University of Virginia Library

BOOK THE THIRD.

1. BOOK THE THIRD.

1. CHAPTER I.
SUMMER-TIME.

They were right,—those old German Minnesingers,—to
sing the pleasant summer-time!
What a time it is! How June stands illuminated
in the Calendar! The windows are all wide
open; only the Venetian blinds closed. Here
and there a long streak of sunshine streams in
through a crevice. We hear the low sound of
the wind among the trees; and, as it swells and
freshens, the distant doors clap to, with a sudden
sound. The trees are heavy with leaves; and
the gardens full of blossoms, red and white. The
whole atmosphere is laden with perfume and sunshine.
The birds sing. The cock struts about,

and crows loftily. Insects chirp in the grass.
Yellow butter-cups stud the green carpet like
golden buttons, and the red blossoms of the clover
like rubies. The elm-trees reach their long,
pendulous branches almost to the ground. White
clouds sail aloft; and vapors fret the blue sky with
silver threads. The white village gleams afar
against the dark hills. Through the meadow winds
the river,—careless, indolent. It seems to love
the country, and is in no haste to reach the sea.
The bee only is at work,—the hot and angry
bee. All things else are at play; he never plays,
and is vexed that any one should.

People drive out from town to breathe, and to
be happy. Most of them have flowers in their
hands; bunches of apple-blossoms, and still oftener
lilacs. Ye denizens of the crowded city, how
pleasant to you is the change from the sultry
streets to the open fields, fragrant with clover-blossoms!
how pleasant the fresh, breezy country
air, dashed with brine from the meadows! how

pleasant, above all, the flowers, the manifold,
beautiful flowers!

It is no longer day. Through the trees rises
the red moon, and the stars are scarcely seen. In
the vast shadow of night, the coolness and the
dews descend. I sit at the open window to enjoy
them; and hear only the voice of the summer
wind. Like black hulks, the shadows of the great
trees ride at anchor on the billowy sea of grass. I
cannot see the red and blue flowers, but I know
that they are there. Far away in the meadow
gleams the silver Charles. The tramp of horses'
hoofs sounds from the wooden bridge. Then all
is still, save the continuous wind of the summer
night. Sometimes I know not if it be the wind
or the sound of the neighbouring sea. The village
clock strikes; and I feel that I am not alone.

How different is it in the city! It is late, and
the crowd is gone. You step out upon the balcony,
and lie in the very bosom of the cool, dewy
night, as if you folded her garments about you.
The whole starry heaven is spread out overhead.

Beneath lies the public walk with trees, like a
fathomless, black gulf, into whose silent darkness
the spirit plunges and floats away, with some beloved
spirit clasped in its embrace. The lamps
are still burning up and down the long street.
People go by, with grotesque shadows, now foreshortened
and now lengthening away into the
darkness and vanishing, while a new one springs
up behind the walker, and seems to pass him on
the sidewalk. The iron gates of the park shut
with a jangling clang. There are footsteps, and
loud voices;—a tumult,—a drunken brawl,—an
alarm of fire;—then silence again. And now at
length the city is asleep, and we can see the
night. The belated moon looks over the roofs, and
finds no one to welcome her. The moonlight is
broken. It lies here and there in the squares, and
the opening of streets,—angular, like blocks of
white marble.

Under such a green, triumphal arch, O Reader!
with the odor of flowers about thee, and the
song of birds, shalt thou pass onward into the enchanted
land, as through the Ivory Gate of dreams!
And as a prelude and majestic march, one sweet
human voice, I know not whose, but coming from
the bosom of the Alps, sings this sublime ode,
which the Alpine echoes repeat afar.

2. CHAPTER II.
FOOT-TRAVELLING.

Tell me, my soul, why art thou restless?
Why dost thou look forward to the future with
such strong desire? The present is thine,—and
the past;—and the future shall be! O that
thou didst look forward to the great hereafter with
half the longing wherewith thou longest for an
earthly future,—which a few days at most will
bring thee! to the meeting of the dead, as to the
meeting of the absent! Thou glorious spirit-land!
O, that I could behold thee as thou art,—the region
of life, and light, and love, and the dwelling-place
of those beloved ones, whose being has flowed
onward like a silver-clear stream into the solemn-sounding
main, into the ocean of Eternity.

Such were the thoughts that passed through the

soul of Flemming, as he lay in utter solitude and
silence on the rounded summit of one of the mountains
of the Furca Pass, and gazed, with tears in
his eyes, and ardent longing in his heart, up into
the blue-swimming heaven overhead, and at the
glaciers and snowy mountain-peaks around him.
Highest and whitest of all, stood the peak of the
Jungfrau, which seemed near him, though it rose
afar off from the bosom of the Lauterbrunner Thal.
There it stood, holy and high and pure, the bride
of heaven, all veiled and clothed in white, and lifted
the thoughts of the beholder heavenward. O,
he little thought then, as he gazed at it with longing
and delight, how soon a form was to arise in
his own soul, as holy, and high, and pure as this,
and like this point heavenward.

