 
 all the chambers of their souls as an invisible presence, it 
 gave them only solace and delight. 
 
 " How very feverish your hand is, dearest ! " said Cecilia. 
 " What is the matter ? Are you unwell ? " 
 
 "Those are the very words my mother said to me this 
 morning," replied Alice. " I feel rather languid and tired, 
 that is all. I could not sleep last night ; I never can when 
 it rains." 
 
 " Did it rain last night 1 I did not hear it." 
 
 " Yes, about midnight, quite hard. I listened to it for 
 hours. I love to lie awake, and hear the drops fall on the 
 roof, and on the leaves. It throws me into a delicious, 
 dreamy state, which I like much better than sleep." 
 
 Cecilia looked tenderly at her pale face. Her eyes were 
 very bright, and on each cheek was a crimson signal, the 
 sight of which would have given her mother so much 
 
KAVANAGH. 279 
 
 anguish, that, perhaps, it was better for her to be blind 
 than to see. 
 
 " When you enter the land of dreams, Alice, you come 
 into my peculiar realm. I am the queen of that country, 
 you know. But of late I have thought of resigning my 
 throne. These endless reveries are really a great waste of 
 time and strength." 
 
 " Do you think so 1 " 
 
 " Yes ; and Mr. Kavanagh thinks so too. We talked 
 about it the other evening ; and afterwards, upon reflection, 
 I thought he was right." 
 
 And the friends resolved, half in jest and half in earnest, 
 that from that day forth the gate of their day-dreams 
 should be closed. And closed it was ere long ; for one, 
 by the Angel of Life ; for the other, by the Angel of Death ! 
 
 XXIY. 
 
 THE project of the new Magazine being heard of no more, 
 and Mr. Churchill being consequently deprived of his one 
 hundred and fifty thousand readers, he laid aside the few 
 notes he had made for his papers on the Obscure Martyrs, 
 and turned his thoughts again to the great Romance. A 
 whole leisure Saturday afternoon was before him, pure 
 gold, without alloy. Ere beginning his task, he stepped 
 forth into his garden to inhale the sunny air, and let his 
 thoughts recede a little, in order to leap farther. When he 
 returned, glowing and radiant with poetic fancies, he found, 
 to his unspeakable dismay, an unknown damsel, sitting in 
 his arm-chair. She was rather gaily yet elegantly dressed, 
 and wore a veil, which she raised as Mr. Churchill entered, 
 fixing upon him the full, liquid orbs of her large eyes. 
 
 " Sir. Churchill, I suppose ? " said she, rising and stepping 
 forward. 
 
280 KAVANAGH, 
 
 " The same," replied the schoolmaster, with dignified 
 courtesy. 
 
 " And will you permit me," she continued, not without a 
 certain serene self-possession, " to introduce myself for want 
 of a better person to do it for me ! My name is Cartwright, 
 Clarissa Cartwright." 
 
 This announcement did not produce that powerful and 
 instantaneous effect on Mr. Churchill which the speaker 
 seemed to anticipate, or at least to hope. His eye did not 
 brighten with any quick recognition, nor did he suddenly 
 exclaim 
 
 " What ! Are you Miss Cartwright, the poetess, whose 
 delightful effusions I have seen in all the magazines ? " 
 
 On the contrary, he looked rather blank and expectant, 
 and only said 
 
 " I am very glad to see you ; pray sit down." 
 
 So that the young lady herself was obliged to communicate 
 the literary intelligence above alluded to, which she did 
 very gracefully, and then added 
 
 " 1 have come to ask a great favour of you, Mr. Churchill, 
 which I hope you will not deny me. By the advice of some 
 friends, I have collected my poems together," and here 
 she drew forth from a paper a large, thin manuscript, 
 bound in crimson velvet, " and think of publishing them 
 in a volume. Now, would you not do me the favour to 
 look them over, and give me your candid opinion, whether 
 they are worth publishing 1 I should value your advice so 
 highly ! " 
 
 This simultaneous appeal to his vanity and his gallantry, 
 from a fair young girl, standing on the verge of that broad, 
 dangerous ocean, in which so many have perished, and look 
 ing wistfully over its flashing waters to the shores of the 
 green Isle of Palms, such an appeal, from such a person, 
 it was impossible for Mr. Churchill to resist. He made, 
 however, a faint show of resistance, a feeble grasping 
 after some excuse for refusal, and then yielded. He 
 received from Clarissa s delicate trembling hand the 
 
KAVANAGH. 281 
 
 precious volume, and from her eyes a still more precious 
 look of thanks, and then said 
 
 " What name do you propose to give the volume ? " 
 
 " Symphonies of the Soul, and other Poems, " said the 
 young lady ; " and, if you like them, and it would not be 
 asking too much, I should be delighted to have you write a 
 Preface, to introduce the work to the public. The publisher 
 says it would increase the sale very considerably." 
 
 "Ah, the publisher! yes, but that is not very compli 
 mentary to yourself," suggested Mr. Churchill. " I can 
 already see your Poems rebelling against the intrusion of 
 my Preface, and rising like so many nuns in a convent to 
 expel the audacious foot that has dared to invade their 
 sacred precincts." 
 
 But it was all in vain, this pale effort at pleasantry. 
 Objection was useless ; and the soft-hearted schoolmaster a 
 second time yielded gracefully to his fate, and promised the 
 Preface. The young lady took her leave with a profusion 
 of thanks and blushes ; and the dainty manuscript, with its 
 delicate chirography and crimson cover, remained in the 
 hands of Mr. Churchill, who gazed at it less as a Paradise 
 of Dainty Devices than as a deed or mortgage of so many 
 precious hours of his own scanty inheritance of time. 
 
 Afterwards, when he complained a little of this to his 
 wife, who, during the interview, had peeped in at the door, 
 and, seeing how he was occupied, had immediately withdrawn, 
 she said that nobody was to blame but himself ; that he 
 should learn to say " No 1" and not do just as every romantic 
 little girl from the Academy wanted him to do ; adding, as 
 a final aggravation and climax of reproof, that she really 
 believed he never would, and never meant to, begin his 
 Romance ! 
 
282 KAVANAGH. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 NOT long afterwards, Kavanagh and Mr. Churchill took a 
 stroll together across the fields, and down green lanes, 
 walking all the bright, brief afternoon. Erom the summit 
 of the hill, beside the old windmill, they saw the sun set ; 
 and, opposite, the full moon rise, dewy, large, and red. As 
 they descended, they felt the heavy dampness of the air, 
 like water, rising to meet them, bathing with coolness first 
 their feet, then their hands, then their faces, till they were 
 submerged in that sea of dew. As they skirted the woodland 
 on their homeward way, trampling the golden leaves under 
 foot, they heard voices at a distance, singing ; and then saw 
 the lights of the camp-meeting gleaming through the trees, 
 and, drawing nearer, distinguished a portion of the hymn : 
 
 "Don t you hear the Lord a-coming 
 To the old churchyards, 
 
 With a band of music, 
 
 With a band of music, 
 
 With a band of music, 
 Sounding through the air ? " 
 
 These words, at once awful and ludicrous, rose on the still 
 twilight air from a hundred voices, thrilling with emotion, 
 and from as many beating, fluttering, struggling hearts. 
 High above them all was heard one voice, clear and musical 
 as a clarion. 
 
 " I know that voice," said Mr. Churchill ; " it is Elder 
 Evans s." 
 
 " Ah ! " exclaimed Kavanagh, for only the impression 
 of awe was upon him, " he never acted in a deeper tragedy 
 than this ! How terrible it is ! Let us pass on." 
 
 They hurried away, Kavanagh trembling in every fibre. 
 Silently they walked, the music fading into softest vibrations 
 behind them. 
 
 " How strange is this fanaticism ! " at length said Mr. 
 Churchill, rather as a relief to his own thoughts than for the 
 
KAVANAGH. 283 
 
 purpose of reviving the conversation. " These people really 
 believe that the end of the world is close at hand." 
 
 "And to thousands," answered Kavanagh, "this is no 
 fiction, no illusion of an overheated imagination. To-day, 
 to-niorrow, every day, to thousands, the end of the world is 
 close at hand. And why should we fear it 1 We walk here, 
 as it were, in the crypts of life ; at times, from the great 
 cathedral above us, we can hear the organ and the chanting 
 of the choir ; we see the light stream through the open door, 
 when some friend goes up before us ; and shall we fear to 
 mount the narrow staircase of the grave, that leads us out 
 of this uncertain twilight into the serene mansions of the 
 life eternal ?" 
 
 They reached the wooden bridge over the river, which the 
 moonlight converted into a river of light. Their footsteps 
 sounded on the planks ; they passed without perceiving a 
 female figure that stood in the shadow below on the brink of 
 the stream, watching wistfully the steady flow of the current. 
 It was Lucy ! Her bonnet and shawl were lying at her 
 feet ; and when they had passed, she waded far out into the 
 shallow stream, laid herself gently down in its deeper waves, 
 and floated slowly away into the moonlight, among the 
 golden leaves that were faded and fallen like herself, 
 among the water-lilies, whose fragrant white blossoms had 
 been broken off and polluted long ago. Without a struggle, 
 without a sigh, without a sound, she floated downward, 
 downward, and silently sank into the silent river. Far off, 
 faint, and indistinct, was heard the startling hymn, with its 
 wild and peculiar melody 
 
 " 0, there will be mourning, mourning, mourning, mourning, 
 0, there will be mourning, at the judgment-seat of Christ ! " 
 
 Kavanagh s heart was full of sadness. He left Mr. 
 Churchill at his door, and proceeded homeward. On pass 
 ing his church, he could not resist the temptation to go in. 
 He climbed to his chamber in the tower, lighted by the 
 moon. He sat for a long time gazing from the window, 
 and watching a distant and feeble candle, whose rays 
 
284 KAVANAGH. 
 
 scarcely reached him across the brilliant moon-lighted air. 
 Gentler thoughts stole over him ; an invisible presence 
 soothed him ; an invisible hand was laid upon his head, 
 and the trouble and unrest of his spirit were changed to 
 peace. 
 
 " Answer me, thou mysterious future ! " exclaimed he ; 
 " tell me, shall these things be according to my desires?" 
 
 And the mysterious future, interpreted by those desires, 
 replied 
 
 " Soon thou shalt know all. It shall be well with thee !" 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 ON the following morning Kavanagh sat as usual in his 
 study in the tower. No traces were left of the heaviness 
 and sadness of the preceding night. It was a bright, warm 
 morning ; and the window, open towards the south, let in 
 the genial sunshine. The odour of decaying leaves scented 
 the air ; far off flashed the hazy river. 
 
 Kavanagh s heart, however, was not at rest. At times 
 he rose from his books, and paced up and down his little 
 study ; then took up his hat as if to go out ; then laid it 
 down again, and again resumed his books. At length he 
 arose, and, leaning on the window-sill, gazed for a long 
 time on the scene before him. Some thought was labouring 
 in his bosom, some doubt or fear, which alternated with 
 hope, but thwarted any fixed resolve. 
 
 Ah, how pleasantly that fair autumnal landscape smiled 
 upon him ! The great golden elms that marked the line of 
 the village street, and under whose shadows no beggars sat ; 
 the air of comfort and plenty, of neatness, thrift, and 
 equality, visible everywhere ; and from far-off farms the 
 sound of flails, beating the triumphal march of Ceres 
 through the land ; these were the sights and sounds that 
 
KAVANAGfL 285 
 
 greeted him as he looked. Silently the yellow leaves fell 
 upon the graves in the churchyard ; and the dew glistened 
 in the grass, which was still long and green. 
 
 Presently his attention was arrested by a dove, pursued 
 by a little kingfisher, who constantly endeavoured to soar 
 above it, in order to attack it at greater advantage. The 
 flight of the birds, thus shooting through the air at arrowy 
 speed, was beautiful. When they were opposite the tower, 
 the dove suddenly wheeled, and darted in at the open win 
 dow, while the pursuer held on his way with a long sweep, 
 and was out of sight in a moment. 
 
 At the first glance Kavanagh recognised the dove, which 
 lay panting on the floor. It was the same he had seen 
 Cecilia buy of the little man in grey. He took it in his 
 hands. Its heart was beating violently. About its neck 
 was a silken band ; beneath its wing a billet, upon which 
 was a single word, " Cecilia." The bird, then, was on its way 
 to Cecilia Vaughan. ^ He hailed the omen as auspicious, 
 and, immediately closing the window, seated himself at his 
 table, and wrote a few hurried words, which, being carefully 
 folded and sealed, he fastened to the band, and then hastily, 
 as if afraid his purpose might be changed by delay, opened 
 the window and set the bird at liberty. It sailed once or 
 twice round the tower, apparently uncertain and bewildered, 
 or still in fear of its pursuer. Then, instead of holding its 
 way over the fields to Cecilia Vaughan, it darted over the 
 roofs of the village, and alighted at the window of Alice 
 Archer. 
 
 Having written that morning to Cecilia something urgent 
 and confidential, she was already waiting the answer ; and, 
 not doubting that the bird had brought it, she hastily untied 
 the silken band, and, without looking at the superscription, 
 opened the first note that fell on the table. It was very 
 brief ; only a few lines, and not a name mentioned in it ; 
 an impulse, an ejaculation of love ; every line quivering 
 with electric fire, every word a pulsation of the writer s 
 heart. It was signed "Arthur Kavanagh." 
 
 Overwhelmed by the suddenness and violence of her 
 
286 KAVANAGH. 
 
 emotions, Alice sat for a long time motionless, holding the 
 open letter in her hand. Then she read it again, and then 
 relapsed into her dream of joy and wonder. It would be 
 difficult to say which of the two emotions was the greater, 
 her joy that her prayer for love should be answered, and 
 so answered, her wonder that Kavanagh should have 
 selected her ! In the tumult of her sensations, and hardly 
 conscious of what she was doing, she folded the note and 
 replaced it in its envelope. Then, for the first time, her 
 eye fell on the superscription. It was " Cecilia Vaughan." 
 Alice fainted. 
 
 On recovering her senses, her first act was one of heroism. 
 She sealed the note, attached it to the neck of the pigeon, 
 and sent the messenger rejoicing on his journey. Then her 
 feelings had way, and she wept long and bitterly. Then, 
 with a desperate calmness, she reproved her own weakness 
 and selfishness, and felt that she ought to rejoice in the 
 happiness of her friend, and sacrifice her affection, even her 
 life, to her. Her heart exculpated Kavanagh from all 
 blame. He had not deluded her ; she had deluded herself. 
 She alone was in fault; and in deep humiliation, with 
 wounded pride and wounded love, and utter self-abasement, 
 she bowed her head and prayed for consolation and 
 fortitude. 
 
