University of Virginia Library

BOOK THE FOURTH.

1. BOOK THE FOURTH.

1. CHAPTER I.
A MISERERE.

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

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

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

I know not how this Romanesque, and at times
flamboyant, style of architecture may please 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 Gallilee-steeples. But would it then have
been Romanesque?

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

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

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

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

Nothing can be more lovely than these summer
mornings; nor than the southern window at which
I sit and write, in this old mansion, which is like
an Italian Villa. But O, this lassitude,—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,
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 labor, remember, that the secret studies
of an author are the sunken piers upon which is
to rest the bridge of his fame, spanning the dark
waters of Oblivion. They are out of sight; but
without them no superstructure can stand secure!

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

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

In secula seculorum! Amen!

2. CHAPTER II.
CURFEW BELLS.

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

The emperor Isaac Angelus made a treaty with
Saladin, and tried to purchase the Holy Sepulchre
with gold. Richard Lion-heart scorned such alliance,
and sought to recover it by battle. Thus
do weak minds make treaties with the passions
they cannot overcome, and try to purchase happiness
at the expense of principle. But the resolute

will of a strong man scorns such means; and struggles
nobly with his foe, to achieve great deeds.
Therefore, whosoever thou art that sufferest, try
not to dissipate thy sorrow by the breath of the
world, nor drown its voice in thoughtless merriment.
It is a treacherous peace that is purchased
by indulgence. Rather take this sorrow to
thy heart, and make it a part of thee, and it shall
nourish thee till thou art strong again.

The shadows of the mind are like those of the
body. In the morning of life they all lie behind
us; at noon, we trample them under foot; and in
the evening they stretch long, broad, and deepening
before us. Are not, then, the sorrows of childhood
as dark as those of age? Are not the morning
shadows of life as deep and broad as those of
its evening? Yes; but morning shadows soon
fade away, while those of evening reach forward
into the night and mingle with the coming darkness.
Man is begotten in delight and born in
pain; and in these are the rapture and labor of his
life fore-shadowed from the beginning. But 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 melancholy man, “drinking the
sweet wormwood of his sorrow.” He did not rail
at Providence and call it fate, but suffered and
was silent. It is a beautiful trait in the lover's
character, that he thinks no evil of the object
loved. What he suffered was no swift storm of
feeling, that passes away with a noise, and leaves
the heart clearer; but a dark phantom had risen
up in the clear night, and, like that of Adamastor,
hid the stars; and if it ever vanished away for a
season, still the deep sound of the moaning main
would be heard afar, through many a dark and
lonely hour. And thus he journeyed on, wrapped
in desponding gloom, and mainly heedless of all
things around him. His mind was distempered.
That one face was always before him; that one
voice forever saying;

“You are not the Magician.”

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

There are persons in this world to whom all
local associations are naught. The genius of the
place speaks not to them. Even on battle-fields,
where the voice of this genius is wont to be
loudest, they hear only the sound of their own
voices; they meet there only their own dull and
pedantic thoughts, as the old grammarian Brunetto
Latini met on the plain of Roncesvalles a poor
student riding on a bay mule. This was not always
the case with Paul Flemming, but it had become
so now. He felt no interest in the scenery
around him. He hardly looked at it. Even
the difficult mountain-passes, where, from his
rocky eyrie the eagle-eyed Tyrolese peasant had
watched his foe, and the roaring, turbid torrent
underneath, which had swallowed up the bloody
corse, that fell from the rocks like a crushed worm,

awakened no lively emotion in his breast. All
around him seemed dreamy and vague; all within
dim, as in a sun's eclipse. As the moon, whether
visible or invisible, has power over the tides of the
ocean, so the face of that lady, whether present or
absent, had power over the tides of his soul; both
by day and night, both waking and sleeping. In
every pale face and dark eye he saw a resemblance
to her; and what the day denied him in
reality, the night gave him in dreams.

“This is a strange, fantastic world,” said Berkley,
after a very long silence, during which the
two travellers had been sitting each in his corner
of the travelling carriage, wrapped in his own reflections.
“A very strange, fantastic world; where
each one pursues his own golden bubble, and laughs
at his neighbour for doing the same. I have been
thinking how a moral Linnæus would classify
our race. I think he would divide it, not as
Lord Byron did, into two great classes, the bores
and those who are bored, but into three, namely;
Happy Men, Lucky Dogs, and Miserable

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

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

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

How do you like that?”