Thus lay the traveller on the mountain summit,
reposing his weary limbs on the short, brown grass,
which more resembled moss than grass. He had
sent his guide forward, that he might be alone.
His soul within him was wild with a fierce and
painful delight. The mountain air excited him;

the mountain solitudes enticed, yet maddened him.
Every peak, every sharp, jagged iceberg, seemed
to pierce him. The silence was awful and sublime.
It was like that in the soul of a dying man,
when he hears no more the sounds of earth. He
seemed to be laying aside his earthly garments.
The heavens were near unto him; but between
him and heaven every evil deed he had done arose
gigantic, like those mountain-peaks, and breathed
an icy breath upon him. O, let not the soul that
suffers, dare to look Nature in the face, where she
sits majestically aloft in the solitude of the mountains;
for her face is hard and stern, and looks not
in compassion upon her weak and erring child. It
is the countenance of an accusing archangel, who
summons us to judgment. In the valley she wears
the countenance of a Virgin Mother, looking at us
with tearful eyes, and a face of pity and love!

But yesterday Flemming had come up the valley
of the Saint Gothard Pass, through Amsteg,
where the Kerstelenbach comes dashing down the
Maderaner Thal, from its snowy cradle overhead.

The road is steep, and runs on zigzag terraces.
The sides of the mountains are barren cliffs; and
from their cloud-capped summits, unheard amid the
roar of the great torrent below, come streams of
snowwhite foam, leaping from rock to rock, like
the mountain chamois. As you advance, the scene
grows wilder and more desolate. There is not a
tree in sight,—not a human habitation. Clouds,
black as midnight, lower upon you from the ravines
overhead; and the mountain torrent beneath
is but a sheet of foam, and sends up an incessant
roar. A sudden turn in the road brings
you in sight of a lofty bridge, stepping from cliff to
cliff with a single stride. A fearful cataract howls
beneath it, like an evil spirit, and fills the air with
mist; and the mountain wind claps its hands and
shrieks through the narrow pass, Ha! ha!—This
is the Devil's Bridge. It leads the traveller across
the fearful chasm, and through a mountain gallery
into the broad, green, silent meadow of Andermath.

Even the sunny morning, which followed this

gloomy day, had not chased the desolate impression
from the soul of Flemming. His excitement
increased as he lost himself more and more among
the mountains; and now, as he lay all alone on the
summit of the sunny hill, with only glaciers and
snowy peaks about him, his soul, as I have said,
was wild with a fierce and painful delight.

A human voice broke his reverie. He looked,
and beheld at a short distance from him, the athletic
form of a mountain herdsman, who was approaching
the spot where he lay. He was a young
man, clothed in a rustic garb, and holding a long
staff in his hand. When Flemming rose, he stood
still, and gazed at him, as if he loved the face of
man, even in a stranger, and longed to hear a human
voice, though it might speak in an unknown
tongue. He answered Flemming's salutation in a
rude mountain dialect, and in reply to his questions
said;

“I, with two others, have charge of two hundred
head of cattle on these mountains. Through

the two summer months we remain here night and
day; for which we receive each a Napoleon.”

Flemming gave him half his summer wages.
He was glad to do a good deed in secret, and yet
so near heaven. The man received it as his due,
like a toll-keeper; and soon after departed, leaving
the traveller alone. And the traveller went his
way down the mountain, as one distraught. He
stopped only to pluck one bright blue flower,
which bloomed all alone in the vast desert, and
looked up at him, as if to say; “O take me with
you! leave me not here companionless!”

Ere long he reached the magnificent glacier of
the Rhone; a frozen cataract, more than two thousand
feet in height, and many miles broad at its
base. It fills the whole valley between two mountains,
running back to their summits. At the base
it is arched, like a dome; and above, jagged and
rough, and resembles a mass of gigantic crystals,
of a pale emerald tint, mingled with white. A
snowy crust covers its surface; but at every rent
and crevice the pale green ice shines clear in the

sun. Its shape is that of a glove, lying with the
palm downwards, and the fingers crooked and
close together. It is a gauntlet of ice, which, centuries
ago, Winter, the King of these mountains,
threw down in defiance to the Sun; and year by
year the Sun strives in vain to lift it from the
ground on the point of his glittering spear. A
feeling of wonder and delight came over the soul
of Flemming when he beheld it, and he shouted
and cried aloud;

“How wonderful! how glorious!”

After lingering a few hours in the cold, desolate
valley, he climbed in the afternoon the steep
Mayen-Wand, on the Grimsel, passed the Lake of
the Dead, with its ink-black waters; and through
the melting snow, and over slippery stepping-stones
in the beds of numberless shallow brooks,
descended to the Grimsel Hospital, where he passed
the night, and thought it the most lone and
desolate spot, that man ever slept in.