 One consolation she already had. The secret was her own. 
 She had not revealed it even to Cecilia. Kavanagh did not 
 suspect it. Public curiosity, public pity, she would not 
 have to undergo. 
 
 She was resigned. She made the heroic sacrifice of self, 
 leaving her sorrow to the great physician, Time, the nurse 
 of care, the healer of all smarts, the soother and consoler of 
 all sorrows. And, thenceforward, she became unto Kavanagh 
 what the moon is to the sun, for ever following, for ever 
 separated, for ever sad ! 
 
 As a traveller, about to start upon his journey, resolved 
 and yet irresolute, watches the clouds, and notes the struggle 
 between the sunshine and the showers, and says, " It will be 
 fair; I will go," and again says, "Ah, no, not yet; the 
 
KAVANAGH. 287 
 
 rain is not yet over," so at this same hour sat Cecilia 
 Vaughan, resolved and yet irresolute, longing to depart 
 upon the fair journey before her, and yet lingering on the 
 paternal threshold, as if she wished both to stay and to go, 
 seeing the sky was not without its clouds, nor the road 
 without its dangers. 
 
 It was a beautiful picture, as she sat there with sweet 
 perplexity in her face, and above it an immortal radiance 
 streaming from her brow. She was like Guercino s Sibyl, 
 with the scroll of fate and the uplifted pen ; and the scroll 
 she held contained but three words, three words that 
 controlled the destiny of a man, and, by their soft impul 
 sion, directed for evermore the current of his thoughts. 
 They were 
 
 "Come to me !" 
 
 The magic syllables brought Kavanagh to her side. The 
 full soul is silent. Only the rising and falling tides rush 
 murmuring through their channels. So sat the lovers, hand 
 in hand ; but for a long time neither spake, neither had 
 need of speech ! 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 IN the afternoon Cecilia went to communicate the news to 
 Alice with her own lips, thinking it too important to be 
 entrusted to the wings of the carrier-pigeon. As she 
 entered the door the cheerful doctor was coming out ; but 
 this was no unusual apparition, and excited no alarm. 
 Mrs. Archer, too, according to custom, was sitting in the 
 little parlour with her decrepit old neighbour, who seemed 
 almost to have taken up her abode under that roof, so many 
 hours of every day did she pass there. 
 
 With a light, elastic step, Cecilia bounded up to Alice s 
 room. She found her reclining in her large chair, flushed 
 and excited. Sitting down by her side, and taking both 
 
288 KAVANAGH. 
 
 her hands, she said, with great emotion in the tones of 
 her voice 
 
 " Dearest Alice, I have brought you some news that I 
 am sure will make you well. For my sake, you will be 
 no longer ill when you hear it. I am engaged to Mr. 
 Kavanagh ! " 
 
 Alice feigned no surprise at this announcement. She 
 returned the warm pressure of Cecilia s hand, and looking 
 affectionately in her face, said, very calmly 
 
 " I knew it would be so. I knew that he loved you, and 
 that you would love him." 
 
 "How could I help it?" said Cecilia, her eyes beaming 
 with dewy light ; " could any one help loving him ? " 
 
 " JS"o," answered Alice, throwing her arms around Cecilia s 
 neck, and laying her head upon her shoulder ; " at least, no 
 one whom he loved. But when did this happen 1 Tell me 
 all about it, dearest ! " 
 
 Cecilia was surprised, and perhaps a little hurt, at the 
 quiet, almost impassive manner in which her friend received 
 this great intelligence. She had expected exclamations of 
 wonder and delight, and such a glow of excitement as that 
 with which she was sure she should have hailed the 
 announcement of Alice s engagement. But this momentary 
 annoyance was soon swept away by the tide of her own 
 joyous sensations, as she proceeded to recall to the recollec 
 tion of her friend the thousand little circumstances that had 
 marked the progress of her love and Kavanagh s ; things 
 which she must have noticed, which she could not have 
 forgotten ; with questions interspersed at intervals, such as, 
 " Do you recollect when 1 " and " I am sure you have not 
 forgotten, have you 1 " and dreamy little pauses of silence, 
 and intercalated sighs. She related to her also the perilous 
 ad venture of the carrier-pigeon j how it had been pursued 
 by the cruel kingfisher ; how it had taken refuge in 
 Kavanagh s tower, and had been the bearer of his letter as 
 well as her own. When she had finished, she felt her 
 bosom wet with the tears of Alice, who was suffering 
 martyrdom on that soft breast so full of happiness. Tears 
 
KAVANAGtI. 289 
 
 of bitterness, tears of blood ! And Cecilia, in the exultant 
 temper of her soul at the moment, thought them tears of 
 joy, and pressed Alice closer to her heart, and kissed and 
 caressed her. 
 
 " Ah, how very happy you are, Cecilia ! " at length sighed 
 the poor sufferer, in that slightly querulous tone, to which 
 Cecilia was not unaccustomed ; " how very happy you are, 
 and how very wretched am 1 1 You have all the joy of life, 
 I all its loneliness. How litetle you will think of me now ! 
 How little you will need me ! I shall be nothing t you, 
 you will forget me ! " 
 
 " Never, dearest ! " exclaimed Cecilia, with much warmth 
 and sincerity ; "I shall lo*e you only the more. We shall 
 both love you. You will now have two friends instead 
 of one." 
 
 " Yes ; but both will not be equal to the one I lose. No, 
 Cecilia ; let us not make to ourselves any illusions. I do 
 not. You cannot now be with me so much and so often as 
 you have been. Even if you were, your thoughts would be 
 elsewhere. Ah, I have lost my friend when most I needed 
 her 1 " 
 
 Cecilia protested ardently and earnestly, and dilated with 
 eagerness on her little plan of life, in which their romantic 
 friendship was to gain only new strength and beauty from 
 the more romantic love. She was interrupted by a knock 
 at the street door \ on hearing which, she paused a moment, 
 and then said 
 
 " It is Arthur. He was to call for me." 
 
 Ah, what glimpses of home, and fireside, and a whole life 
 of happiness for Cecilia, were revealed by that one word of 
 love and intimacy, " Arthur ! " and for Alice, what a 
 sentence of doom ! what sorrow without a name ! what an 
 endless struggle of love and friendship, of duty and inclina 
 tion 1 A little quiver of the eyelids and the hands, a hasty 
 motion to raise her head from Cecilia s shoulder these 
 were the only outward signs of emotion. But a terrible 
 pang went to her heart ; her blood rushed eddying to her 
 brain ; and when Cecilia had taken leave of her with the 
 
 233 
 
290 KAVANAGH. 
 
 triumphant look of love beaming upon her brow, and an 
 elevation in her whole attitude and bearing, as if borne up 
 by attendant angels, she sank back into her chair, exhausted, 
 fainting, fearing, longing, hoping to die. 
 
 And below sat the two old women, talking of moths, and 
 cheap furniture, and what was the best remedy for rheuma 
 tism ; and from the door went forth two happy hearts, 
 beating side by side with the pulse of youth and hope and 
 joy, and within them and around them was a new heaven 
 and a new earth ! 
 
 Only those who have lived in a small town can really 
 know how great an event therein is a new engagement. 
 From tongue to tongue passes the swift countersign : from 
 eye to eye flashes the illumination of joy, or the bale-fire of 
 alarm ; the streets and houses ring with it, as with the 
 penetrating, all-pervading sound of the village bell ; the 
 whole community feels a thrill of sympathy, and seems to 
 congratulate itself that all the great events are by no means 
 confined to the great towns. As Cecilia and Kavanagh 
 passed arm in arm through the village, many curious eyes 
 watched them from the windows, many hearts grown cold 
 or careless rekindled their household fires of loves from the 
 golden altar of God, borne through the streets by those 
 pure and holy hands ! 
 
 The intelligence of the engagement, however, was received 
 very differently by different persons. Mrs. Wilmerdings 
 wondered, for her part, why anybody wanted to get married 
 at all. The little taxidermist said he knew it would be so 
 from the very first day they had met at his aviary. Miss 
 Hawkins lost suddenly much of her piety and all her 
 patience, and laughed rather hysterically. Mr. Hawkins 
 said it was impossible, but went in secret to consult a 
 friend, an old bachelor, on the best remedy for love \ and 
 the old bachelor, as one well versed in such affairs, gravely 
 advised him to think of the lady as a beautiful statue 1 
 
 Once more the indefatigable school-girl took up her pen, 
 and wrote to her foreign correspondent a letter that might 
 rival the famous epistle of Madame de Sevigne to her 
 
KAVANAGH. 29! 
 
 daughter, announcing the engagement of Mademoiselle 
 Montpensier. Through the whole of the first page she told 
 her to guess who the lady was \ through the whole of the 
 second, who the gentleman was ; the third was devoted to 
 what was said about it in the village ; and on the fourth 
 there were two postscripts, one at the top and the other at 
 the bottom, the first stating that they were to be married 
 in the Spring, and to go to Italy immediately afterwards ; 
 and the last, that Alice Archer was dangerously ill with a 
 fever. 
 
 As for the Ohurchills, they could find no words powerful 
 enough to express their delight, but gave vent to it in a 
 banquet on Thanksgiving-day, in which the wife had all the 
 trouble and the husband all the pleasure. In order that 
 the entertainment might be worthy of the occasion, Mr. 
 Churchill wrote to the city for the best cookery-book ; and 
 the bookseller, executing the order in all its amplitude, sent 
 him the Practical Guide to the Culinary Art in all its 
 Branches, by Frascatelli, pupil of the celebrated Careme, 
 and Chief Cook to Her Majesty the Queen, a ponderous 
 volume, illustrated with numerous engravings, and furnished 
 with bills of fare for every month in the year, and any 
 number of persons. This great work was duly studied, 
 evening after evening ; and Mr. Churchill confessed to his 
 wife, that although at first startled by the size of the book, 
 he had really enjoyed it very highly, and had been much 
 pleased to be present in imagination at so many grand 
 entertainments, and to sit opposite the Queen without 
 having to change his dress or the general style of his 
 conversation. 
 
 The dinner-hour, as well as the dinner itself, was duly 
 debated. Mr. Churchill was in favour of the usual hour of 
 one ; but his wife thought it should be an hour later. 
 Whereupon he remarked 
 
 " King Henry the Eighth dined at ten o clock and supped 
 at four. His queen s maids-of-honour had a gallon of ale 
 and a chine of beef for their breakfast." 
 
 To which his wife answered 
 
292 KAVANAGH. 
 
 "I hope we shall have something a little more refined 
 than that." 
 
 The. day on which the banquet should take place was 
 next discussed, and both agreed that no day could be so 
 appropriate as Thanksgiving-day ; for, as Mrs. Churchill 
 very truly remarked, it was really a day of thanksgiving to 
 Kavanagh. She then said 
 
 " How very solemnly he read the Governor s Proclama 
 tion yesterday 1 particularly the words God save the 
 Commonwealth of Massachusetts ! " And what a procla 
 mation it was ! When he spread it out on the pulpit, it 
 looked like a table-cloth ! " 
 
 Mr. Churchill then asked 
 
 " What day of the week is the first of December \ Let 
 me see 
 
 * At Dover dwells George Brown, Esquire, 
 Good Christopher Finch and Daniel Friar ? 
 
 Thursday!" 
 
 "I could have told you that," said his wife, "by a 
 shorter process than your old rhyme. Thanksgiving-day 
 always comes on Thursday." 
 
 These preliminaries being duly settled, the dinner was 
 given. 
 
 There being only six guests, and the dinner being 
 modelled upon one for twenty-four persons, Russian style 
 in November, it was very abundant. It began with a 
 Colbert soup, and ended with a Nesselrode pudding ; but as 
 no allusion was made in the course of the repast to the 
 French names of the dishes, and the mutton, and turnips, 
 and pancakes were all called by their English patronymics, 
 the dinner appeared less magnificent in reality than in the bill 
 of fare, and the guests did not fully appreciate how superb 
 a banquet they were enjoying. The hilarity of the occasion 
 was not marred by any untoward accident ; though once or 
 twice Mr. Churchill was much annoyed, and the company 
 much amused, by Master Alfred, who was allowed to be 
 present at the festivities, and audibly proclaimed what was 
 
KAVANAGH. 293 
 
 coming long before it made its appearance. When the 
 dinner was over, several of the guests remembered brilliant 
 and appropriate things they might have said, and wondered 
 they were so dull as not to think of them in season ; and 
 when they were all gone, Mr. Churchill remarked ^to his 
 wife that he had enjoyed himself very much, and he should 
 like to ask his friends to just such a dinner every week ! 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 THE first snow came. How beautiful it was, falling so 
 silently, all day long, all night long, on the mountains, on 
 the meadows, on the roofs of the living, on the graves of the 
 dead ! All white save the river, that marked its course by 
 a winding black line across the landscape ; and the leafless 
 trees, that against the leaden sky now revealed more fully 
 the wonderful beauty and intricacy of their branches. 
 
 What silence, too, came with the snow, and what seclu 
 sion ? Every sound was muffled, every noise changed to 
 something soft and musical. No more trampling hoofs, 
 no more rattling wheels ! Only the chiming sleigh-bells, 
 beating as swift and merrily as the hearts of children. 
 
 All day long, all night long, the snow fell on the village 
 and on the churchyard ; and on the happy home of Cecilia 
 Vaughan, on the lonely grave of Alice Archer ! Yes, for 
 before the winter came she had gone to that land where 
 winter never comes. Her long domestic tragedy was ended. 
 She was dead ; and with her had died her secret sorrow and 
 her secret love. Kavanagh never knew what wealth of 
 affection for him faded from the world when she departed ; 
 Cecilia never knew what fidelity of friendship, what delicate 
 regard, what gentle magnanimity, what angelic patience had 
 gone with her into the grave ; Mr. Churchill never knew, 
 that while he was exploring the Past for records of obscure 
 
294 KAVANAGH. 
 
 and unknown martyrs, in his own village, near his own 
 door, before his own eyes, one of that silent sisterhood had 
 passed away into oblivion, unnoticed and unknown. 
 
 How often, ah, how often, between the desire of the 
 heart and its fulfilment, lies only the briefest space of time 
 and distance, and yet the desire remains for ever unfulfilled ! 
 It is so near that we can touch it with the hand, and yet 
 so far away that the eye cannot perceive it. What Mr. 
 Churchill most desired was before him. The Romance he 
 was longing to find and record had really occurred in his 
 neighbourhood, among his own friends. It had been set 
 like a picture into the frame-work of his life, enclosed within 
 his own experience. But he could not see it as an object 
 apart from himself ; and as he was gazing at what was 
 remote, and strange, and indistinct, the nearer incidents of 
 aspiration, love, and death escaped him. They were too 
 near to be clothed by the imagination with the golden 
 vapours of romance ; for the familiar seems trivial, and 
 only the distant and unknown completely fill and satisfy 
 the mind. 
 