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

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

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

“Kyrie Eleëson!”

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

“Oho! Now you speak like Launce to his
dog!”

Their conversation, which had begun so merrily,
was here suddenly interrupted by a rattling
peal of thunder, that announced a near-approaching
storm. It was late in the afternoon, and the
whole heaven black with low, trailing clouds.
Still blacker the storm came sailing up majestically
from the southwest, with almost unbroken volleys
of distant thunder. The wind seemed to be
storming a cloud redoubt; and marched onward with
dust, and the green banners of the trees flapping
in the air, and heavy cannonading, and occasionally
an explosion, like the blowing up of a powder-wagon.
Mingled with this was the sound of thunder-bells
from a village not far off. They were all
ringing dolefully to ward off the thunderbolt. At
the entrance of the village stood a large wooden
crucifix; around which was a crowd of priests
and peasants, kneeling in the wet grass, by the
roadside, with their hands and eyes lifted 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 Innsbruck before midnight. Night
closed in, and Flemming fell asleep with the loud
storm overhead, and at his feet the roaring Inn, a
mountain torrent leaping onward as wild and restless,
as when it first sprang from its cradle in the
solitudes of Engaddin; meet emblem of himself,
thus rushing through the night. His slumber was
long, but broken; and at length he awoke in terror;
for he heard a voice pronounce in his ear
distinctly these words;

“They have brought the dead body.”

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

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

He slept again at intervals; and at length,
though long after midnight, reached Innsbruck between
sleeping and waking; his mind filled with
dim recollections of the unspeakably dismal night-journey;—the
climbing of hills, and plunging
into dark ravines;—the momentary rattling of the
wheels over paved streets of towns, and the succeeding
hollow rolling and tramping on the 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 irrepressible laughter of the
gods.

The travellers on the morrow lingered not long
in Innsbruck. They did not fail, however, to visit
the tomb of Maximilian in the Franciscan Church
of the Holy Cross, and gaze with some admiration
upon the twenty-eight gigantic bronze statues of
Godfrey of Bouillon, and King Arthur and Ernest
the Iron-man, and Frederick of the Empty Pockets,
kings and heroes, and others, which stand leaning
on their swords between the columns of the
church, as if guarding the tomb of the dead.
These statues reminded Flemming of the bronze
giants, which strike the hours on the belfry of
San Basso, in Venice, and of the flail-armed monsters,
that guarded the gateway of Angulaffer's castle
in Oberon. After gazing awhile at these motionless
sentinels, they went forth, and strolled 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.

3. CHAPTER III.
SHADOWS ON THE WALL.

On the following morning Flemming awoke in a
chamber of the Golden Ship at Salzburg, just as
the clock in the Dome-church opposite was striking
ten. The window-shutters were closed, and
the room nearly dark. He was lying on his back,
with his hands crossed upon his breast, and his
eyes looking up at the white curtains overhead.
He thought them the white marble canopy of a
tomb, and himself the marble statue, lying beneath.
When the clock ceased striking, the eight and
twenty gigantic bronze statues from the Church
of Holy Rood in Innsbruck stalked into the chamber,
and arranged themselves along the walls,
which spread into dimly-lighted aisles and arches.
On the painted windows he saw Interlachen, with

its Franciscan cloister, and the Square Tower of the
ruins. In a pendent, overhead, stood the German
student, as Saint Vitus; and on a lavatory, or basin
of holy-water, below, sat a cherub, with the form
and features of Berkley. Then the organ-pipes
began to blow, and he heard the voices of an invisible
choir chanting. And anon the gilded gates
in the bronze screen before the chancel opened,
and a bridal procession passed through. The
bride was clothed in the garb of the Middle Ages;
and held a book in her hand, with velvet covers,
and golden clasps. It was Mary Ashburton. She
looked at him as she passed. Her face was pale;
and there were tears in her sweet eyes. Then
the gates closed again; and one of the oaken
poppy-heads over a carved stall, in the shape of
an owl, flapped its broad wings, and hooted, “Towhit!
to-whoo!” Then the whole scene changed;
and he thought himself a monk's-head on a gutterspout;
and it rained dismally; and Berkley was
standing under with an umbrella, laughing!