On the morrow, he rose with the day; and the
rising sun found him already standing on the rustic

bridge, which hangs over the verge of the Falls
of the Aar at Handeck, where the river pitches
down a precipice into a narrow and fearful abyss,
shut in by perpendicular cliffs. At right angles
with it comes the beautiful Aerlenbach; and halfway
down the double cascade mingles into one.
Thus he pursued his way down the Hasli Thal into
the Bernese Oberland, restless, impatient, he
knew not why, stopping seldom, and never long,
and then rushing forward again, like the rushing
river whose steps he followed, and in whose ice-cold
waters ever and anon he bathed his wrists, to
cool the fever in his blood; for the noonday sun
was hot.

His heart dilated in the dilating valley, that
grew broader and greener at every step. The
sight of human faces and human dwellings soothed
him; and through the fields of summer grain, in
the broad meadows of Imgrund, he walked with a
heart that ached no more, but trembled only, as our
eyelids when we have done weeping. As he
climbed the opposite hill, which hems in this romantic

valley, and, like a heavy yoke, chafes the
neck of the Aar, he believed the ancient tradition,
which says, that once the valley was a lake. From
the summit of the hill he looked southward upon
a beautiful landscape of gardens, and fields of
grain, and woodlands, and meadows, and the ancient
castle of Resti, looking down upon Meyringen.
And now all around him were the singing
of birds, and grateful shadows of the leafy trees;
and sheeted waterfalls dropping from the woodland
cliffs, seen only, but unheard, the fluted columns
breaking into mist, and fretted with frequent spires
and ornaments of foam, and not unlike the towers
of a Gothic church inverted. There, in one white
sheet of foam, the Riechenbach pours down into
its deep beaker, into which the sun never shines.
Face to face it beholds the Alpbach falling from the
opposite hill, “like a downward smoke.” When
Flemming saw the innumerable runnels, sliding
down the mountain-side, and leaping, all life and
gladness, he would fain have clasped them in his
arms and been their playmate, and revelled with
them in their freedom and delight. Yet he was
weary with the day's journey, and entered the village
of Meyringen, embowered in cherry-trees,
which were then laden with fruit, more like a way-worn
traveller than an enthusiastic poet. As he
went up the tavern steps he said in his heart, with
the Italian Aretino; “He who has not been at a
tavern, knows not what a paradise it is. O holy
tavern! O miraculous tavern! holy, because no
carking cares are there, nor weariness, nor pain;
and miraculous, because of the spits, which of
themselves turn round and round! Of a truth all
courtesy and good manners come from taverns, so
full of bows, and Signor, sì! and Signor, nò!”

But even in the tavern he could not rest long.
The same evening at sunset he was floating on the
lake of Brienz, in an open boat, close under the
cascade of the Giessbach, hearing the peasants
sing the Ranz des Vaches. He slept that night
at the other extremity of the lake, in a large
house, which, like Saint Peter's at Joppa, stood by
the water's side. The next day he wasted in

writing letters, musing in this green nest, and paddling
about the lake again; and in the evening
went across the beautiful meadows to Interlachen,
where many things happened to him, and detained
him long.

3. CHAPTER III.
INTERLACHEN.

Interlachen! How peacefully, by the margin
of the swift-rushing Aar, thou liest, on the broad
lap of those romantic meadows, all overshadowed
by the wide arms of giant trees! Only the round
towers of thine ancient cloister rise above their
summits; the round towers themselves, but a
child's playthings under the great church-towers
of the mountains. Close beside thee are lakes,
which the flowing band of the river ties together.
Before thee opens the magnificent valley of Lauterbrunn,
where the cloud-hooded Monk and pale
Virgin stand like Saint Francis and his Bride of
Snow; and all around thee are fields, and orchards,
and hamlets green, from which the church-bells
answer each other at evening! The evening

sun was setting when I first beheld thee! The
sun of life will set ere I forget thee! Surely it
was a scene like this, that inspired the soul of the
Swiss poet, in his Song of the Bell!

Paul Flemming alighted at one of the principal
hotels. The landlord came out to meet him.
He had great eyes and a green coat; and reminded
Flemming of the innkeeper mentioned in the
Golden Ass, who had been changed by magic into
a frog, and croaked to his customers from the lees
of a wine-cask. His house, he said, was full;
and so was every house in Interlachen; but, if the
gentleman would walk into the parlour, he would
procure a chamber for him, in the neighbourhood.

On the sofa sat a gentleman, reading; a stout
gentleman of perhaps forty-five, round, ruddy, and
with a head, which, being a little bald on the top,
looked not unlike a crow's nest, with one egg in it.
A good-humored face turned from the book as
Flemming entered; and a good-humored voice
exclaimed;

“Ha! ha! Mr. Flemming! Is it you, or your
apparition! I told you we should meet again!
though you were for taking an eternal farewell of
your fellow-traveller.”