 The winter did not pass without its peculiar delights and 
 recreations. The singing of the great wood fires ; the 
 blowing of the wind over the chimney-tops, as if they were 
 organ-pipes ; the splendour of the spotless snow ; the purple 
 wall built round the horizon at sunset ; the sea-suggesting 
 pines, with the moan of the billows in their branches, 
 on which the snows were furled like sails ; the northern 
 lights j the stars of steel ; the transcendent moonlight, and 
 the lovely shadows of the leafless trees upon the snow ; 
 these things did not pass unnoticed nor unremembered. 
 Every one of them made its record upon the heart of Mr. 
 Churchill. 
 
 His twilight walks, his long Saturday afternoon rambles, 
 had again become solitary ; for Kavanagh was lost to him 
 for such purposes, and his wife was one of those women who 
 never walk. Sometimes he went down to the banks of the 
 frozen river, and saw the farmers crossing it with their 
 heavy-laden sleds, and the Fairmeadow schooner imbedded 
 
KAVANAGH. 295 
 
 in the ice ; and thought of Lapland sledges, and the song of 
 Kulnasatz, and the dismantled, ice-locked vessels of the 
 explorers in the Arctic Ocean. Sometimes he went to the 
 neighbouring lake, and saw the skaters wheeling round 
 their fire, and speeding away before the wind ; and in his 
 imagination arose images of the Norwegian Skate-Runners, 
 bearing the tidings of King Charles s death from Fredericks- 
 hall to Drontheim, and of the retreating Swedish army, 
 frozen to death in its fireless tents among the mountains. 
 And then he would watch the cutting of the ice with 
 ploughs, and the horses dragging the huge blocks to the 
 store-houses, and contrast them with the Grecian mules, 
 bearing the snows of Mount Parnassus to the markets of 
 Athens, in panniers protected from the sun by boughs of 
 oleander and rhododendron. 
 
 The rest of his leisure hours were employed in anything 
 and everything save in writing his Homanee. A great deal 
 of time was daily consumed in reading the newspapers, 
 because it was necessary, he said, to keep up with the times ; 
 and a great deal more in writing a Lyceum Lecture, on 
 " What Lady Macbeth might have been, had her energies 
 been properly directed." He also made some little progress 
 in a poetical arithmetic, founded on Bhascara s, but 
 relinquished it, because the school committee thought it was 
 not practical enough, and more than hinted that he had 
 better adhere to the old system. And still the vision of 
 the great Romance moved before his mind, august and 
 glorious, a beautiful mirage of the desert. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 THE wedding did not take place till Spring. And then 
 Kavanagh and his Cecilia departed on their journey to 
 Italy and the East a sacred mission, a visit like the 
 
29 6 KAVANAGH. 
 
 Apostle s to the Seven Churches, nay, to all the Churches 
 of Christendom ; hoping by some means to sow in many 
 devout hearts the desire and prophecy that filled his own 
 the union of all sects into one universal Church of Christ. 
 They intended to be absent one year only j they were gone 
 three. It seemed to their friends that they never would 
 return. But at length they came the long absent, the 
 lng looked for, the long desired bearing with them that 
 delicious perfume of travel, that genial sunny atmosphere, 
 and soft, Ausonian air, which returning travellers always 
 bring about them. 
 
 It was night when they reached the village, and they could 
 not see what changes had taken place in it during their 
 absence. How it had dilated and magnified itself, how it 
 had puffed itself up, and bedizened itself with flaunting, 
 ostentatious signs, how it stood, rotund and rubicund with 
 brick, like a portly man, with his back to the fire and both 
 hands in his pockets, warm, expansive, apoplectic, and 
 entertaining a very favourable opinion of himself, all this 
 they did not see for the darkness \ but Kavanagh beheld it 
 all, and more, when he went forth on the following morning. 
 
 How Cecilia s heart beat as they drove up the avenue to 
 the old house ! The piny odours in the night air, the 
 solitary light at her father s window, the familiar bark of 
 the dog Major at the sound of the wheels, awakened feelings 
 at once new and old. A sweet perplexity of thought, a 
 strange familiarity, a no less pleasing strangeness ! The 
 lifting of the heavy brass latch, and the jarring of the heavy 
 brass knocker as the door closed, were echoes from her 
 childhood. Mr. Yaughan they found, as usual, among his 
 papers in the study ; the same bland, white-haired man, 
 hardly a day older than when they left him there. To 
 Cecilia, the whole long absence in Italy became a dream, 
 and vanished away. Even Kavanagh was for the moment 
 forgotten. She was a daughter, not a wife; she had not 
 been married, she had not been in Italy ! 
 
 In the morning Kavanagh sallied forth to find the Fair- 
 meadow of his memory, but found it not. The railroad ha.d 
 
KAVANAGH. 297 
 
 completely transformed it. The simple village had become 
 a very precocious town. New shops, with new names over 
 the doors ; new streets, with new forms and faces in them ; 
 the whole town seemed to have been taken and occupied by 
 a besieging army of strangers. Nothing was permanent 
 but the workhouse, standing alone in the pasture by the 
 river ; and, at the end of the street, the schoolhouse, that 
 other workhouse, where in childhood we pick and untwist 
 the cordage of the brain, that, later in life, we may not be 
 obliged to pull to pieces the more material cordage of old 
 ships. 
 
 Kavanagh soon turned in despair from the main street, 
 into a little green lane, where there were few houses, and 
 where the barberry still nodded over the old stone wall ; 
 a place he had much loved in the olden time for its silence 
 and seclusion. He seemed to have entered his ancient realm 
 of dreams again, and was walking with his hat drawn a 
 little over his eyes. He had not proceeded far, when he 
 was startled by a woman s voice, quite sharp and loud, 
 crying from the opposite side of the lane. Looking up, he 
 beheld a small cottage, against the wall of which rested a 
 ladder, and on this ladder stood the woman from whom the 
 voice came. Her face was nearly concealed by a spacious 
 gingham sun-bonnet, and in her right hand she held extended 
 a large brush, with which she was painting the front of her 
 cottage, when interrupted by the approach of Kavanagh, 
 who, thinking she was calling to him, but not understanding 
 what she said, made haste to cross over to her assistance. 
 At this movement her tone became louder and more per 
 emptory ; and he could now understand that her cry was 
 rather a warning than an invitation. 
 
 " Go away 1 " she said, flourishing her brush. " Go 
 away ! What are you coming down here for, when I am on 
 the ladder, painting my house "? If you don t go right about 
 your business, I will come down and " 
 
 "Why, Miss Manchester l" exclaimed Kavanagh, "how 
 could I know that you would be going up the ladder just as, 
 I came down the lane ^ " 
 
298 KAVANAGH. 
 
 " Well, I declare, if it is not Mr. Kavanagh I " 
 
 And she scrambled down the ladder backwards with as 
 much -grace as the circumstances permitted. She too, like 
 the rest of his friends in the village, showed symptoms of 
 growing older. The passing years had drunk a portion of 
 the light from her eyes, and left their traces on her cheeks, 
 as birds that drink at lakes leave their footprints on the 
 margin. But the pleasant smile remained, and reminded 
 him of the by-gone days, when she used to open for him the 
 door of the gloomy house under the poplars. 
 
 Many things had she to ask, and many to tell ; and for 
 full half-an-hour Kavanagh stood leaning over the paling, 
 while she remained among the hollyhocks, as stately and 
 red as the plants themselves. At parting, she gave him 
 one of the flowers for his wife ; and when he was fairly out 
 of sight, again climbed the perilous ladder, and resumed 
 her fresco painting. 
 
 Through all the vicissitudes of these later years, Sally 
 had remained true to her principles and resolution. At 
 Mrs. Archer s death, which occurred soon after Kavanagh s 
 wedding, she had retired to this little cottage, bought and 
 paid for by her own savings. Though often urged by Mr. 
 Vaughan s man, Silas, who breathed his soul out upon the 
 air of summer evenings through a keyed bugle, she 
 resolutely refused to marry. In vain did he send her 
 letters written with his own blood, going barefooted into 
 the brook to be bitten by leeches, and then using his feet as 
 inkstands ; she refused again and again. Was it that in 
 some blue chamber, or some little warm back-parlour, of 
 her heart the portrait of the inconstant dentist was still 
 hanging ? Alas, no ! But as to some hearts it is given in 
 youth to blossom with the fragrant blooms of young desire, 
 so others are doomed by a mysterious destiny to be checked 
 in spring by chill winds, blowing over the bleak common of 
 the world. So had it been with her desires and thoughts of 
 love. Fear now predominated over hope; and to die 
 unmarried had become to her a fatality which she dared not 
 resist. 
 
KAVANAGH. 299 
 
 In the course of his long conversation with Miss 
 Manchester, Kavanagh learned many things about the 
 inhabitants of the town. Mrs. Wilmerdings was still 
 carrying on her labours in the " Dunstable and eleven- 
 braid, open work and coloured straws." Her husband had 
 taken to the tavern, and often caine home very late, " with 
 a brick in his hat," as Sally expressed it. Their son and 
 heir was far away in the Pacific, on board a whale-ship. 
 Miss Amelia Hawkins remained unmarried, though possess 
 ing a talent for matrimony which amounted almost to 
 genius. Her brother, the poet, was no more. Finding it 
 impossible to follow the old bachelor s advice, and look 
 upon Miss Vaughan as a beautiful statue, he made one or 
 two attempts, but in vain, to throw himself away on 
 unworthy objects, and then died. At this event, two 
 elderly maidens went into mourning simultaneously, each 
 thinking herself engaged to him ; and suddenly went out or 
 it again, mutually indignant with each other, and mortified 
 with themselves. The little taxidermist was still hopping 
 about in his aviary, looking more than ever like his grey 
 African parrot. Mrs. Archer s house was uninhabited. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 KAVANAGH continued his walk in the direction of Mr. 
 Churchill s residence. This, at least, was unchanged, 
 quite unchanged. The same white front, the same brass 
 knocker, the same old wooden gate, with its chain and ball ; 
 the same damask roses under the windows; the same 
 sunshine without and within. The outer door and study 
 door were both open as usual in the warm weather ; and at 
 the table sat Mr. Churchill, writing. Over each ear was a 
 black and inky stump of a pen, which, like the two ravens 
 
joo KAVANAGH. 
 
 perched on Odin s shoulders, seemed to whisper to him all 
 that passed in heaven and on earth. On this occasion, 
 their .revelations were of the earth. He was correcting 
 school exercises. 
 
 The joyful welcome of Mr. Churchill as Kavanagh 
 entered, and the cheerful sound of their voices, soon 
 brought Mrs. Churchill to the study, her eyes bluer than 
 ever, her cheeks fairer, her form more round and full. The 
 children came in also, Alfred grown to boy s estate and 
 exalted into a jacket ; and the baby that was, less than two 
 years behind him, and catching all his falling mantles, and 
 all his tricks and maladies. 
 
 Kavanagh found Mr. Churchill precisely where he left 
 him. He had not advanced one step not one. The same 
 dreams, the same longings, the same aspirations, the same 
 indecision. A thousand things had been planned, and none 
 completed. His imagination seemed still to exhaust itself 
 in running before it tried to leap the ditch. While he 
 mused the fire burned in other brains. Other hands wrote 
 the books he dreamed about. He freely used his good ideas 
 in conversation, and in letters ; and they were straightway 
 wrought into the texture of other men s books, and so lost 
 to him for ever. His work on Obscure Martyrs was 
 anticipated by Mr. Hathaway, who, catching the idea from 
 him, wrote and published a series of papers on Unknown 
 Saints, before Mr. Churchill had fairly arranged his 
 materials. Before he had written a chapter of his great 
 Romance, another friend and novelist had published one on 
 the same subject. 
 
 Poor Mr. Churchill ! So far as fame and external 
 success were concerned, his life certainly was a failure. He 
 was, perhaps, too deeply freighted, too much laden by the 
 head, to ride the waves gracefully. Every sea broke over 
 him he was half the time under water. 
 
 All his defects and mortifications he attributed to the 
 outward circumstances of his life, the exigencies of his 
 profession, the accidents of chance. But, in reality, they 
 
KAVANAGH. 301 
 
 lay much deeper than this. They were within himself. 
 He wanted the all-controlling, all -subduing will. He 
 wanted the fixed purpose that sways and bends all circum 
 stances to its uses, as the wind bends the reed, and rushes 
 beneath it. 
 
 In a few minutes, and in that broad style of handling, in 
 which nothing is distinctly denned, but everything clearly 
 suggested, Kavanagh sketched to his friends his three 
 years life in Italy and the East. And then turning to Mr. 
 Churchill, he said 
 
 "And you, my friend, what have you been doing all 
 this while ? You have written to me so rarely that I have 
 hardly kept pace with you. But I have thought of you 
 constantly. In all the old cathedrals; in all the lovely 
 landscapes among the Alps and Apennines ; in looking 
 down on Duomo d Ossola ; at the Inn of Baveno ; at Gaeta ; 
 at Naples \ in old and mouldy Rome ; in older Egypt ; in 
 the Holy Land ; in all galleries and churches and ruins ; in 
 our rural retirement at Fiesoli ; whenever I have seen 
 anything beautiful, I have thought of you, and of how much 
 you would have enjoyed it ! " 
 
 Mr. Churchill sighed ; and then, as if, with a touch as 
 masterly, he would draw a picture that should define 
 nothing, but suggest everything, he said 
 
 " You have no children, Kavanagh ; we have five." 
 
 "Ah, so many already!" exclaimed Kavanagh. "A 
 living Pentateuch 1 A beautiful Pentapylon, or five-gated 
 temple of Life ! A charming number ! " 
 
 " Yes," answered Mr. Churchill ; " a beautiful number ; 
 Juno s own ; the wedding of the first even and first uneven 
 numbers ; the number sacred to marriage, but having no 
 reference, direct or indirect, to the Pythagorean novitiate of 
 five years silence." 
 
 " No ; it certainly is not the vocation of children to be 
 silent," said Kavanagh, laughing. "That would be out of 
 nature ; saving always the children of the brain, which do 
 not often make so much noise in the world as we desire. I 
 
$62 KAVANAGH. 
 
 hope a still larger family of these has grown up around you 
 during my absence." 
 