In other words, Flemming was in a raging

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

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

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

“How very strange it is,” said he, “that you
can hardly open the biography of any German author,
but you will find it begin with an account of his
grandfather. It will tell you how the venerable
old man walked up and down the garden among
the gay flowers, wrapped in his morning gown,
which is likewise covered with flowers, and perhaps
wearing on his head a little velvet cap. Or

you will find him sitting by the chimney-corner in
the great chair, smoking his ancestral pipe, with
shaggy eyebrows and eyes like birdsnests under
the eaves of a house, and a mouth like a Nuremberg
nutcracker's. The future poet climbs upon
the old man's knees. His genius is not recognised
yet. He is thought for the most part a dull boy.
His father is an austere man, or perhaps dead. But
the mother is still there, a sickly, saint-like woman,
with knitting-work, and an elder sister, who
has already been in love, and wears rings on
her fingers;—

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

“No, not precisely. Instead of the grandfather
we have the grandmother, a stately dame, who has
long since shaken hands with the vanities of life.
The mother, separated from her husband, is sick in
mind and body, and flits to and fro, like a shadow.

Then there is an affectionate maiden aunt; and an
uncle, a retired judge, the terror of little boys,—
the Giant Despair of this Doubting Castle in Koenigsberg;
and occasionally the benign countenance
of a venerable grand-uncle, whom Lamotte Fouqué
called a hero of the olden time in morning gown and
slippers, looks in at the door and smiles. In the
upper story of the same house lived a poor boy with
his mother, who was so far crazed as to believe
herself to be the Virgin Mary, and her son the Saviour
of the world. Wild fancies, likewise, were to
sweep through the brain of that child. He was to
meet Hoffmann elsewhere and be his friend in
after years, though as yet they knew nothing of
each other. This was Werner, who has made
some noise in German literature as the author of
many wild Destiny-Dramas.”

“Hoffmann died, I believe, in Berlin.”

“Yes. He left Koenigsberg at twenty years of
age, and passed the next eight years of his life in
the Prussian-Polish Provinces, where he held some
petty office under government; and took to 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 Æsthetic Teas, given by a
literary lady Unter den Linden, where the lions
were fed with convenient food, from tea and bread
and butter, up to oysters and Rhine-wine. During
the evening my attention was arrested by the
entrance of a strange little figure, with a wild head
of brown hair. His eyes were bright gray; and
his thin lips closely pressed together with an expression
of not unpleasing irony. This strange-looking
personage began to bow his way through
the crowd, with quick, nervous, hinge-like motions,
much resembling those of a marionette. He had
a hoarse voice, and such a rapid utterance, that although

I understood German well enough for ordinary
purposes, I could not understand one half
he said. Ere long he had seated himself at the
piano-forte, and was improvising such wild, sweet
fancies, that the music of one's dreams is not more
sweet and wild. Then suddenly some painful
thought seemed to pass over his mind, as if he imagined,
that he was there to amuse the company.
He rose from the piano-forte, and seated himself
in another part of the room; where he began to
make grimaces, and talk loud while others were
singing. Finally he disappeared, like a hobgoblin,
laughing, `Ho! ho! ho!' I asked a person beside
me who this strange being was. `That was
Hoffmann,' was the answer. `The Devil!' said I.
`Yes,' continued my informant; `and if you should
follow him now, you would see him plunge into an
obscure and unfrequented wine-cellar, and there,
amid boon companions, with wine and tobacco-smoke,
and quirks and quibbles, and quaint, witty
sayings, turn the dim night into glorious day.' ”

“What a strange being!”

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

“No wonder he died in the prime of life!”

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

“But death came at last in an appalling shape.”