Saying these words, the stout gentleman rose
and shook Flemming heartily by the hand. And
Flemming returned the shake as heartily, recognising
in this ruddy personage, a former travelling
companion, Mr. Berkley, whom he had left, a
week or two previous, toiling up the Righi. Mr.
Berkley was an Englishman of fortune; a good-humored,
humane old bachelor; remarkable alike
for his common sense and his eccentricity. That
is to say, the basis of his character was good,
sound common sense, trodden down and smoothed
by education; but this level groundwork his
strange and whimsical fancy used as a dancing-floor,
whereon to exhibit her eccentric tricks. His
ruling passion was cold-bathing; and he usually
ate his breakfast sitting in a tub of cold water, and
reading a newspaper. He kissed every child he
met; and to every old man, said in passing, “God

bless you!” with such an expression of voice and
countenance, that no one could doubt his sincerity.
He reminded one of Roger Bontemps, or the Little
Man in Gray; though with a difference.

“The last time I had the pleasure of seeing
you, Mr. Berkley,” said Flemming, “was at Goldau,
just as you were going up the Righi. I
hope you were gratified with a fine sunrise on the
mountain top.”

“No, Sir, I was not!” replied Mr. Berkley.
“It is all a humbug! a confounded humbug!
They made such a noise about their sunrise, that
I determined I would not see it. So I lay snug
in bed; and only peeped through the window curtain.
That was enough. Just above the house,
on the top of the hill, stood some fifty half-dressed,
romantic individuals, shivering in the wet grass; and,
a short distance from them, a miserable wretch,
blowing a long, wooden horn. That's your sunrise
on the Righi, is it? said I; and went to sleep
again. The best thing I saw at the Culm, was
the advertisement on the bed-room doors, saying,

that, if the ladies would wear the quilts and
blankets for shawls, when they went out to see the
sunrise, they must pay for the washing. Take
my word for it, the Righi is a great humbug!”

“Where have you been since?”

“At Zurich and Schaffhausen. If you go to
Zurich, beware how you stop at the Raven.
They will cheat you. They cheated me; but I
had my revenge, for, when we reached Schaffhausen,
I wrote in the Traveller's Book;

If you go to the Golden Falken you will find it
there. I am the author of those lines!”

“Bitter as Juvenal!” exclaimed Flemming.

“Not in the least bitter,” said Mr. Berkley.
“It is all true. Go to the Raven and see. But
this Interlachen! this Interlachen! It is the loveliest
spot on the face of the earth,” he continued,
stretching out both arms, as if to embrace the object

of his affection. “There,—only look out
there!”

Here he pointed to the window. Flemming
looked, and beheld a scene of transcendent beauty.
The plain was covered already by the brown shade
of the summer twilight. From the cottage roofs
in Unterseen rose here and there a thin column of
smoke over the tops of the trees and mingled with
the evening shadows. The Valley of Lauterbrunnen
was filled with a blue haze. Far above,
in the clear, cloudless heaven, the white forehead
of the Jungfrau blushed at the last kiss of the
departing sun. It was a glorious Transfiguration
of Nature! And when the village bells began
to ring, and a single voice at a great distance
was heard yodling forth a ballad, it rather broke
than increased the enchantment of a scene, where
silence was more musical than sound.

For a long time they gazed at the gloaming
landscape, and spake not. At length people came
into the parlour, and laid aside their shawls and
hats, and exchanged a word or two with Berkley

To Flemming they were all unknown. To him it
was all Mr. Brown and Mrs. Johnson, and nothing
more. The conversation turned upon the various
excursions of the day. Some had been at the
Staubbach, others at the Grindelwald; others at
the Lake of Thun; and nobody before had ever
experienced half the rapture, which they had experienced
that day. And thus they sat in the
twilight, as people love to do, at the close of a
summer day. As yet the lamps had not been
lighted; and one could not distinguish faces; but
voices only, and forms, like shadows.

Presently a female figure, clothed in black, entered
the room and sat down by the window. She
rather listened to the conversation, than joined in
it; but the few words she said were spoken in a
voice so musical and full of soul, that it moved the
soul of Flemming, like a whisper from heaven.

O, how wonderful is the human voice! It is
indeed the organ of the soul! The intellect of
man sits enthroned visibly upon his forehead and
in his eye; and the heart of man is written upon

his countenance. But the soul reveals itself in
the voice only; as God revealed himself to the
prophet of old in the still, small voice; and in a
voice from the burning bush. The soul of man
is audible, not visible. A sound alone betrays
the flowing of the eternal fountain, invisible to
man!

Flemming would fain have sat and listened for
hours to the sound of that unknown voice. He
felt sure, in his secret heart, that the being from
whom it came was beautiful. His imagination
filled up the faint outline, which the eye beheld in
the fading twilight, and the figure stood already in
his mind, like Raphael's beautiful Madonna in the
Dresden gallery. He was never more mistaken
in his life. The voice belonged to a beautiful being,
it is true; but her beauty was different from
that of any Madonna which Raphael ever painted;
as he would have seen, had he waited till the
lamps were lighted. But in the midst of his reverie
and saint-painting, the landlord came in, and

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

Flemming took his leave and departed. Berkley
went with him, to see, he said, what kind of a nest
his young friend was to sleep in.