 "Quite otherwise," answered the schoolmaster, sadly. 
 " My brain has been almost barren of songs. I have only 
 been trifling ; and I am afraid that, if I play any longer 
 with Apollo, the untoward winds will blow the discus of the 
 god against my forehead, and strike me dead with it, as 
 they did Hyacinth of old." 
 
 "And your Romance, have you been more successful 
 with that ? I hope it is finished, or nearly finished 1 " 
 
 " Not yet begun," said Mr. Churchill. " The plan and 
 characters still remain vague and indefinite in my mind. I 
 have not even found a name for it." 
 
 " That you can determine after the book is written," 
 suggested Kavanagh. " You can name it, for instance, as 
 the old Heimskringla was named, from the initial word of 
 the first chapter." 
 
 " Ah ! that was very well in the olden time, and in 
 Iceland, when there were no quarterly reviews. It would 
 be called affectation now." 
 
 " I see you still stand a little in awe of opinion. Never 
 fear that. The strength of criticism lies only in the 
 weakness of the thing criticised." 
 
 " That is the truth, Kavanagh ; and I am more afraid of 
 deserving criticism than of receiving it. I stand in awe of 
 my own opinion. The secret demerits of which we alone, 
 perhaps, are conscious, are often more difficult to bear than 
 those which have been publicly censured in us, and thus in 
 some degree atoned for." 
 
 11 1 will not say." replied Kavanagh, " that humility is 
 the only road to excellence, but I am sure that it is one 
 road." 
 
 " Yes, humility ; but not humiliation," sighed Mr. 
 Churchill, despondingly. " As for excellence, I can only 
 desire it, and dream of it ; I cannot attain to it ; it lies too 
 far from me ; I cannot reach it. These very books about 
 me here, that once stimulated me to action, have now 
 
KAVANAGH. 303 
 
 become my accusers. They are my Eumenides, and drive 
 me to despair." 
 
 " My friend," said Kavanagh, after a short pause, during 
 which he had taken note of Mr. Churchill s sadness, " that 
 is not always excellent which lies far away from us. What 
 is remote and difficult of access, we are apt to overrate ; 
 what is really best for us lies always within our reach, 
 though often overlooked. To speak frankly, I am afraid 
 this is the case with your Romance. You are evidently 
 grasping at something which lies beyond the confines of 
 your own experience, and which, consequently, is only a 
 play of shadows in the realm of fancy. The figures have no 
 vitality ; they are only outward shows, wanting inward 
 life. We can give to others only what we have." 
 
 "And if we have nothing worth giving?" interrupted 
 Mr. Churchill. 
 
 "No man is so poor as that. As well might the 
 mountain streamlets say they have nothing worth giving to 
 the sea, because they are not rivers. Give what you have. 
 To some one it may be better than you dare to think. If 
 you had looked nearer for the materials of your Romance, 
 and had set about it in earnest, it would now have been 
 finished." 
 
 " And burned, perhaps," interposed Mr. Churchill \ " or 
 sunk with the books of Simon Magus to the bottom of the 
 Dead Sea." 
 
 " At all events, you would have had the pleasure of 
 writing it. I remember one of the old traditions of Art, 
 from which you may perhaps draw a moral. When Raphael 
 desired to paint his Holy Family, for a long time he strove 
 in vain to express the idea that filled and possessed his 
 soul. One morning, as he walked beyond the city gates, 
 meditating the sacred theme, he beheld sitting beneath a 
 vine at her cottage door, a peasant woman, holding a boy in 
 her arms, while another leaned upon her knee, and gazed 
 at the approaching stranger. The painter found here, in 
 real life, what he had so long sought for in vain 
 in the realms of his imagination ; and quickly, with his 
 
KAVANAGtt, 
 
 chalk pencil, be sketched, upon the head of a wine-cask 
 that stood near him, the lovely group, which afterwards, 
 when brought into full perfection, became the transcendent 
 Madonna della Seggiola." 
 
 " All this is true," replied Mr. Churchill, " but it gives 
 me no consolation. I now despair of writing anything 
 excellent. I have no time to devote to meditation and 
 study. My life is given to others, and to tfiis destiny 
 I submit without a murmur ; for I have the satisfaction of 
 having laboured faithfully in my calling, and of having 
 perhaps trained and incited others to do what I shall never 
 do. Life is still precious to me for its many uses, of which 
 the writing of books is but one. I do not complain, but 
 accept this destiny, and say, with that pleasant author, 
 Marcus Antoninus, Whatever is agreeable to thee shall be 
 agreeable to me, graceful Universe 1 nothing shall be to 
 me too early or too late, which is seasonable to thee ! 
 Whatever thy seasons bear shall be joyful fruit to me, 
 Nature ! from thee are all things ; in thee they subsist ; 
 to thee they return. Could one say, Thou dearly beloved 
 city of Cecrops? and wilt thou not say, Thou dearly 
 beloved city of God T" 
 
 " Amen ! " said Kavanagh. " And, to follow your quota 
 tion with another, * The gale that blows from God we must 
 endure, toiling, but not repining. " 
 
 Here Mrs. Churchill, who had something of Martha in 
 her, as well as of Mary, and had left the room when the 
 conversation took a literary turn, came back to announce 
 that dinner was ready, and Kavanagh, though warmly 
 urged to stay, took his leave, having first obtained from the 
 Churchills the promise of a visit to Cecilia during the 
 evening. 
 
 " Nothing done ! nothing done ! " exclaimed he, as he 
 wended his way homeward, musing and meditating. "And 
 shall all those lofty aspirations end in nothing ? Shall the 
 arms be thus stretched forth to encircle the universe; and 
 come back empty against a bleeding, aching breast ? " 
 
 And the words of the poet came into his mind, and ho 
 
KAVANAGH. 305 
 
 thought them worthy to be written in letters of gold, and 
 placed above every door in every house, as a warning, a 
 suggestion, an incitement: 
 
 " Stay, stay the present instant ! 
 Imprint the marks of wisdom on its wings ! 
 0, let it not elude thy grasp, but, like 
 The good old patriarch upon record, 
 Hold the fleet angel fast until he bless thee 1 " 
 
 END OF KAVANAGH. 
 
 234 
 
THE DEVOTIONAL POETRY OF SPAIN, 
 
 " Heaven s dove, when highest he flies, 
 Flies with thy heavenly wings." 
 
 CRASHAW. 
 
 [HERE is hardly a chapter in literary history 
 more strongly marked with the peculiarities 
 of national character than that which con 
 tains the moral and devotional poetry of Spain. 
 It would naturally be expected that in this 
 department of literature all the fervency and 
 depth of national feeling would be exhibited. But still, as 
 the spirit of morality and devotion is the same, wherever it 
 exists, as the enthusiasm of virtue and religion is every 
 where essentially the same feeling, though modified in its 
 degree and in its action by a variety of physical causes and 
 local circumstances, and as the subject of the didactic verse 
 and the spiritual canticle cannot be materially changed by the 
 change of nation and climate, it might at the first glance 
 seem quite as natural to expect that the moral and devotional 
 poetry of Christian countries would never be very strongly 
 marked with national peculiarities. In other words, we 
 should expect it to correspond to the warmth or coldness of 
 national feeling, for it is the external and visible expression 
 of this feeling; but not to the distinctions of national 
 character, because, its nature and object being everywhere 
 
THE DEVOTIONAL POETRY OF SPAIN. 307 
 
 the same, these distinctions became swallowed up in one 
 universal Christian character. 
 
 In moral poetry this is doubtless true. The great principles 
 of Christian morality being eternal and invariable, the verse 
 which embodies and represents them must, from this very 
 circumstance, be the same in its spirit through all Christian 
 lands. The same, however, is not necessarily true of 
 devotional or religious poetry. There, the language of 
 poetry is something more than the visible image of a 
 devotional spirit. It is also an expression of religious 
 faith ; shadowing forth, with greater or less distinctness, its 
 various creeds and doctrines. As these are different in 
 different nations, the spirit that breathes in religious song, 
 and the letter that gives utterance to the doctrine of faith, 
 will not be universally the same. Thus, the Catholic 
 nations sing the praises of the Virgin Mary in language in 
 which nations of the Protestant faith do not unite; and 
 among Protestants themselves, the difference of interpreta 
 tions, and the consequent belief or disbelief of certain 
 doctrines, give a various spirit and expression to reli 
 gious poetry. And yet, in all, the devotional feeling, the 
 heavenward volition, is the same. 
 
 As far, then, as peculiarities of religious faith exercise an 
 influence upon intellectual habits, and thus become a part 
 of national character, so far will the devotional or religious 
 poetry of a country exhibit the characteristic peculiarities 
 resulting from this influence of faith, and its assimilation 
 with the national mind. Now Spain is by pre-eminence the 
 Catholic land of Christendom. Most of her historic recol 
 lections are more or less intimately associated with the 
 triumphs of the Christian faith ; and many of her warriors 
 of her best and bravest were martyrs in the holy cause, 
 perishing in that war of centuries which was carried on 
 within her own territories between the crescent of Mahomet 
 and the cross of Christ. Indeed, the whole tissue of her 
 history is interwoven with miraculous tradition. The 
 intervention of her patron saint has saved her honour in 
 more than one dangerous pass; and the war shout of 
 
308 THE DEVOTIONAL POETRY OF SPAIN. 
 
 " Santiago y cierra Espana /" has worked like a charm upon 
 the wavering spirit of the soldier. A reliance on the 
 guardian ministry of the saints pervades the whole people, 
 and devotional offerings for signal preservation in times of 
 danger and distress cover the consecrated walls of churches. 
 An enthusiasm of religious feeling, and of external ritual 
 observances, prevails throughout the land. But more par 
 ticularly is the name of the Virgin honoured and adored. 
 Ave Maria is the salutation of peace at the friendly thresh 
 old, and the God-speed to the wayfarer. It is the evening 
 orison, when the toils of day are done ; and at midnight it 
 echoes along the solitary streets in the voice of the watchman s 
 cry. 
 
 These and similar peculiarities of religious faith are 
 breathing and moving through a large portion of the 
 devotional poetry of Spain. It is not only instinct with 
 religious feeling, but incorporated with " the substance of 
 things not seen." Not only are the poet s lips touched with 
 a coal from the altar, but his spirit is folded in the cloud of 
 incense that rises before the shrines of the Virgin Mother, 
 and the glorious company of the saints and martyrs. His 
 soul is not wholly swallowed up in the contemplation of the 
 sublime attributes of the Eternal Mind ; but, with its lamp 
 trimmed and burning, it goeth out to meet the bridegroom, 
 as if he were coming in a bodily presence. 
 
 The history of the devotional poetry of Spain commences 
 with the legendary lore of Maestro Gonzalo de Berceo, a 
 secular priest, whose life was passed in the cloisters of a 
 Benedictine convent, and amid the shadows of the thirteenth 
 century. The name of Berceo stands foremost on the cata 
 logue of Spanish poets, for the author of the poem of the 
 Cid is unknown. The old patriarch of Spanish poetry has 
 left a monument of his existence in upwards of thirteen 
 thousand Alexandrines, celebrating the lives and miracles 
 of saints and the Virgin, as he found them written in the 
 Latin chronicles and dusty legends of his monastery. In 
 embodying these in rude verse in Roman paladino, or the 
 old Spanish romance tongue, intelligible to the common 
 
THE DEVOTIONAL POETRY OF SPAIN. 309 
 
 people, Fray Gonzalo seems to have passed his life. His 
 writings are just such as we should expect from the pen of 
 a monk of the thirteenth century. They are more ghostly 
 than poetical ; and throughout, unction holds the place of 
 inspiration. Accordingly, they illustrate very fully the 
 preceding remarks ; and the more so, inasmuch as they are 
 written with the most ample and childish credulity, and the 
 utmost singleness of faith touching the events and miracles 
 described. 
 
 The following extract is taken from one of Berceo s 
 poems, entitled " Vida de San Millan." It is a description 
 of the miraculous appearance of Santiago and San Millan, 
 mounted on snow-white steeds, and fighting for the cause 
 of Christendom, at the battle of Simancas in the Campo de 
 Toro. 
 
 " And when the kings were in the field, their squadrons in array, 
 With lance in rest they onward pressed to mingle in the fray j 
 But soon upon the Christians fell a terror of their foes, 
 These were a numerous army, a little handful those. 
 
 And while the Christian people stood in this uncertainty, 
 Upward to heaven they turned their eyes, and fixed their thoughts 
 
 on high ; 
 
 And there two figures they beheld, all beautiful and bright, 
 Even than the pure new-fallen snow their garments were more white. 
 
 They rode upon two horses more white than crystal sheen, 
 And arms they bore such as before no mortal man had seen ; 
 The one, he held a crosier, a pontiffs mitre wore ; 
 The other held a crucifix, sueh man ne er saw before. 
 
 Their faces were angelical, celestial forms had they, 
 And downward through the fields of air they urged their rapid way ; 
 They looked upon the Moorish host with fierce and angry look, 
 And in their hands, with dire portent, their naked sabres shook. 
 
 The Christian host, beholding this, straightway take heart again ; 
 They fell upon their bended knees, all resting on the plain, 
 And each one with his clenched fist to smite his breast begins, 
 And promises to God on high he will forsake his sins, 
 
3io THE DEVOTIONAL POETRY OF SPAIN. 
 
 And when the heavenly knights drew near unto the battle-ground, 
 They dash d among the Moors, and dealt unerring blows around ; 
 Such deadly havoc there they made the foremost ranks along, 
 A panic terror spread unto the hindmost of the throng. 
 
 Together with these two good knights, the champions of the sky, 
 The Christians rallied and began to smite full sore and high ; 
 The Moors raised up their voices, and by the Koran swore 
 That in their lives such deadly fray they ne er had seen before. 
 
 Down went the misbelievers, fast sped the bloody fight, 
 
 Some ghastly and dismember d lay, and some half dead with fright : 
 
 Full sorely they repented that to the field they came, 
 
 For they saw that from the battle they should retreat with shame. 
 
 Another thing befell them, they dream d not of such woes, 
 The very arrows that the Moors shot from their twanging bows 
 Turn d back against them in their flight and wounded them full sore, 
 And every blow they dealt the foe was paid in drops of gore. 
 
 Now he that bore the crosier, and the papal crown had on, 
 Was the glorified Apostle, the brother of St. John ; 
 And he that held the crucifix, and wore the monkish hood, 
 Was the holy San Millan of Cogolla s neighbourhood." 
 