“Yes; his forty-sixth birth day found him sitting
at home in his arm-chair, with his friends
around him. But the rare old wine,—he always
drank the best,—touched not the sick-man's lips
that night. His wonted humor was gone. Of all
his `jibes, his gambols, his songs, his flashes of merriment,
that were wont to set the table on a roar,
not one now, to mock his own grinning!—quite
chap-fallen.'—The conversation was of death and
the grave. And when one of his friends said, that
life was not the highest good, Hoffmann interrupted
him, exclaiming with a startling earnestness;
`No, no! Life, life, only life! on any condition
whatsoever!' Five months after this he had ceased
to suffer, because he had ceased to live. He died
piecemeal. His feet and hands, his legs and
arms, gradually, and in succession, became motionless,

dead. But his spirit was not dead, nor
motionless; and, through the solitary day or sleepless
night, lying in his bed, he dictated to an amanuensis
his last stories. Strange stories, indeed,
were they for a dying man to write! Yet such
delight did he take in dictating them, that he said
to his friend Hitzig, that, upon the whole, he was
willing to give up forever the use of his hands, if
he could but preserve the power of writing by dictation.
Such was his love of life,—of what he
called the sweet habitude of being!”

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

“Yes, that was Hoffmann. Soon afterwards he
died. The closing scene was striking. He gradually
lost all sensation, though his mind remained
vigorous. Feeling no more pain, he said to his
physician; `It will soon be over now. I feel no
more pain.' He thought himself well again; but

the physician knew that he was dying, and said;
`Yes, it will soon be over!' The next morning
he called his wife to his bed-side; and begged her
to fold his motionless hands together. Then, as
he raised his eyes to heaven, she heard him say,
`We must, then, think of God, also!' More sorrowful
words than these have seldom fallen from
the lips of man. Shortly afterwards the flame of
life glared up within him; he said he was well
again; that in the evening he should go on with
the story he was writing; and wished that the
last sentence might be read over to him. Shortly
after this they turned his face to the wall, and he
died.”

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

“You are right. And it is worth a student's
while to observe calmly how tobacco, wine, and
midnight did their work like fiends upon the
delicate frame of Hoffmann; and no less thoroughly
upon his delicate mind. He who drinks beer,

thinks beer; and he who drinks wine, thinks
wine;—and he who drinks midnight, thinks midnight.
He was a man of rare intellect. He was
endowed with racy humor and sarcastic wit, and a
glorious imagination. But the fire of his genius
burned not peacefully, and with a steady flame,
upon the hearth of his home. It was a glaring
and irregular flame;—for the branches that he fed
it with, were not branches from the Tree of Life,
—but from another tree that grew in Paradise,
—and they were wet with the unhealthy dews
of night, and more unhealthy wine; and thus, amid
smoke and ashes the fire burned fitfully, and went
out with a glare, which leaves the beholder blind.”

“This fire within him was a Meleager's fire-brand;
and, when it burned out, he died. And, as
you say, marks of all this are clearly visible in Hoffmann's
writings. Indeed, when I read his strange
fancies, it is with me, as when in the summer
night I hear the rising wind among the trees, and
the branches bow, and beckon with their long
fingers, and voices go gibbering and 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
noticing the smile, though he knew what was
passing in the mind of his friend;

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4. CHAPTER IV.
MUSICAL SUFFERINGS OF JOHN KREISLER.

“They are all gone! I might have known it
by the whispering, shuffling, coughing, buzzing
through all the notes of the gamut. It was a true
swarm of bees, leaving the old hive. Gottlieb has
lighted fresh candles for me, and placed a bottle
of Burgundy on the piano-forte. I can play no
more, I am perfectly exhausted. My glorious old
friend here on the music-stand is to blame for
that. Again he has borne me away through the
air, as Mephistopheles did Faust, and so high, that
I took not the slightest notice of the little men
under me, though I dare say they made noise
enough. A rascally, worthless, wasted evening!
But now I am well and merry! However, while
I was playing, I took out my pencil, and on page

sixty-three, under the last system, noted down a
couple of good flourishes in cipher with my right
hand, while the left was struggling away in the
torrent of sweet sounds. Upon the blank page at
the end I go on writing. I leave all ciphers and
sweet tones, and with true delight, like a sick man
restored to health, who can never stop relating
what he has suffered, I note down here circumstantially
the dire agonies of this evening's tea-party.
And not for myself alone, but likewise for all those
who from time to time may amuse and edify
themselves with my copy of John Sebastian
Bach's Variations for the Piano-forte, published by
Nägeli in Zürich, and who find my marks at the
end of the thirtieth variation, and, led on by the
great Latin Verte, (I will write it down the moment
I get through this doleful statement of grievances,)
turn over the leaf and read.