“The chamber is not what I could wish,” said
the landlord, as he led them across the street.
“It is in the old cloister. But to-morrow or next
day, you can no doubt have a room at the house.”

The name of the cloister struck Flemming's imagination
pleasantly. He was owl enough to like
ruins and old chambers, where nuns or friars had
slept. And he said to Berkley;

“So, you perceive, my nest is to be in a cloister.
It already makes me think of a bird's-nest
I once saw on an old tower of Heidelberg castle,
built in the jaws of a lion, which formerly served
as a spout. But pray tell me, who was that young
lady, with the soft voice?”

“What young lady with the soft voice?”

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

“O, she is the daughter of an English officer,
who died not long ago at Naples. She is passing
the summer here with her mother, for her health.”

“What is her name?”

“Ashburton.”

“Is she beautiful?”

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

And now they had reached the walls of the
cloister, and passed under an arched gateway, and
close beneath the round towers, which Flemming
had already seen, rising with their cone-shaped
roofs above the trees, like tall tapers, with extinguishers
upon them.

“It is not so bad, as it looks,” said the landlord,
knocking at a small door, in the main building.
“The Bailiff lives in one part of it.”

A servant girl, with a candle in her hand, opened
the door, and conducted Flemming and Berkley
to the chamber which had been engaged. It
was a large room on the lower floor, wainscoted
with pine, and unpainted. Three lofty and narrow

windows, with leaden lattices and small panes, looked
southward towards the valley of Lauterbrunnen
and the mountains. In one corner was a large
square bed, with a tester and checked curtains. In
another, a huge stove of painted tiles, reaching almost
to the ceiling. An old sofa, a few high-backed
antique chairs, and a table, completed the
furniture of the room.

Thus Flemming took possession of his monkish
cell and dormitory. He ordered tea, and began to
feel at home. Berkley passed the evening with
him. On going away he said;

“Good night! I leave you to the care of the
Virgin and all the Saints. If the ghost of any
old monk comes back after his prayer-book, my
compliments to him. If I were a younger man,
you certainly should see a ghost. Good night!”

When he had departed, Flemming opened the
lattice of one of the windows. The moon had risen,
and silvered the dark outline of the nearest
hills; while, afar off, the snowy summits of the
Jungfrau and the Silver-Horn shone like a white

cloud in the sky. Close beneath the windows
was a flower-garden; and the breath of the summer
night came to him with dewy fragrance.
There was a grateful seclusion about the place.
He blessed the happy accident, which gave him
such a lodging, and fell asleep that night thinking
of the nuns, who once had slept in the
same quiet cells; but neither wimpled nun nor
cowled monk appeared to him in his dreams; not
even the face of Mary Ashburton; nor did he hear
her voice.

4. CHAPTER IV.
THE EVENING AND THE MORNING STAR.

Old Froissart tells us, in his Chronicles, that
when King Edward beheld the Countess of Salisbury
at her castle gate, he thought he had never
seen before so noble nor so fair a lady; he was
stricken therewith to the heart with a sparkle of
fine love, that endured long after; he thought no
lady in the world so worthy to be beloved, as she.
And so likewise thought Paul Flemming, when he
beheld the English lady in the fair light of a
summer morning. I will not disguise the truth.
She is my heroine; and I mean to describe her
with great truth and beauty, so that all shall be in
love with her, and I most of all.

Mary Ashburton was in her twentieth summer.
Like the fair maiden Amoret, she was sitting in

the lap of womanhood. They did her wrong,
who said she was not beautiful; and yet

Her face had a wonderful fascination in it. It
was such a calm, quiet face, with the light of the
rising soul shining so peacefully through it. At
times it wore an expression of seriousness,—of
sorrow even; and then seemed to make the very
air bright with what the Italian poets so beautifully
call the lampeggiar dell' angelico riso,—
the lightning of the angelic smile.

And O, those eyes,—those deep, unutterable
eyes, with “down-falling eyelids, full of dreams
and slumber,” and within them a cold, living light,
as in mountain lakes at evening, or in the river of
Paradise, forever gliding,

I dislike an eye that twinkles like a star. Those
only are beautiful which, like the planets, have a
steady, lambent light;—are luminous, but not
sparkling. Such eyes the Greek poets give to the
Immortals. But I forget myself.

The lady's figure was striking. Every step,
every attitude was graceful, and yet lofty, as if
inspired by the soul within. Angels in the old
poetic philosophy have such forms; it was the
soul itself imprinted on the air. And what a soul
was hers! A temple dedicated to Heaven, and,
like the Pantheon at Rome, lighted only from
above. And earthly passions in the form of gods
were no longer there, but the sweet and thoughtful
faces of Christ, and the Virgin Mary, and the
Saints. Thus there was not one discordant thing
in her; but a perfect harmony of figure, and face,
and soul, in a word of the whole being. And he
who had a soul to comprehend hers, must of
necessity love her, and, having once loved her,
could love no other woman forevermore.