 Berceo s longest poem is entitled " Miraclos de Nuestra 
 Senora " Miracles of Our Lady. It consists of nearly four 
 thousand lines, and contains the description of twenty-five 
 miracles. It is a complete homily on the homage and devotion 
 due to the glorious Virgin Madre de Jliu Xto, Mother of 
 Jesus Christ ; but it is written in a low and vulgar style, 
 strikingly at variance with the elevated character of the 
 subject. Thus, in the twentieth miracle, we have the 
 account of a monk who became intoxicated in a wine-cellar. 
 Having kin on the floor till the vesper bell aroused him, he 
 staggered off towards the church in most melancholy plight. 
 The Evil One besets him on the way, a-ssuming the various 
 shapes of a bull, a dog, and a lion ; but from all these perils 
 he is miraculously saved by the timely intervention of the 
 Virgin, who finding him still too much intoxicated to make 
 his way to bed, kindly takes him by the hand, leads him to 
 
THE DEVOTIONAL POETRY OF SPAIN. 311 
 
 his pallet, covers him with a blanket and a counterpane, 
 smoothes his pillow, and, after making the sign of the cross 
 over him, tells him to rest quietly, for sleep will do him 
 good. 
 
 To a certain class of minds there may be something 
 interesting and even affecting in descriptions which represent 
 the spirit of a departed saint as thus assuming a corporeal 
 shape, in order to assist and console human nature even in 
 its baser infirmities ; but it ought also to be considered how 
 much such descriptions tend to strip religion of its peculiar 
 sanctity, to bring it down from its heavenly abode, not 
 merely to dwell among men, but, like an imprisoned culprit, 
 to be chained to the derelict of principle, manacled with the 
 base desire and earthly passion, and forced to do the menial 
 offices of a slave. In descriptions of this kind, as in the 
 representations of our Saviour and of sainted spirits in a 
 human shape, execution must of necessity fall far short of 
 the conception. The handiwork cannot equal the glorious 
 archetype, which is visible only to the mental eye. Painting 
 and sculpture are not adequate to the task of embodying in 
 a permanent shape the glorious visions, the radiant forms, 
 the glimpses of heaven, which fill the imagination, when 
 purified and exalted by devotion. The hand of man 
 unconsciously inscribes upon all his works the sentence of 
 imperfection ; which the finger of the invisible hand wrote 
 upon the wall of the Assyrian monarch. From this it would 
 seem to be not only a natural but a necessary conclusion, 
 that all the descriptions of poetry which borrow anything, 
 either directly or indirectly, from these bodily and imperfect 
 representations, must partake of their imperfection, and 
 assume a more earthly and material character than those 
 which come glowing and burning from the more spiritualised 
 perceptions of the internal sense. 
 
 It is very far from my intention to utter any sweeping 
 denunciation against the divine arts of painting and sculp 
 ture, as employed in the exhibition of Scriptural scenes and 
 personages. These I esteem meet ornaments for the house 
 of God ; though, as I have already said, their execution 
 
3i2 THE DEVOTIONAL POETRY OF SPAIN. 
 
 cannot equal the high conceptions of an ardent imagination ; 
 yet, whenever the hand of a master is visible, when the 
 marble, almost moves before you, and the painting starts into 
 life from the canvas, the effect upon an enlightened mind 
 will generally, if not universally, be to quicken its sensibilities 
 and excite to more ardent devotion, by carrying the thoughts 
 beyond the representations of bodily suffering, to the contem 
 plation of the intenser mental agony, the moral sublimity 
 exhibited by the martyr. The impressions produced, how 
 ever, will not be the same in all minds ; they will necessarily 
 vary according to the prevailing temper and complexion of 
 the mind which receives them. As there is no sound where 
 there is no ear to receive the impulses and vibrations of the 
 air, so is there no moral impression no voice of instruction 
 from all the works of nature, and all the imitations of art, 
 unless there be within the soul itself a capacity for hearing 
 the voice and receiving the moral impulse. The cause exists 
 eternally and universally ; but the effect is produced only 
 when and where the cause has room to act, and just in 
 proportion as it has room to act. Hence the various moral 
 impressions, and the several degrees of the same moral 
 impression, which an object may produce in different minds. 
 These impressions will vary in kind and in degree according 
 to the acuteness and the cultivation of the internal moral 
 sense. And thus the representations spoken of above 
 might exercise a very favourable influence upon an 
 enlightened and well-regulated mind, and at the same time 
 a very unfavourable influence upon an unenlightened and 
 superstitious one. And the reason is obvious. An 
 enlightened mind beholds all things in their just propor 
 tions, and receives from them the true impressions they are 
 calculated to convey. It is not hoodwinked, it is not shut 
 up in a gloomy prison, till it thinks the walls of its own 
 dungeon the limits of the universe, and the reach of its own 
 chain the outer verge of all intelligence ; but it walks 
 abroad ; the sunshine and the air pour in to enlighten 
 and expand it ; the various works of nature are its 
 ministering angels ; the glad recipient of light and wisdom, 
 
THE DEVOTIONAL POETRY OF SPAIN. 313 
 
 it develops new powers and acquires increased capacities, 
 and thus, rendering itself less subject to error, assumes a 
 nearer similitude to the Eternal Mind. But not so the 
 dark and superstitious mind. It is filled with its own 
 antique and mouldy furniture, the moth-eaten tome, the 
 gloomy tapestry, the dusty curtain. The straggling sunbeam 
 from without streams through the stained window, and as 
 it enters assumes the colours of the painted glass ; while 
 the half-extinguished fire within, now smouldering in its 
 ashes, and now sending forth a quivering flame, casts 
 fantastic shadows through the chambers of the soul. 
 Within, the spirit sits, lost in its own abstractions. The 
 voice of Nature from without is hardly audible ; her beauties 
 are unseen, or seen only in shadowy forms, through a 
 coloured medium, and with a strained and distorted vision. 
 The invigorating air does not enter that mysterious chamber; 
 it visits not that lonely inmate, who, breathing only a close, 
 exhausted atmosphere, exhibits in the languid frame and 
 feverish pulse the marks of lingering, incurable disease. 
 The picture is not too strongly sketched ; such is the 
 contrast between the free and the superstitious mind. 
 Upon the latter, which has little power over its ideas, to 
 generalise them, to place them in their proper light and 
 position, to reason upon, to discriminate, to judge them in 
 detail, and thus to arrive at just conclusions; but, on the 
 contrary, receives every crude and inadequate impression 
 as it first presents itself, and treasures it up as an ultimate 
 fact, upon such a mind, representations of Scripture 
 scenes, like those mentioned above, exercise an unfavour 
 able influence. Such a mind cannot rightly estimate, it 
 cannot feel, the work of a master; and a miserable painting, 
 or a still more miserable caricature carved in wood, will 
 serve only the more to drag the spirit down to earth. Thus, 
 in the unenlightened mind, these representations have a 
 tendency to sensualise and desecrate the character of holy 
 things. Being brought constantly before the eye, and 
 represented in a real and palpable form to the external 
 senses, they lose, by being made too familiar, that peculiar 
 
3i 4 THE DEVOTIONAL POETRY OF SPAIN. 
 
 sanctity with which the mind naturally invests the unearthly 
 and invisible. 
 
 It is curious to observe the influence of the circumstances 
 just referred to upon the devotional poetry of Spain.* 
 
 * The following beautiful little hymn in Latin, written by the 
 celebrated Francisco Xavier, the friend and companion of Loyola, and 
 from his zeal in the Eastern missions surnamed the Apostle of the 
 Indies, would hardly have originated in any mind but that of one 
 familiar with the representations of which I have spoken above : 
 
 " Deus ! ego amo te : 
 Nee amo te, ut salves me, 
 Aut quia non amantes te 
 JEterno punis igne. 
 
 Tu, tu, mi Jesu, totum me 
 Arnplexus es in cruce. 
 Tulisti clavos, lanceam, 
 Multamque ignominiam : 
 Innumeros dolores, 
 Sudores et angores, 
 Ac mortem : et hcec propter me 
 Ac pro me peccatore. 
 
 Cur igitur non amem te, 
 Jesu amantissime ? 
 Non ut in ceelo salves me, 
 Aut ne seternum damnes me, 
 Nee prcemii ullius spe : 
 Sed sicut tu araasti me, 
 Sic amo et amabo te : 
 Solum quia rex mcus es, 
 Et solum quia Deus es. Amen." 
 
 " God ! my spirit loves but thee : 
 Not that in heaven its home may be, 
 Not that the souls which love not thee 
 Shall groan in fire eternally. 
 
 But thou on the accursed tree 
 In mercy hast embraced me. 
 For me the cruel nails, the spear, 
 The ignominious scoff, didst bear, 
 Countless, unutterable woes, 
 The bloody sweat, death s pangs and throes, 
 These thou didst bear, all these for me, 
 A sinner and estranged from thee. 
 
THE DE VOTIONAL POETR Y OF SPAIN. 3 1 5 
 
 Sometimes it exhibits itself directly and fully, sometimes 
 indirectly and incidentally, but always with sufficient 
 clearness to indicate its origin. Sometimes it destroys the 
 beauty of a poem by a miserable conceit ; at other times it 
 gives it the character of a beautiful allegory.* 
 
 The following sonnets will serve as illustrations. They 
 are from the hand of the wonderful Lope de Yega : 
 
 " Shepherd ! that with thine amorous sylvan song 
 Hast broken the slumber that encompassed me, 
 That madest thy crook from the accursed tree 
 On which thy powerful arms were stretched so long, 
 Lead me to mercy s ever-flowing fountains, 
 For thou my shepherd, guard, and guide shall be ; 
 I will obey thy voice, and wait to see 
 Thy feet all beautiful upon the mountains. 
 Hear, Shepherd ! tliou that for thy flock art dying, 
 Oh, wash away these scarlet sins, for thou 
 
 And wherefore no affection show, 
 Jesus, to thee that lov st me so ? 
 Not that in heaven my home may be, 
 Not lest I die eternally, 
 Nor from the hopes of joys above me ; 
 But even as thou thyself didst love mei 
 So love I, and will ever love thee : 
 Solely because my King art thou, 
 My God for evermore as now. Amen." 
 
 * I recollect but few instances of this kind of figurative poetry in 
 our language. There is, however, one of most exquisite beauty and 
 pathos, far surpassing anything I have seen of the kind in Spanish. 
 It is a passage from Cowper : 
 
 "I was a stricken deer, that left the herd 
 Long since : with many an arrow deep infixt 
 My panting side was charged, when I withdrew 
 To seek a tranquil death in distant shades. 
 There was I found by one who had himself 
 Been hurt by archers ; in his side he bore, 
 And in his hands and feet, the cruel scars. 
 With gentle force soliciting the darts, 
 He drew them forth, and healed, and bade me live." 
 
i6 THE DEVOTIONAL POETRY OF SPAIN. 
 
 Eejoicest at the contrite sinner s vow. 
 
 Oh, wait ! to thee my weary soul ia crying, 
 
 Wait for me ! yet why ask it, when I seo, 
 
 With feet nail d to the cross, thou art waiting still for me ? " 
 
 " Lord, what am I, that with unceasing care 
 Thou didst seek after me, that thou didst wait, 
 Wet with unhealthy dews, before my gate, 
 And pass the gloomy nights of winter there ? 
 0, strange delusion ! that I did not greet 
 Thy blessed approach ! and oh, to Heaven how lost, 
 If my ingratitude s unkindly frost 
 Has chilled the bleeding wounds upon thy feet ! 
 How oft my guardian angel gently cried, 
 Soul, from thy casement look without and see 
 How he persists to knock and wait for thee ! 
 And oh, how often to that voice of sorrow, 
 * To-morrow we will open ! I replied ; 
 And when the morrow came, I answered still, * To-morrow ! " 
 
 The most remarkable portion of the devotional poetry of 
 the Spaniards is to be found in their sacred dramas, their 
 Vidas de Santos and Autos Sacramentales. These had 
 their origin in the Mysteries and Moralities of the dark 
 ages, and are indeed monstrous creations of the imagination. 
 The Vidas de Santos, or Lives of Saints, are representations 
 of their miracles, and of the wonderful traditions concerning 
 them. The Autos Sacramentales have particular reference 
 to the Eucharist and the ceremonies of the Corpus Christi. 
 In these theatrical pieces are introduced upon the stage, 
 not only angels and saints, but God, the Saviour, the Virgin 
 Mary ; and in strange juxtaposition with these, devils, 
 peasants, and kings; in fine, they contain the strangest 
 medley of characters, real and allegorical, which the 
 imagination can conceive. As if this were not enough, in 
 the midsb of what was intended as a solemn religious 
 celebration, scenes of low buffoonery are often introduced. 
 
 The most remarkable of the Autos which I have read is 
 " La Devocion de la Cruz " The Devotion of the Cross. 
 It is one of the most celebrated of Oalderon s sacred dramas, 
 
THE DEVOTIONAL POETRY OF SPAIN. 317 
 
 and will serve as a specimen of that class of writing. The 
 piece commences with a dialogue between Lisardo, the son 
 of Curcio, a decayed nobleman, and Eusebio, the hero of the 
 
 Elay and lover of Julia, Lisardo s sister. Though the 
 other s extravagance has wasted his estates, Lisardo is 
 deeply offended that Eusebio should aspire to an alliance 
 with the family, and draws him into a secluded place in 
 order to settle their dispute with the sword. Here the 
 scene opens, and in the course of the dialogue which pre 
 cedes the combat, Eusebio relates that he was born at the 
 foot of a cross, which stood in a rugged and desert part of 
 those mountains; that the virtue of this cross preserved 
 him from the wild beasts ; that, being found by a peasant, 
 three days after his birth, he was carried to a neighbouring 
 village, and there received the name of Eusebio of the 
 Cross ; that, being thrown by his nurse into a well, he was 
 heard to laugh, and was found floating on the top of the 
 water, with his hands placed upon his mouth in the form of 
 a cross ; that the house in which he dwelt being consumed 
 by fire, he escaped unharmed amid the flames, and it was 
 found to be Corpus Christi day ; and, in fine, after relating 
 many other similar miracles, worked by the power of the 
 cross at whose foot he was born, he says that he bears its 
 image miraculously stamped upon his breast. After this 
 they fight, and Lisardo falls mortally wounded. In the 
 next scene, Eusebio has an interview with Julia, at her 
 father s house ; they are interrupted, and Eusebio conceals 
 himself ; Curcio enters, and informs Julia that he has 
 determined to send her that day to a convent, that she may 
 take the veil, "para ser de Christa esposa." While they are 
 conversing, the dead body of Lisardo is brought in by peasants, 
 and Eusebio is declared to be the murderer. The scene 
 closes by the escape of Eusebio. The second act, or Jornada, 
 discovers Eusebio as the leader of a band of robbers. They 
 fire upon a traveller, \vho proves to be a priest, named 
 Alberto, and who is seeking a spot in those solitudes 
 wherein to establish a hermitage. The shot is prevented 
 from taking effect by a book which the pious old man 
 
3 iS THE DEVOTIONAL POETRY OF SPAIN. 
 
 carries in his bosom, and which, he says, is a "treatise on 
 the true origin of the divine and heavenly tree, on which, 
 dying- with courage and fortitude, Christ triumphed over 
 death ; in fine, the book is called the Miracles of the 
 Cross. " They suffer the priest to depart unharmed, who, 
 in consequence, promises Eusebio that he shall not die 
 without confession, but that wherever he may be, if he but 
 call upon his name, he will hasten to absolve him. In the 
 meantime, Julia retires to a convent, and Curcio goes with 
 an armed force in pursuit of Eusebio, who has resolved to 
 gain admittance to Julia s convent. He scales the walls of 
 the convent by night, and silently gropes his way along the 
 corridor. Julia is discovered sleeping in her cell, with a 
 taper beside her. He is, however, deterred from executing 
 his malicious designs, by discovering upon her breast the 
 form of a cross, similar to that which he bears upon his 
 own, and " Heaven would not suffer him, though so great 
 an offender, to lose his respect for the cross." To be brief, 
 he leaps from the convent walls and escapes to the 
 mountains. Julia, counting her honour lost, having 
 offended God, " como d Dios, y como d esposa," pursues 
 him, descends the ladder from the convent wall, and 
 when she seeks to return to her cell, finds the ladder has 
 been removed. In her despair, she accuses Heaven of 
 having withdrawn its clemency, and vows to perform 
 such deeds of wickedness as shall terrify both heaven and 
 hell. 
 