“They will at once see the connexion. They
know, that the Geheimerath Rödelein's house is a
charming house to visit in, and that he has two
daughters, of whom the whole fashionable world

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

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

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

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

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

“ `Chantez donc, mes enfans!'

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

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

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

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

“`I sing so badly!—'

“`O, my dear child; do begin!'

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

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

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

“`But, my dear Finanzräthin, now you must let
us hear your exquisite voice.'

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

“O scream, squeak, mew, gurgle, groan, agonize,
quiver, quaver, just as much as you please, Madam,—I
have my foot on the fortissimo pedal,

and thunder myself deaf! O Satan, Satan! which
of thy goblins damned has got into this throat,
pinching, and kicking, and cuffing the tones about
so! Four strings have snapped already, and one
hammer is lamed for life. My ears ring again,—
my head hums,—my nerves tremble! Have all
the harsh notes from the cracked trumpet of a
strolling-player been imprisoned in this little throat!
(But this excites me,—I must drink a glass of
Burgundy.)

“The applause was unbounded; and some one
observed, that the Finanzräthin and Mozart had
put me quite in a blaze. I smiled with downcast
eyes, very stupidly. I could but acknowledge it.
And now all talents, which hitherto had bloomed
unseen, were in motion, wildly flitting to and fro.
They were bent upon a surfeit of music; tuttis,
finales, choruses must be performed. The Canonicus
Kratzer sings, you know, a heavenly bass, as
was observed by the gentleman yonder, with the
head of Titus Andronicus, who modestly remarked
also, that he himself was properly only a second-rate

tenor; but, though he said it, who should not
say it, was nevertheless member of several academies
of music. Forthwith preparations are made
for the first chorus in the opera of Titus. It went
off gloriously. The Canonicus, standing close behind
me, thundered out the bass over my head, as
if he were singing with bass-drums and trumpet
obbligato in a cathedral. He struck the notes gloriously;
but in his hurry he got the tempo just
about twice too slow. However, he was true to
himself at least in this, that through the whole
piece he dragged along just half a beat behind the
rest. The others showed a most decided penchant
for the ancient Greek music, which, as is well
known, having nothing to do with harmony, ran
on in unison or monotone. They all sang treble,
with slight variations, caused by accidental rising
and falling of the voice, say some quarter of a
note.

“This somewhat noisy affair produced a universal
tragic state of feeling, namely a kind of terror,
even at the card-tables, which for the moment

could no longer, as before, chime in melodramatic,
by weaving into the music sundry exclamations;
as, for instance;

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

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

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

“I answered very drily, that to-day my fantasies
had all gone a wool-gathering; and, while we are
talking about it, a devil, in the shape of a dandy,
with two waistcoats, had smelt out Bach's Variations,
which were lying under my hat in the next
room. He thinks they are merely little variations,
such as Nel cor mio non più sento, or Ah, vous

dirai-je, maman, etc., and insists upon it, that I
shall play them. I try to excuse myself, but they
all attack me. So then, `Listen, and burst with ennui,'
think I to myself,—and begin to work away.

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

“I should have brought all to a happy conclusion,
but, alas! this number thirty,—the theme,—
tore me irresistibly away. Suddenly the quarto
leaves spread out to a gigantic folio, on which a
thousand imitations and developments of the theme
stood written, and I could not choose but play
them. The notes became alive, and glimmered
and hopped all round about me,—an electric fire

streamed through the tips of my fingers into the
keys,—the spirit, from which it gushed forth,
spread his broad wings over my soul, the whole
room was filled with a thick mist, in which the
candles burned dim,—and through which peered
forth now a nose, and anon a pair of eyes, and
then suddenly vanished away again. And thus it
came to pass, that I was left alone with my Sebastian
Bach, by Gottlieb attended, as by a familiar
spirit. (Your good health, Sir.)