No wonder, then, that Flemming felt his heart

drawn towards her, as, in her morning walk, she
passed him, sitting alone under the great walnut
trees near the cloister, and thinking of Heaven,
but not of her. She, too, was alone. Her cheek
was no longer pale; but glowing and bright, with
the inspiration of the summer air. Flemming
gazed after her till she disappeared, even as a
vision of his dreams, he knew not whither. He
was not yet in love, but very near it; for he
thanked God, that he had made such beautiful
beings to walk the earth.

Last night he had heard a voice to which his
soul responded; and he might have gone on his
way, and taken no farther heed. But he would
have heard that voice afterwards, whenever at
evening he thought of this evening at Interlachen.
To-day he had seen more clearly the vision, and
his restless soul calm. The place seemed
pleasant to him; and he could not go. He did
not ask himself whence came this calm. He felt
it; and was happy in the feeling; and blessed the

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

“A pleasant morning dream to you;” said a
friendly voice; and at the same moment some one
laid his hand upon Flemming's shoulder. It was
Berkley. He had approached unseen and unheard.

“I see by the smile on your countenance,” he
continued, “that it is no day-incubus.”

“You are right,” replied Flemming. “It was
a pleasant dream, which you have put to flight.”

“And I am glad to see, that you have also put
to flight the gloomy thoughts which used to haunt
you. I like to see people cheerful and happy.
What is the use of giving way to sadness in this
beautiful world?”

“Ah! this beautiful world!” said Flemming,
with a smile. “Indeed, I know not what to think
of it. Sometimes it is all gladness and sunshine,
and Heaven itself lies not far off. And then it
changes suddenly; and is dark and sorrowful, and
clouds shut out the sky. In the lives of the saddest

of us, there are bright days like this, when
we feel as if we could take the great world in our
arms and kiss it. Then come the gloomy hours,
when the fire will neither burn on our hearths nor
in our hearts; and all without and within is dismal,
cold, and dark. Believe me, every heart has
its secret sorrows, which the world knows not,
and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is
only sad.”

“And who says we don't?” interrupted Berkley.
“Come, come! Let us go to breakfast.
The morning air has given me a rude appetite. I
long to say grace over a fresh egg; and eat salt
with my worst enemies; namely, the Cockneys at
the hotel. After breakfast you must give yourself
up wholly to me. I shall take you to the
Grindelwald!”

“To-day, then, you do not breakfast like Diogenes,
but consent to leave your tub.”

“Yes, for the pleasure of your company. I
shall also blow out the light in my lantern, having
found you.”

“Thank you.”

The breakfast passed without any unusual occurrence.
Flemming watched the entrance of
every guest; but she came not,—the guest he
most desired to see.

“And now for the Grindelwald!” said Berkley.

“Why such haste? We have the whole day
before us. There is time enough.”

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

They drove up the valley of Lauterbrunnen, and
turned eastward among the mountains of the
Grindelwald. There they passed the day; half-frozen
by the icy breath of the Great Glacier,
upon whose surface stand pyramids and blocks of
ice, like the tombstones of a cemetery. It was a
weary day to Flemming. He wished himself at
Interlachen; and was glad when, towards evening,
he saw once more the cone-roofed towers of the
cloister rising above the walnut trees.

That evening is written in red letters in his
history. It gave him another revelation of the

beauty and excellence of the female character and
intellect; not wholly new to him, yet now renewed
and fortified. It was from the lips of Mary
Ashburton, that the revelation came. Her form
arose, like a tremulous evening star, in the firmament
of his soul. He conversed with her; and
with her alone; and knew not when to go. All
others were to him as if they were not there. He
saw their forms, but saw them as the forms of inanimate
things. At length her mother came; and
Flemming beheld in her but another Mary Ashburton,
with beauty more mature;—the same forehead
and eyes, the same majestic figure; and, as
yet, no trace of age. He gazed upon her with a
feeling of delight, not unmingled with holy awe.
She was to him the rich and glowing Evening,
from whose bosom the tremulous star was born.

Berkley took no active part in the conversation,
but did what was much more to the purpose, that
it is to say, arranged a drive for the next day with
the Ashburtons, and of course invited Flemming,
who went home that night with a halo round his

head; and wondering much at a dandy, who stood
at the door of the hotel, and said to his companion,
as Flemming passed;

“What do you call this place? I have been
here two hours already, and find it devilish dull!”

5. CHAPTER V.
A RAINY DAY.

When Flemming awoke the next morning he
saw the sky dark and lowering. From the mountain
tops hung a curtain of mist, whose heavy folds
waved to and fro in the valley below. Over all
the landscape, the soft, summer rain was falling.
No admiring eyes would look up that day at the
Staubbach.