 The third Jornada transports the scene back to the moun 
 tains. Julia, disguised in man s apparel, with her face 
 concealed, is brought to Eusebio by a party of the banditti. 
 She challenges him to single combat ; and he accepts the 
 challenge, on condition that his antagonist shall declare who 
 he is. Julia discovers herself, and relates several horrid 
 murders she has committed since leaving the convent. 
 Their interview is here interrupted by the entrance of ban 
 ditti, who inform Eusebio that Curcio, with an armed force 
 from all the neighbouring villages, is approaching. The 
 attack commences, Eusebio and Curcio meet, but a secret 
 
THE DEVOTIONAL POETRY OF SPAIN. 319 
 
 and mysterious sympathy prevents them from fighting ; 
 and a great number of peasants, coming in at this moment, 
 rush upon Eusebio in a body, and he is thrown down a 
 precipice. There Curcio discovers him, expiring with his 
 numerous wounds. The denouement of the piece com 
 mences. Curcio, moved by compassion, examines a wound 
 in Eusebio s breast, discovers the mark of the cross, and 
 thereby recognises him to be his son. Eusebio expires, 
 calling on the name of Alberto, who shortly after enters, as 
 if lost in those mountains. A voice from the dead body of 
 Eusebio calls his name. I shall here transcribe a part of 
 the scene. 
 
 EUSEBIO. Alberto ! 
 
 ALBERTO. Hark ! what breath 
 
 Of fearful voice is this, 
 
 Which uttering my name 
 
 Sounds in my ears ? 
 EUSEBIO. Alberto ! 
 
 ALBERTO. Again it doth pronounce 
 
 My name : methinks the voice 
 
 Came from this side : I will 
 
 Approach. 
 EUSEBIO. Alberto ! 
 ALBERTO. Hist ! more near it sounds. 
 
 Thou voice, that ridest swift 
 
 The wind, and utterest my name, 
 
 Who art thou ? 
 EUSEBIO. I am Eusebio. 
 
 Come, good Alberto, this way come, 
 
 Where sepulchred I lie ; 
 
 Approach, and raise these branches : 
 
 Fear not. 
 ALBERTO. I do not fear. [Discovers the body. 
 
 Now I behold thee. 
 
 Speak, in God s holy name, 
 
 What would st thou with me ? 
 EUSEBIO. In his name, 
 
 My faith, Alberto, called thee, 
 
 That previous to my death 
 
 Thou nearest my confession. 
 
 Long since I should have died, 
 
 For this stiff corpse resigned 
 
 The disembodied soul ; 
 
320 THE DEVOTIONAL POETRY OF SPAIN. 
 
 But the strong mace of death 
 
 Smote only, and dissevered not 
 
 The spirit and the flesh. \Eises. 
 
 Come, then, Alberto, that I may 
 
 Confess my sins ; for, 0, they are 
 
 More than the sands beside the sea, 
 
 Or motes that fill the sunbeam ! 
 
 So much with Heaven avails 
 
 Devotion to the cross ! 
 
 Eusebio then retires to confess himself to Alberto ; and 
 Curcio afterwards relates, that when the venerable saint had 
 given him absolution, his body again fell dead at his feet. 
 Julia discovers herself, overwhelmed with the thoughts of 
 her incestuous passion for Eusebio and her other crimes, 
 and as Ourcio, in a transport of indignation, endeavours to 
 kill her, she seizes a cross which stands over Eusebio s 
 grave, and with it ascends to heaven, while Alberto shouts, 
 " Gran milagro / " and the curtain falls. 
 
 Thus far I have spoken of the devotional poetry of 
 Spain, as modified by the peculiarities of religious faith and 
 practice. Considered apart from the dogmas of a creed, 
 and as the expression of those pure and elevated feelings of 
 religion which are not the prerogative of any one sect or 
 denomination, but the common privilege of all, it possesses 
 strong claims to our admiration and praise. I know of 
 nothing in any modern tongue so beautiful as some of its 
 finest passages. The thoughts spring heavenward from 
 the soul, the language comes burning from the lip. The 
 imagination of the poet seems spiritualised ; with nothing 
 of earth, and all of heaven, a heaven, like that of his own 
 native clime, without a cloud, or a vapour of earth, to 
 obscure its brightness. His voice, speaking the harmonious 
 accents of that noble tongue, seems to flow from the lips of 
 an angel, melodious to the ear and to the internal sense, 
 breathing those 
 
 " Effectual whispers, whose still voice 
 The soul itself more feels than hears." 
 
 The following sonnets of Francisco de Aldana, a writer 
 
THE DEVOTIONAL POETRY OF SPAIN. 321 
 
 remarkable for the beauty of his conceptions and the 
 harmony of his verse, are illustrations of this remark. In 
 what glowing language he describes the aspirations of the 
 soul for its paternal heaven, its celestial home ! how 
 beautifully he portrays in a few lines the strong desire, 
 the ardent longing, of the exiled and imprisoned spirit to 
 wing its flight away and be at rest ! The strain bears our 
 thoughts upward with it ; it transports us to the heavenly 
 country ; it whispers to the soul, Higher, immortal spirit ! 
 higher ! 
 
 " Clear fount of light ! my native land on high, 
 Bright with a glory that shall never fade, 
 Mansion of truth ! without a veil or shade, 
 Thy holy quiet meets the spirit s eye. 
 There dwells the soul in its ethereal essence, 
 Gasping no longer for life s feeble breath ; 
 But, sentinel d in heaven, its glorious presence 
 With pitying eye beholds, yet fears not death. 
 Beloved country ! banished from thy shore, 
 A stranger in this prison-house of clay, 
 The exiled spirit weeps and sighs for thee ! 
 Heavenward the bright perfections I adore 
 Direct, and the sure promise cheers the way, 
 That whither love aspires, there shall my dwelling be." 
 
 " Lord ! that seest from yon starry height 
 Centred in one the future and the past. 
 Fashioned in thine own image, see how fast 
 The world obscures in me what once was bright ! 
 Eternal Sun ! the warmth which thou hast given 
 To cheer life s flowery April fast decays ; 
 Yet in the hoary winter of my days, 
 For ever green shall be my trust in Heaven. 
 Celestial King ! 0, let thy presence pass 
 Before my spirit, and an image fail- 
 Shall meet that look of mercy from on high, 
 As the reflected image in a glass 
 Doth meet the look of him who seeks it there, 
 And owes its being to the gazer s eye." 
 
 The prevailing characteristics of Spanish devotional 
 poetry are warmth of imagination and depth and sincerity 
 of feeling. The conception is always striking and original, 
 
 2 35 
 
322 THE DEVOTIONAL POETRY OF SPAIN, 
 
 and, when not degraded by dogmas, and the poor, puerile 
 conceits arising from them, beautiful and sublime. This 
 results from the frame and temperament of the mind, and 
 is a general characteristic of the Spanish poets, not only in 
 this department of song, but in all others. The very 
 ardour of imagination which, exercised upon minor themes, 
 leads them into extravagance and hyperbole, when left to 
 act in a higher and wider sphere conducts them nearer and 
 nearer to perfection. When imagination spreads its wings 
 in the bright regions of devotional song, in the pure 
 empyrean, judgment .should direct its course, but there is 
 no danger of its soaring too high. The heavenly land still 
 lies beyond its utmost flight. There are heights it cannot 
 reach ; there are fields of air which tire its wing ; there is 
 a splendour which dazzles its vision ; for there is a glory 
 " which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it 
 entered into the heart of man to conceive." 
 
 But perhaps the greatest charm of the devotional poets 
 of Spain is their sincerity. Most of them were ecclesiastics 
 men who had in sober truth renounced the realities of 
 this life for the hopes and promises of another. "We are not 
 to suppose that all who take holy orders are saints; but we 
 should be still farther from believing that all are hypocrites. 
 It would be even more absurd to suppose that none are 
 sincere in their professions than that all are. Besides, with 
 whatever feelings a man may enter the monastic life, there 
 is something in its discipline and privations which has a 
 tendency to wean the mind from earth, and to fix it upon 
 heaven. Doubtless many have seemingly renounced the 
 world from motives of worldly aggrandisement ; and others 
 have renounced it because it has renounced them. The 
 former have carried with them to the cloister their earthly 
 ambition, and their dark misanthropy; and though many 
 have daily kissed the cross and yet grown hoary in iniquity, 
 and shrived their souls that they might sin more gaily on 
 yet solitude works miracles in the heart, and many who 
 enter the cloister from worldly motives find it a school 
 wherein the soul may be trained to more holy purposes and 
 
THE DEVOTIONAL POETRY OF SPAIN. 323 
 
 desires. There is not half the corruption and hypocrisy 
 within the convent s walls that the church bears the shame 
 of hiding there. Hermits may be holy men, though knaves 
 have sometimes been hermits. Were they all hypocrites, 
 who of old for their souls sake exposed their naked bodies 
 to the burning sun of Syria 1 Were they, who wandered 
 houseless in the solitudes of Engaddi 1 ? Were they, who 
 dwelt beneath the palm-trees by the Red Sea ? Oh, no ! 
 They were ignorant, they were deluded, they were fanatic, 
 but they were not hypocrites ; if there be any sincerity in 
 human professions and human actions, they were not hypo 
 crites. During the Middle Ages there was corruption in 
 the church foul, shameful corruption ; and now also 
 hypocrisy may scourge itself in feigned repentance, and 
 ambition hide its face beneath a hood ; yet all is not there 
 fore rottenness that wears a cowl. Many a pure spirit, 
 through heavenly-mindedness and an ardent though mis 
 taken zeal, has fled from the temptations of the world to 
 seek in solitude and self-communion a closer walk with 
 God. And not in vain. They have found the peace they 
 sought. They have felt, indeed, what many profess to feel, 
 but do not feel that they are strangers and sojourners 
 here, travellers who are bound for their home in a far 
 country. It is this feeling which I speak of as giving a 
 peculiar charm to the devotional poetry of Spain. Com 
 pare its spirit with the spirit which its authors have 
 exhibited in their lives. They speak of having given up 
 the world, and it is no poetical hyperbole ; they speak of 
 longing to be free from the weakness of the flesh, that they 
 may commence their conversation in heaven and we feel 
 that they had already began it in lives of penitence, 
 meditation, and prayer. 
 
THE TROUVERES. 
 
 "Quant recommence et revient biaux estez, 
 
 Que foille et flor resplendit par boschage, 
 Que li froiz tanz de 1 hyver est passez, 
 Et cil oisel chantent en lor langage, 
 Lors chanterai 
 Et envoisiez serai 
 De cuer verai." 
 
 JAQUES DE CHISON. 
 
 HE literature of France is peculiarly rich in 
 poetry of the olden time. We can trace up 
 the stream of song until it is lost in the 
 deepening shadows of the Middle Ages. Even 
 there it is not a shallow tinkling rill ; but it 
 comes like a mountain stream, rushing and sounding on 
 ward through the enchanted regions of romance, and 
 mingles its voice with the tramp of steeds and the brazen 
 sound of arms. 
 
 The glorious reign of Charlemagne,* at the close of the 
 
 * The following amusing description of this Restorer of Letters, as 
 his biographers call him, is taken from the fabulous Chronicle of John 
 Turpin, Chap. XX. : 
 
 "The emperor was of a ruddy complexion, with brown hair; of a 
 well-made, handsome form, but a stern visage. His height" was about 
 eight of his own feet, which were very long. He was of a strong, 
 robust make ; his legs and thighs very stout, and his sinews firm. 
 His face was thirteen inches long ; his beard a palm ; his nose half a 
 palm ; his forehead a foot over. His lion-like eyes flashed fire like 
 
THE TROUVERES. 325 
 
 eighth and the commencement of the ninth century, seems 
 to have breathed a spirit of learning as well as of chivalry 
 throughout all France. The monarch established schools and 
 academies in different parts of his realm, and took delight in 
 the society and conversation of learned men. It is amusing 
 to see with what evident self-satisfaction some of the magi 
 whom he gathered around him speak of their exertions in 
 widening the sphere of human knowledge, and pouring in 
 light upon the darkness of their age. " For some," says 
 Alcuin, the director of the school of St. Martin de Tours, 
 "I cause the honey of the Holy Scriptures to flow; I 
 intoxicate others with the old wine of ancient history ; 
 these I nourish with the fruits of grammar, gathered by 
 my own hands ; and those I enlighten by pointing out to 
 them the stars, like lamps, attached by the vaulted ceiling 
 of a great palace ! " 
 
 Besides this classic erudition of the schools, the age had 
 also its popular literature. Those who were untaught in 
 scholastic wisdom were learned in traditionary lore ; for 
 they had their ballads, in which were described the valour 
 and achievements of the early kings of the Franks. These 
 ballads, of which a collection was made by order of 
 Charlemagne, animated the rude soldier as he rushed to 
 battle, and were sung in the midnight bivouacs of the 
 camp. " Perhaps it is not too much to say," observes the 
 literary historian Schlegel, " that we have still in our pos 
 session, if not the original language and form, at least the 
 substance, of many of those ancient poems which were 
 collected by the orders of that prince ; I refer to the 
 
 carbuncles; his eyebrows were half a palm over. When he was 
 angry, it was a terror to look upon him. He required eight spans for 
 his girdle, besides what hung loose. He ate sparingly of bread ; but 
 a whole quarter of lamb, two fowls, a goose, or a large portion of 
 pork ; a peacock, a crane, or a whole hare. He drank moderately of 
 wine and water. He was so strong, that he could at a single blow 
 cleave asunder an armed soldier on horseback, from the head to the 
 waist, and the horse likewise. He easily vaulted over four horses 
 harnessed together; and he could raise an armed man from the 
 ground to his head, as he stood erect upon his hand." 
 