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

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

I think will sit quietly here. Besides, there is still
blank paper and Burgundy left, of which I forthwith
take a sip.

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

5. CHAPTER V.
SAINT GILGEN.

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

They stopped to change horses at Hof, a handful

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

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

They drove leisurely down the steep hill, and
stopped at the village inn. Before the door was
a magnificent, broad-armed tree, with benches and
tables beneath its shadow. On the front of the
house was written in large letters, “Post-Tavern
by Franz Schoendorfer”; and over this was a
large sun-dial, and a half-effaced painting of a bear-hunt,
covering the whole side of the house, and
mostly red. Just as they drove up, a procession of
priests with banners, and peasants with their hats
in their hands, passed by towards the church.

They were singing a solemn psalm. At the same
moment, a smart servant girl, with a black straw
hat, set coquettishly on her flaxen hair, and a
large silver spoon stuck in her girdle, came out
of the tavern, and asked Flemming what he would
please to order for breakfast.

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

At length the heat of the noon was over. Day,
like a weary pilgrim, had reached the western

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

On their return homeward they passed near the
village churchyard.

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

How peaceful is the dwelling-place of those
who inhabit the green hamlets, and populous cities

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

Beautiful is that season of life, when we can
say, in the language of Scripture, “Thou hast the
dew of thy youth.” But of these flowers Death
gathers many. He places them upon his bosom,
and his form becomes transformed into something

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 live long.
They have gone before us, and are like the angels
in heaven. They stand upon the borders of the
grave to welcome us, with the countenance of affection,
which they wore on earth; yet more lovely,
more radiant, more spiritual! O, he spake well
who said, that graves are the foot-prints of angels.

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

It was in an hour of blessed communion with
the souls of the departed, that the sweet poet
Henry Vaughan wrote those few lines, which

have made death lovely, and his own name immortal!

Such were Flemming's thoughts, as he stood
among the tombs at evening in the churchyard of
Saint Gilgen. A holy calm stole over him. The
fever of his heart was allayed. He had a moment's
rest from pain; and went back to his chamber
in peace. Whence came this holy calm, this
long-desired tranquillity? He knew not; yet the
place seemed consecrated. He resolved to linger
there, beside the lake, which was a Pool of Bethesda
for him; and let Berkley go on alone to
the baths of Ischel. He would wait for him there
in the solitude of Saint Gilgen. Long after they
had parted for the night, he sat in his chamber,
and thought of what he had suffered, and enjoyed

the silence within and without. Hour after hour,
slipped by unheeded, as he sat lost in his reverie.
At length, his candle sank in its socket, gave one
flickering gleam, and expired with a sob. This
aroused him.

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

2-6. CHAPTER VI.
SAINT WOLFGANG.

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

Such was the scene, which Paul Flemming 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
around him. The face of the landscape pleased
him, but more than this the face of the poor
woman who sat knitting in the shade. It was a
pale, meek countenance, with more delicacy in
its features than is usual among peasantry. It
wore also an expression of patient suffering. As
he was looking at her, a deformed child came
out of the door and hung upon her knees. She
caressed him affectionately. It was her child;
in whom she beheld her own fair features distorted
and hardly to be recognised, as one sometimes
sees his face reflected from the bowl of a
spoon.

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, just 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 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 labored 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
should 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? 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.”

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 got tired of Ischel,
—very tired. I did not find the friends there,
whom 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 Berkley, 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
to-morrow 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 drowning. 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.

“This is the place I was speaking of,” said
Flemming, as the boatmen rested on 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 over-hanging

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 Wolfgang! You infernal old
rascal! How is the Frau von Wolfgang!—God
save great George the King! Damn your eyes!
Hold your tongue! Ho! ho! ha! ha! hi!”

And the words were recorded above; and a
voice repeated 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 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
Wolfgang, threading a narrow street, above 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, shut 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 under lip of the water-basin below,

they read this inscription in old German
rhymes;

“I am in the honor 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 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 clarissime Domine, necnon et amice observandissime!
Petrus sic est locutus; `Nec argentum
mihi, nec 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;

“Ut 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;

“Vale, 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?”