A rainy day in Switzerland puts a sudden stop
to many diversions. The coachman may drive to
the tavern and then back to the stable; but no
farther. The sunburnt guide may sit at the ale-house
door, and welcome; and the boatman whistle
and curse the clouds, at his own sweet will;
but no foot stirs abroad for all that; no traveller
moves, if he has time to stay. The rainy day

gives him time for reflection. He has leisure now
to take cognizance of his impressions, and make
up his account with the mountains. He remembers,
too, that he has friends at home; and writes
up the Journal, neglected for a week or more;
and letters neglected longer; or finishes the rough
pencil-sketch, begun yesterday in the open air.
On the whole he is not sorry it rains; though disappointed.

Flemming was both sorry and disappointed;
but he did not on that account fail to go over to
the Ashburtons at the appointed hour. He found
them sitting in the parlour. The mother was
reading, and the daughter retouching a sketch of
the Lake of Thun. After the usual salutations,
Flemming seated himself near the daughter, and
said;

“We shall have no Staubbach to-day, I presume;
only this Giessbach from the clouds.”

“Nothing more, I suppose. So we must be
content to stay in-doors; and listen to the sound

of the eves-dropping rain. It gives me time to
finish some of these rough sketches.”

“It is a pleasant pastime,” said Flemming;
“and I perceive you are very skilful. I am delighted
to see, that you can draw a straight line. I never
before saw a lady's sketch-book, in which all the
towers did not resemble the leaning Tower of
Pisa. I always tremble for the little men under
them.”

“How absurd!” exclaimed Mary Ashburton,
with a smile that passed through the misty air of
Flemming's thoughts, like a sunbeam; “For one,
I succeed much better in straight lines than in any
others. Here I have been trying a half-hour to
make this water-wheel round; and round it never
will be.”

“Then let it remain as it is. It looks uncommonly
picturesque, and may pass for a new invention.”

The lady continued to sketch, and Flemming to
gaze at her beautiful face; often repeating to himself
those lines in Marlow's Faust;

He certainly would have betrayed himself to
the maternal eye of Mrs. Ashburton, had she not
been wholly absorbed in the follies of a fashionable
novel. Ere long the fair sketcher had paused for
a moment; and Flemming had taken her sketch-book
in his hands and was looking it through from
the beginning with ever-increasing delight, half of
which he dared not express, though he favored
her with some comments and bursts of admiration.

“This is truly a very beautiful sketch of Murten
and the battle-field! How quietly the land-scape
sleeps there by the lake, after the battle!
Did you ever read the ballad of Veit Weber, the
shoe-maker, on this subject? He says, the routed
Burgundians jumped into the lake, and the Swiss
Leaguers shot them down like wild ducks among
the reeds. He fought in the battle and wrote the
ballad afterwards;—

“You must give me the whole ballad,” said Miss
Ashburton; “it will serve to illustrate the sketch.”

“And the sketch to illustrate the ballad. And
now we suddenly slide down the Alps into Italy,
and are even in Rome, if I mistake not. This is
surely a head of Homer?”

“Yes,” replied the lady, with a little enthusiasm.
“Do you not remember the marble bust at
Rome? When I first beheld that bust, it absolutely
inspired me with awe. It is not the face of
a man, but of a god!”

“And you have done it no injustice in your
copy,” said Flemming, catching a new enthusiasm
from hers. “With what a classic grace the fillet,
passing round the majestic forehead, confines his
flowing locks, which mingle with his beard! The
countenance, too, is calm, majestic, godlike! Even
the fixed and sightless eyeballs do not mar the image

of the seer! Such were the sightless eyes of
the blind old man of Chios. They seem to look
with mournful solemnity into the mysterious future;
and the marble lips to repeat that prophetic passage
in the Hymn to Apollo; `Let me also hope
to be remembered in ages to come. And when
any one, born of the tribes of men, comes hither,
a weary traveller, and inquires, who is the sweetest
of the Singing Men, that resort to your feasts,
and whom you most delight to hear, do you make
answer for me. It is the Blind Man, who dwells
in Chios; his songs excel all that can ever be
sung!' But do you really believe, that this is a
portrait of Homer?”

“Certainly not! It is only an artist's dream.
It was thus, that Homer appeared to him in his
visions of the antique world. Every one, you
know, forms an image in his fancy of persons and
things he has never seen; and the artist reproduces
them in marble or on canvass.”

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

“No; not entirely. I have drawn my impressions
from another source. Whenever I think of
Homer, which is not often, he walks before me,
solemn and serene, as in the vision of the great
Italian; in countenance neither sorrowful nor glad,
followed by other bards, and holding in his right
hand a sword!”

“That is a finer conception, than even this,”
said Flemming. “And I perceive from your
words, as well as from this book, that you have a
true feeling for art, and understand what it is.
You have had bright glimpses into the enchanted
land.”

“I trust,” replied the lady modestly, “that I
am not wholly without this feeling. Certainly I
have as strong and passionate a love of Art as of
Nature.”