326 THE TROUVERES. 
 
 Nibelungenlied, and the collection, which goes by the name 
 of the Heldenbuch." 
 
 When at length the old Tudesque language, which was 
 the court language of Charlemagne, had given place to the 
 Langue d Oil, the northern dialect of the French Romance, 
 these ancient ballads passed from the memories of the 
 descendants of the Franks, and were succeeded by the 
 romances of Charlemagne and his Twelve Peers, of 
 Rowland and Olivir ; and the other paladins who died at 
 Roncesvalles. Robert Wace, a Norman Trouvere of the 
 twelfth century, says in one of his poems, that a minstrel 
 named Taillefer, mounted on a swift horse, went in front of 
 the Norman army at the battle of Hastings, singing these 
 ancient poems. 
 
 These Chansons de Geste, or old historic romances of 
 France, are epic in their character, though, without doubt, 
 they were written to be chanted to the sound of an instru 
 ment. To what period many of them belong, in their 
 present form, has never yet been fully determined ; and 
 should it finally be proved by philological research that 
 they can claim no higher antiquity than the twelfth or 
 thirteenth century, still there can be little doubt that in 
 the original form many of them reached far back into the 
 ninth or tenth. The long-prevalent theory, that the 
 romances of the Twelve Peers of France all originated in 
 the fabulous chronicle of Charlemagne and Rowland, 
 written by the Archbishop Turpin in the twelfth century, 
 if not as yet generally exploded, is nevertheless fast losing 
 ground. 
 
 To the twelfth and thirteenth centuries also belong most 
 of the Fabliaux, or metrical tales of the Trouveres. Many 
 of these compositions are remarkable for the inventive 
 talent they display, but as poems they have, generally 
 speaking, little merit, and at times exhibit such a want of 
 refinement, such open and gross obscenity, as to be highly 
 offensive. 
 
 It is a remarkable circumstance in the literary history 
 of France, that, while her antiquarians and scholars have 
 
THE TROUVERES. 327 
 
 devoted themselves to collecting and illustrating the poetry 
 of the Troubadours, and early lyric poets of the South, that 
 of the Trouveres, or Troubadours of the North, has been 
 almost entirely neglected. By a singular fatality, too, what 
 little time and attention have hitherto been bestowed upon 
 the fathers of French poetry have been so directed as to 
 save from oblivion little of the most valuable portions of 
 their writings ; while the more tedious and worthless parts 
 have been brought forth to the public eye, as if to deaden 
 curiosity, and put an end to further research. The ancient 
 historic romances of the land have, for the most part, been 
 left to slumber unnoticed ; while the obscene and tiresome 
 Fabliaux have been ushered into the world as fair speci 
 mens of the ancient poetry of France. This has created 
 unjust prejudices in the minds of many against the literature 
 of the olden time, and has led them to regard it as nothing 
 more than a confused mass of coarse and vulgar fictions, 
 adapted to a rude and inelegant state of society. 
 
 Of late, however, a more discerning judgment has been 
 brought to the difficult task of ancient research : and, in 
 consequence of this, the long-established prejudices against 
 the crumbling monuments of the national literature of 
 France during the Middle Ages are fast disappearing. 
 Several learned men are engaged in rescuing from oblivion 
 the ancient poetic romances of Charlemagne and the Twelve 
 Peers of France, and their labours seem destined to throw 
 new light, not only upon the state of literature, but upon 
 the state of society, during the twelfth and thirteenth 
 centuries. 
 
 Among the voluminous remains of Troubadour literature, 
 little else has yet been discovered than poems of a lyric 
 character. The lyre of the Troubadour seems to have 
 responded to the impulse of momentary feelings only, to 
 the touch of local and transitory circumstances. His son" 1 
 was a sudden burst of excited feeling ; it ceased when the 
 passion was subdued, or rather when its first feverish 
 excitement passed away ; and as the liveliest feelings are 
 the most transitory, the songs which embodied them are 
 
328 THE TROUVERES. 
 
 short, but full of spirit and energy. On the other hand, 
 the great mass of the poetry of the Trouveres is of a 
 narrative or epic character. The genius of the North seems 
 always to have delighted in romantic fiction ; and whether 
 we attribute the origin of modern romance to the Arabians 
 or to the Scandinavians, this at least is certain, that there 
 existed marvellous tales in the Northern languages, and 
 from these, in part at least, the Trouveres imbibed the 
 spirit of narrative poetry. There are no traces of lyric 
 compositions among their writings, till about the commence 
 ment of the thirteenth century ; and it seems probable that 
 the spirit of song-writing was imbibed from the Troubadours 
 of the South. 
 
 Unfortunately, the neglect which has so long attended 
 the old historic and heroic romances of the North of France 
 has also befallen in some degree its early lyric poetry. 
 Little has yet been done to discover and bring forth its 
 riches ; and doubtless many a sweet little ballad and 
 melancholy complaint lies buried in the dust of the 
 thirteenth century. It is not, however, my object, in this 
 paper, to give an historical sketch of this ancient and 
 almost forgotten poetry, but simply to bring forward a few 
 specimens which shall exhibit its most striking and obvious 
 characteristics. 
 
 In these examples it would be in vain to look for high- 
 wrought expression suited to the prevailing taste of the 
 present day. Their most striking peculiarity, and perhaps 
 their greatest merit, consists in the simple and direct ex 
 pression of feeling which they contain. This feeling, too, 
 is one which breathes the languor of that submissive 
 homage which was paid to beauty in the days of chivalry ; 
 and I am aware that, in this age of masculine and matter- 
 of-fact thinking, the love-conceits of a more poetic state of 
 society are generally looked upon as extremely trivial and 
 puerile. Nevertheless, I shall venture to present one or 
 two of these simple ballads, which, by recalling the distant 
 age wherein they were composed, may peradventure please 
 by the power of contrast, 
 
THE TROU VERES. 329 
 
 I have just remarked that one of the greatest beauties of 
 these ancient ditties is naivete of thought and simplicity of 
 expression. These I shall endeavour to preserve as far as 
 possible in the translation, though I am fully conscious how 
 much the sparkling beauty of -an original loses in being 
 filtered through the idioms of a foreign language. 
 
 The favourite theme of the ancient lyric poets of the 
 North of France is the wayward passion of love. They all 
 delight to sing " les douces dolors et li mal plaisant de fine 
 amor" With such feelings the beauties of the opening 
 spring are naturally associated. Almost every love-ditty of 
 the old poets commences with some such exordium as this : 
 " When the snows of winter have passed away, when the 
 soft and gentle spring returns, and the flower and leaf 
 shoot in the groves, and the little birds warble to their 
 mates in their own sweet language, then will I sing my 
 lady-love ! " 
 
 Another favourite introduction to these little rhapsodies 
 
 of romantic passion is the approach of morning and its 
 
 weet-voiced herald, the lark. The minstrel s song to his 
 
 lady-love frequently commences with an allusion to the 
 
 hour 
 
 fi When the rose-bud opes its een, 
 
 And the bluebells droop and die, 
 And upon the leaves so green 
 Sparkling clew-drops lie." 
 
 The following is at once the simplest and prettiest piece 
 of this kind which I have met with among the early lyric 
 poets of the North of France. It is taken from an anony 
 mous poem, entitled " The Paradise of Love." A lover, 
 having passed the "livelong night in tears, as he was 
 wont," goes forth to beguile his sorrows with the fragrance 
 and beauty of morning. The carol of the vaulting skylark 
 salutes his ear, and to this merry musician he makes his 
 complaint. 
 
 "Hark ! hark! 
 Pretty lark ! 
 
 Little hcedest thou my pain ! 
 But if to these longing arras 
 
330 THE TROUVERES. 
 
 Pitying Love would yield the charms 
 
 Of the fair 
 
 With smiling air, 
 Blithe would beat my heart again. 
 
 Hark ! hark ! 
 
 Pretty lark ! 
 
 Little heedest tliou my pain ! 
 Love may force me sti ll to bear, 
 While he lists, consuming care ; 
 
 But in anguish 
 
 Though I languish, 
 Faithful shall my heart remain. 
 
 Hark ! hark ! 
 
 Pretty lark ! 
 
 Little heedest thou my pain ! 
 Then cease, Love, to torment me so ; 
 But rather than all thoughts forego 
 
 Of the fair 
 
 With flaxen hair, 
 Give me back her frowns again. 
 
 Hark ! hark ! 
 Pretty lark ! 
 Little heedest thou my pain ! " 
 
 Besides the " woful ballad made to his mistress s eyebrow," 
 the early lyric poet frequently indulges in more calmly 
 analysing the philosophy of love, or in questioning the object 
 and destination of a sigh. Occasionally these quaint con 
 ceits are prettily expressed, and the little song flutters 
 through the page like a butterfly. The following is an 
 example : 
 
 " And whither goest thou, gentle sigh, 
 
 Breathed so softly in my ear ? 
 
 Say, dost thou bear his fate severe 
 To love s poor martyr doomed to die ? 
 Come tell me quickly, do not lie ; 
 
 What secret message bring st thou here \ 
 And whither goest thou, gentle sigh, 
 
 Breathed so softly in my ear ? 
 
THE TROUVERES. 331 
 
 May Heaven conduct thee to thy will, 
 And safely speed thee on thy way ; 
 This only I would humbly pray, 
 
 Pierce deep, but, ! forbear to kill. 
 
 And whither goest thou, gentle sigh, 
 Breathed so softly in my ear ? " 
 
 The ancient lyric poets of France are generally spoken of 
 as a class, and their beauties and defects referred to them 
 collectively, and not individually. In truth, there are few 
 characteristic marks by which any individual author can be 
 singled out and ranked above the rest. The lyric poets of 
 the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries stand upon nearly 
 the same level. But in the fifteenth century there were 
 two who surpassed all their contemporaries in the beauty 
 and delicacy of their sentiments ; and in the sweetness of 
 their diction, and the structure of their verse, stand far in 
 advance of the age in which they lived. These are Charles 
 d Orl^ans and Clotilde de Surville. 
 
 Charles, Duke of Orleans, the father of Louis the Twelfth, 
 and uncle of Francis the First, was born in 1391. In the 
 general tenour of his life, the peculiar character of his mind, 
 and his talent for poetry, there is a striking resemblance 
 between this noble poet and James the First of Scotland, his 
 contemporary. Both were remarkable for learning and 
 refinement; both passed a great portion of their lives in 
 sorrow and imprisonment ; and both cheered the solitude of 
 their prison-walls with the charms of poetry. Charles 
 d Orleans was taken prisoner at the battle of Agincourt, in 
 1415, and carried into England, where he remained twenty- 
 five years in captivity. It was there that he composed the 
 greater part of his poetry. 
 
 The poems of this writer exhibit a singular delicacy of 
 thought and sweetness of expression. The following little 
 Renouveaux, or songs on the return of spring, are full of 
 delicacy and beauty : 
 
 " Now Time throws off his cloak again 
 Of ernrined frost, and wind, and rain ? 
 And clothes him in the embroidery 
 Of glittering sun and clear blue sky 
 
332 THE TROUVERES. 
 
 "With beast and bird the forest rings, 
 Each in the jargon cries or sings ; 
 And Time throws off his cloak again 
 Of ermined frost, and wind, and rain. 
 
 Elver, and fount, and tinkling brook 
 
 Wear in their dainty livery 
 
 Drops of silver jewelry ; 
 In new-made suit they merry look ; 
 
 And Time throws off his cloak again 
 
 Of ermined frost, and wind, and raiii." 
 
 The second upon the same subject presents a still more 
 agreeable picture of the departure of winter and the return 
 of spring : 
 
 " Gentle spring ! in sunshine clad, 
 
 Well dost thou thy power display ! 
 For winter maketh the light heart sad, 
 
 And thou, thou makest the sad heart gay. 
 He sees thee, and calls to his gloomy train, 
 The sleet, and the snow, and the wind, and the raiu ; 
 And they shrink away, and they flee in fear, 
 When thy rnerry step draws near. 
 
 Winter giveth the fields and the trees so old 
 
 Their beards of icicles and snow ; 
 And the rain, it raineth so fast and cold, 
 
 We must cower over the embers low ; 
 And, snugly housed from the wind and weather, 
 Mope like birds that are changing feather ; 
 But the storrn retires, and the sky grows clear, 
 When thy merry step draws near. 
 
 Winter maketh the sun in the gloomy sky 
 
 Wrap him round in a mantle of cloud ; 
 But, Heaven be praised, thy step is nigh ; 
 
 Thou tearest away the mournful shroud, 
 And the earth looks bright, and winter surly, 
 Who has toiled for nought both late and early, 
 Is banished afar by the new-born year, 
 
 When thy merry step draws near." 
 
 The only person of that age who can dispute the laurel 
 with Charles d Orleans is Clotilde de Survilie. This poetess 
 
THE TROUVERES. 333 
 
 was born in the Bas-Vivarais, in the year 1405. Hor style 
 is singularly elegant and correct ; and the reader who will 
 take the trouble to decipher her rude provincial orthography 
 will find her writings full of quiet beauty. The following 
 lines, which breathe the very soul of maternal tenderness, 
 are part of a poem to her first-born : 
 
 " Sweet babe ! true portrait of thy father s face, 
 
 Sleep on the bosom that thy lips have pressed ! 
 Sleep, little one ; and closely, gently place 
 Thy drowsy eyelid on thy mother s breast ! 
 
 Upon that tender eye, my little friend, 
 
 Soft sleep shall come that cometh not to me , 
 
 I watch to see thee, nourish thee, defend ; 
 Tis sweet to watch for thee, alone for thee ! 
 
 His arms fall down ; sleep sits upon his brow ; 
 
 His eye is closed ; he sleeps, how still and cairn ! 
 Wore not his cheek the apple s ruddy glow, 
 
 Would you not say he slept on death s cold arm ? 
 