“I say of it,” replied Flemming, “what Holophernes
said of Sir Nathaniel's; `Priscian a little
scratched; 't will 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
expression. Flemming 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 up 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 father-land, 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 attentively, 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?”

“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 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.

7. CHAPTER VII.
THE STORY OF 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 midnight 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 Laybach 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
Lavant. The father-confessor in the nunnery 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
midnight, 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 chamber.
I thought I had slept beyond my usual hour.
I looked at my watch. It was just one o'clock
after midnight. Suddenly the daylight vanished,
and it was dark. In the morning I arose, as if
new-born, through the wonderful 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 apparition 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 Thanks-giving
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 honor.

“One year after this event, I was appointed
Professor of Biblical Hermeneutics in Klagenfurt,
and left the Abbey forever. 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 Cappellari, 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 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
grounds of my 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; labor unweariedly in thy
work.' I sought out the student; and like Herod,
inquired diligently 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 in the air,
southeast 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 labored upon earth, and
fought with Satan in the church. But they were
persecuted, denounced, condemned to die. So perhaps
will it 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 wonderfully strengthened
me in my 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
prepared a snare for me; but I will conquer him
with godly weapons.' I sprang over the treacherous
snow, with greater faith than St. 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 await him, and withdrew with the
other priest into the church. Flemming could not
smile as Berkley did; for in the solitary, singular
enthusiast, who had just left them, he saw only another
melancholy victim to solitude and over-labor
of the brain; and felt how painful a thing it is, thus
to become unconsciously the alms-man of other
men's sympathies, 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 is
true. But I wonder if Care shaved his left eyebrow,
after doing the deed, as the ancient Egyptians
used to do!”

“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, 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!

8. CHAPTER VIII.
FOOT-PRINTS OF ANGELS.

It was Sunday morning; and the church bells
were all ringing together. From all 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 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 now in
heaven the spirits of little children walked with
him, and gathered flowers in the fields of Paradise.
Good old man! 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

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 afterward, 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
sang a funeral hymn. When this was over, the
priest 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 holy water.

A few moments afterwards, the voice of the
priest was heard saying mass in the church, and
Flemming saw the toothless old sexton treading
the fresh earth into the grave of the little child,
with his clouted shoes. He approached him,
and asked the age of the deceased. The sexton
leaned a moment on his spade, and shrugging his
shoulders replied;

“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 “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 weeping and
stretching forth their hands in vain towards their
departing brother. A beautiful design it is, in all
save the skeleton. An angel had been better,
with folded wings, 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

longings 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 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-sounding, 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 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 sudden
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 ourselves 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 rose 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;

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.”

9. CHAPTER IX.
THE LAST PANG.

“Farewell to thee, Saint Gilgen!” said Flemming,
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 forever 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 far behind
him the mountains of the Tyrol; and beheld them

for the last time in the soft evening twilight, 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 their 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, with his hat held out in both hands,
uttering the most dismal wail. The next day, the
bright yellow jackets of the postilions, and the
two great tassels of their bugle-horns, dangling
down their backs, like two cauliflowers, told him
he was in Würtemberg; and, late in the evening,

he stopped at a 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,

During the singing, a fat clergyman, clad in black,
with a white 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 arose,
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
stair-cases of Saint Peter's. He then gave
a history of the Reformation; 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, my beloved hearers, let us take another
glass.” He stole out into the silent, deserted
street, and went to visit the veteran sculptor
Dannecker. He found him in his parlour, 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.”

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 and 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.”

“Yet 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
engraving, 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 labor of life accomplished, the horizon reached,
where heaven and earth meet,—thinking it was
angel's music, when he heard the church-bells ring;

himself 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 mid-summer, 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 gray 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 student, 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,
having made his preparation 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 a murdered
man, when the murderer approaches. His
first impulse was 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 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 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. O blessed vision

of the morning, stay! thou wert so fair! He
stood again on the green sunny meadow, beneath
the ruined towers; 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 postilion,
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 towards
the window of the Dark Ladie, and a moment afterwards
had left her forever! He had drunk the

last drop of the bitter cup, and now laid the golden
goblet gently down, knowing that he should behold
it no more!

No more! O how majestically mournful are
those words! They sound like the roar of the
wind through a forest of pines!