 Awake, my boy ! I tremble with affright ! 
 
 Awake, and chase this fatal thought ! unclose 
 Thine eye but for one moment on the light, 
 
 Even at the price of thine, give me repose. 
 
 Sweet error ! he but slept ; I breathe again ; 
 Come, gentle dreams, the hour of sleep beguile j 
 
 0, when shall he for whom I sigh in vain 
 Beside me watch to see thy waking smile ? " 
 
 But upon this theme I have written enough, perhap 
 too much. 
 
 " This may be poetry, for aught I know, 
 
 Says an old, worthy friend of mine, while leaning 
 Over my shoulder as I write, although 
 I can t exactly comprehend its meaning. " 
 
 I have touched upon the subject before me in a brief and 
 desultory manner, and have purposely left my remarks 
 
334 
 
 THE TROUVERES. 
 
 unencumbered by learned reference and far-sought erudition; 
 for these are ornaments which would ill become so trivial a 
 pen as this wherewith I write, though, perchance, the want 
 of them will render my essay unsatisfactory to the scholar 
 and the critic. But I am emboldened thus to skim with a 
 light wing over this poetic lore of the past, by the reflection 
 that the greater part of my readers belong not to that grave 
 and serious class who love the deep wisdom which lies in 
 quoting from a quaint, forgotten tome, and are ready on all 
 occasions to say, " Commend me to the owl ! " 
 
 Printed by WALTER SCOTT, Felling, Newcastle-on-Tyn& 
 
TKe 
 
 Poel$. 
 
 In SHILLING Monthly Volumes, Square 8vo. Well printed on fine 
 toned paper, with Red-line Border, and strongly bound in Cloth. Each 
 Volume contains from joo to 350 pages. With Introductory Notices 
 by WILLIAM SHARP, MATHILDE BLIND, WALTER LEWIN, JOHN 
 HOGBEN, A. J. SYMINGTON, JOSEPH SKIPSEY, EVA HOPE, JOHN 
 RICHMOND, ERNEST RHYS, PERCY E. PINKERTON, MRS. GARDEN, 
 DEAN CARRINGTON, DR. J. BRADSHAW, FREDERICK COOPER, HON. 
 RODEN NOEL, J. ADDINGTON SYMONDS, G. WILLIS COOKE, ERIC 
 MACKAY, ERIC S. ROBERTSON, WILLIAM TIREBUCK, STUART 
 J. REID, MRS. FREILIGRATH KROEKER, J. LOGIE ROBERTSON, M.A., 
 SAMUEL WADDINGTON, etc., etc. 
 
 Cloth, Red Edges 
 Cloth, Uncut Edges 
 
 Is. 
 Is 
 
 Red Roan, Gilt Edges 2s. 6d. 
 Silk Plush, Gilt Edges 4s. 6d. 
 
 THE FOLLOWING VOLUMES ARE NOW READY 
 
 CHRISTIAN YEAR. 
 
 By Rev. John Kebl \ 
 COLERIDGE. 
 
 Edited by Joseph Skipsey. 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Edited by Eva Hope. 
 CAMPBELL. 
 
 Edited by J. Hogben. 
 SHELLEY. 
 
 Edited by Joseph Skipsey. 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Edited by A. J. Symington. 
 BLAKE. 
 
 Edited by Joseph Skipsey. 
 WHITTIER. 
 
 Edited by Eva Hope. 
 POE. 
 
 Edited by Joseph Skipsey. 
 CHATTERTON. 
 
 Edited by John Richmond. 
 BURNS. Poems. 
 BURNS. S9ngs. 
 
 Edited by Joseph Skipsey. 
 MARLOWE. 
 
 Edited by P. E. Pinkerton. 
 KEATS. 
 
 Edited by John Hogben. 
 HERBERT. 
 
 Edited by Ernest Rhys. 
 VICTOR HUGO. 
 
 Translated by Dean Carrington, 
 OOWPER. 
 
 Edited by Eva Hope. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE: 
 
 Songs, Poems, and Sonnets. 
 
 Edited by William Sharp, 
 EMERSON. 
 
 Edited by Walter Lewin. 
 SONNETS of this CENTURY. 
 Edited by William Sharp. 
 WHITMAN. 
 
 Edited by Ernest Rhys. 
 SCOTT. Marmion, etc. 
 SCOTT. Lady of the Lake, etc. 
 Edited by William Sharp. 
 PRAED. 
 
 Edited by Frederick Cooper. 
 HOGG. 
 
 By his Daughter, Mrs. Garden. 
 GOLDSMITH. 
 
 Edited by William Tirebuck. 
 LOVE LETTERS OF A 
 VIOLINIST. By Eric Mackay. 
 SPENSER. 
 
 Edited by Hon. Roden Noel. 
 CHILDREN OF THE POETS. 
 Edited by Eric S. Robertson. 
 BEN JONSON. 
 
 Edited by J. A. Symonds. 
 BYRON (2 Vols.) 
 
 Edited by Mathilde Blind. 
 THE SONNETS OF EUROPE. 
 Edited by S. Waddincton. 
 ALLAN RAMSAY. 
 
 Edited by J. Logie Robertson. 
 SYDNEY DOBELL, 
 
 Edited by Mrs. Dobell. 
 
 London : WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. 
 
THE CAMELOT CLASSICS, 
 
 VOLUMES ALREADY ISSUED. 
 
 ROMANCE OF KING ARTHUR. 
 
 BY SIR T. MALORY. Edited by ERNEST RHYS. 
 
 WALDEN. BY HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 
 With Introductory Note by WILL H. DIRCKS. 
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. 
 
 BY THOMAS DE QUINCEY. With Introduction by 
 WILLIAM SHARP. 
 
 IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS. 
 
 BY WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. With Introduction 
 by HAVELOCK ELLIS. 
 
 PLUTARCH S LIVES. Edited by B. J. SNELL, M.A. 
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE S RELIGIO MEDICI, etc. 
 
 Edited, with Introduction, by JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS. 
 
 ESSAYS AND LETTERS. 
 
 BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. Edited, with 
 Introduction, by ERNEST RHYS. 
 
 PROSE WRITINGS OF SWIFT. Edited by w. LEWIN. 
 MY STUDY WINDOWS. 
 
 BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. Edited, with Intro 
 duction, by RICHARD GARNETT, LL.D. 
 
 GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 BY ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. Edited, with Introduction, 
 by WILLIAM SHARP. 
 
 LORD BYRON S LETTERS. Edited by M. BUND. 
 
 ESSAYS BY LEIGH HUNT. Edited by A. SYMONS. 
 
 LONGFELLOW S PROSE WORKS. Edited, with 
 
 Introduction, by WILLIAM TIREBUCK. 
 
 The Series is issued in two styles of Binding Red Cloth, 
 Cut Edges; and Dark Blue Cloth, Uncut Edges. Either 
 Style, PRICE ONE SHILLING. 
 
GREAT WRITERS. 
 
 A NEW SERIES OF CRITICAL BIOGRAPHIES. 
 
 EDITED BY PROFESSOR ERIC S. ROBERTSON. 
 
 MONTHLY SHILLING VOLUMES. 
 
 Vol. I. 1 LIFE OF LONGFELLOW." 
 
 BY PROFESSOR ERIC S. ROBERTSON. 
 
 " The object of GREAT WRITERS is to furnish the public with interesting 
 and accurate accounts of the men and women notable in modern literature. 
 The first volume, now before us, is on Longfellow, by the Editor, and gives, in 
 the space of 180 pages, a detailed account of the poet s life, an analysis of his 
 work, and an essay on his place in literature. It is as the household poet par 
 excellence that Longfellow may reasonably take the first place in such a series 
 as that now to be issued, and, as an accompaniment to the reading of the poems 
 themselves, nothing more is wanted than will be found in these pages. The type 
 is clear, the paper good, the binding stout, and the size handy. Altogether a 
 remarkable shillingsworth, even in this day of cheap books. Other numbers 
 promised are "Coleridge," by Hall Caine; "Dickens," by Frank Marzials; 
 and " Rossetti," by Joseph Knight. If the future numbers are as good as the 
 first, a great success may be anticipated." The Standard. 
 
 Vol. II. is " LIFE OF COLERIDGE." 
 
 BY HALL CAINE. 
 
 Vol. III. will be "LIFE OF DICKENS." 
 
 BY FRANK T. MARZIALS. [Ready Feb. 20. 
 
 Vol. IV. will be " LIFE OF ROSSETTI." 
 
 BY JOSEPH KNIGHT. [Ready March 20. 
 
 The following Gentlemen have agreed to write the volumes forming the 
 First Year s Issue : WILLIAM ROSSETTI, HALL CAINE, RICHARD GARNETT 
 FRANK T. MARZIALS, WILLIAM SHARP, JOSEPH KMGUT, AUGUSTINE 
 BIRRELL, Professor D ARCY THOMPSON, R. B. HALDANE, M.P., AUSTIN 
 DOBSON, Colonel F. GRANT, and THE EDITOR. 
 
 Library Edition of " Great Writers." A Limited Issue of all the 
 Volumes in this Series \\ill be published, printed on large paper of extra 
 quality, in handsome binding, Demy 8vo, price 2s. 6d. per volume. 
 
 LONDON : 
 \VALTEK SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. 
 
Price Sixpence; Crown 4/0, 48 pages. 
 PART I. READY 25xH FEBRUARY 1887. 
 
 THE MONTHLY CHRONICLE 
 
 OF 
 
 North-Country Lore and Legend. 
 
 From the " Newcastle Weekly Chronicle? 
 
 IT has repeatedly been suggested that the valuable matter published 
 every week in the Weekly Chronicle should be reprinted in some 
 handier form, so as to be capable of permanent preservation. Not 
 a few of our readers take the trouble to cut out the articles in which 
 they are interested, paste them in scrap-books, and thus form a 
 serviceable collection of local and other literature. But this process 
 involves the purchase of special requisites, and the consumption of 
 considerable patience and time. 
 
 We have, therefore, arranged with Mr. WALTER SCOTT, the well- 
 known publisher, of Felling-on-Tyne, and Warwick Lane, Paternoster 
 Row, London, to publish, in monthly parts, all the more permanently 
 interesting contributions that will appear in the future issues of the 
 Weekly Chronicle. 
 
 This publication will be entitled the Monthly Chronicle of North- 
 Country Lore and Legend, and will be offered to the public in a 
 special wrapper at the price of sixpence. The size of the reprint will 
 be crown quarto, and each number will consist of forty-eight double- 
 column pages. The articles reprinted will be so revised that the 
 errors which necessarily creep into a weekly newspaper will, as far as 
 possible, be corrected or erased. 
 
 The first number of the Monthly Chronicle (for March) will be 
 published on the 25th of February. 
 
 Published for the Proprietor of " The Newcastle Weekly Chronicle," by 
 
 WALTER SCOTT, 24 WARWICK LANE, LONDON, 
 
 AND NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE. 
 
SCIENCE LECTURES 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 TYNESIDE SUND \Y LECTURE SOCIETY. 
 
 Now Ready, Price Threepence Each. 
 
 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF INSTINCT. 
 
 BY G. J. ROMANES, F.R.S. 
 
 ANIMAL LIFE ON THE OCEAN SURFACE. 
 
 BY PROFESSOR H. N. MOSELEY, M.A., F.R.S. 
 
 THE EYE AND ITS WORK. 
 
 BY LITTON FORBES, M.D., F.R.CS.E., L.R.C.P. 
 
 THE MOVEMENTS OF PLANTS. 
 
 BY ERNEST A. PARKYN, M.A. 
 
 The RELATIONS BETWEEN NATURAL SCIENCE 
 and LITERATURE. 
 
 BY PROFESSOR H. NETTLESHIP, M.A. 
 
 FACTS AND FICTIONS IN ZOOLOGY. 
 
 BY DR. ANDREW WILSON, F.R.S.E. 
 
 THE ANIMALS THAT MAKE LIMESTONE. 
 
 BY DR. P. HERBERT CARPENTER, F.R.S. 
 
 The Seven Lectures maybe had in One Vol., Cloth, Price 1/6. 
 
 London : WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. 
 
THE ELSWICK SCIENCE SERIES. 
 
 HH HE Elswick Series is intended to supply Teachers and Students 
 1 with good books, void of cram. They will be issued as rapidly 
 as is consistent with the caution necessary to secure accuracy. A 
 great aim will be to adapt them to modern requirements and im 
 provement, and to keep abreast with the latest discoveries in 
 Science, and the most recent practice in Engineering. 
 
 Already Issued. Crown Sv0, doth, price 3^. 6d. 
 
 PRACTICAL AND THEORETICAL TRIGONOMETRY. By 
 HENRY EVERS, LL.D., Author of " Steam," " Navigation," etc. 
 
 TJu following Works may be expected to appear shortly 
 
 MANUAL OF STEAM AND PRIME MOVERS. By HENRY 
 EVERS, LL.D., Author of " Steam," " Navigation," etc. 
 
 ALGEBRA (an ELEMENTARY TREATISE). By Professor 
 R. H. JUDE, of Huddersfield Technical College, M.A. Cantab., 
 D.Sc. London. 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE GEOMETRY. By T. H. EAGLES, M.A, Instruc 
 tor in Geometrical Drawing and Lecturer in Architecture at the 
 Royal Indian Engineering College, Cooper s Hill. 
 
 THEORETICAL MECHANICS. By W. M. MADDEN, M.A, 
 Cantab. Wrangler, Scholar of Queen s, etc. 
 
 ELEMENTARY LECTURES OF PHYSICS AND ELEC 
 TRICITY. By WILLIAM JOHN GREY, F.C.S., etc., Silver 
 Medallist. 
 
 Others are iti preparation or consideration, such as 
 
 MACHINE DESIGN. By H. FOSTER, M.E. and D. Medallist. 
 BUILDING CONSTRUCTION. By T. N. ANDREWS, Esq. 
 SPRINGS: IRON AND STEEL. 
 
 APPLIED MECHANICS. By HENRY EVERS, LL.D., Medallist. 
 A COURSE OF QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS. By W. J. 
 
 GREY, F.C.S. Medallist, etc. 
 INORGANIC CHEMISTRY. By W. J. GREY, F.C.S. Medallist, 
 
 etc. 
 ANIMAL PHYSIOLOGY. By ^HRi^ ^. (Jv*RS, M.B., 
 
 M.R.C.S. (London), Medallist, 
 A SERIES OF PRACTICAL TYSONS FOR BLACK 
 BOARD TEACHING OF MACHINE DRAWING. 
 
 London : WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. 
 
GENERAL LIBRARY - U.C. BERKELEY 
 
 BDDDSb33E3