“But does it not often offend you to hear people
speaking of Art and Nature as opposite and discordant
things? Surely nothing can be more false.
Nature is a revelation of God; Art a revelation of
man. Indeed, Art signifies no more than this.

Art is Power. That is the original meaning of the
word. It is the creative power by which the soul
of man makes itself known, through some external
manifestation or outward sign. As we can always
hear the voice of God, walking in the garden,
in the cool of the day, or under the star-light,
where, to quote one of this poet's verses, `high
prospects and the brows of all steep hills and pinnacles
thrust up themselves for shows';—so,
under the twilight and the starlight of past ages,
do we hear the voice of man, walking amid the
works of his hands, and city walls and towers and
the spires of churches, thrust up themselves for
shows.”

The lady smiled at his warmth; and he continued;

“This, however, is but a similitude; and Art
and Nature are more nearly allied than by similitudes
only. Art is the revelation of man; and
not merely that, but likewise the revelation of Nature,
speaking through man. Art preëxists in Nature,
and Nature is reproduced in Art. As vapors

from the ocean, floating landward and dissolved in
rain, are carried back in rivers to the ocean, so
thoughts and the semblances of things that fall
upon the soul of man in showers, flow out again
in living streams of Art, and lose themselves in
the great ocean, which is Nature. Art and Nature
are not, then, discordant, but ever harmoniously
working in each other.”

Enthusiasm begets enthusiasm. Flemming spake
with such evident interest in the subject, that Miss
Ashburton did not fail to manifest some interest
in what he said; and, encouraged by this, he proceeded;

“Thus in this wondrous world wherein we live,
which is the World of Nature, man has made
unto himself another world hardly less wondrous,
which is the World of Art. And it lies infolded
and compassed about by the other,

Taking this view of art, I think we understand
more easily the skill of the artist, and the difference
between him and the mere amateur. What
we call miracles and wonders of art are not so to
him who created them. For they were created
by the natural movements of his own great soul.
Statues, paintings, churches, poems, are but shadows
of himself;—shadows in marble, colors,
stone, words. He feels and recognises their beauty;
but he thought these thoughts and produced
these things as easily as inferior minds do thoughts
and things inferior. Perhaps more easily. Vague
images and shapes of beauty floating through the
soul, the semblances of things as yet indefinite or
ill-defined, and perfect only when put in art,—this
Possible Intellect, as the Scholastic Philosophers
have termed it,—the artist shares in common with
us all. The lovers of art are many. But the Active
Intellect, the creative power,—the power to
put these shapes and images in art, to imbody the
indefinite, and render perfect, is his alone. He
shares the gift with few. He knows not even
whence nor how this is. He knows only that it
is; that God has given him the power, which
has been denied to others.”

“I should have known you were just from Germany,”
said the lady, with a smile, “even if you
had not told me so. You are an enthusiast for the
Germans. For my part I cannot endure their
harsh language.”

“You would like it better, if you knew it better,”
answered Flemming. “It is not harsh to
me; but homelike, hearty, and full of feeling, like
the sound of happy voices at a fireside, of a winter's
night, when the wind blows, and the fire
crackles, and hisses, and snaps. I do indeed love
the Germans; the men are so hale and hearty,
and the Fräuleins so tender and true!”

“I always think of men with pipes and beer,
and women with knittingwork.”

“O, those are English prejudices,” exclaimed
Flemming. “Nothing can be more—”

“And their very literature presents itself to my
imagination under the same forms.”

“I see you have read only English criticisms;
and have an idea, that all German books smell, as
it were, `of groceries, of brown papers, filled with

greasy cakes and slices of bacon; and of fryings in
frowzy back-parlours; and this shuts you out from
a glorious world of poetry, romance, and dreams!”

Mary Ashburton smiled, and Flemming continued
to turn over the leaves of the sketch-book,
with an occasional criticism and witticism. At
length he came to a leaf which was written in
pencil. People of a lively imagination are generally
curious, and always so when a little in love.

“Here is a pencil-sketch,” said he, with an entreating
look, “which I would fain examine with
the rest.”

“You may do so, if you wish; but you will
find it the poorest sketch in the book. I was trying
one day to draw the picture of an artist's life
in Rome, as it presented itself to my imagination;
and this is the result. Perhaps it may awaken
some pleasant recollection in your mind.”

Flemming waited no longer; but read with the
eyes of a lover, not of a critic, the following description,
which inspired him with a new enthusiasm
for Art, and for Mary Ashburton.

“I often reflect with delight upon the young
artist's life in Rome. A stranger from the cold
and gloomy North, he has crossed the Alps, and
with the devotion of a pilgrim journeyed to the
Eternal City. He dwells perhaps upon the Pincian
Hill; and hardly a house there, which is not
inhabited by artists from foreign lands. The very
room he lives in has been their abode from time
out of mind. Their names are written all over
the walls; perhaps some further record of them
left in a rough sketch upon the window-shutter,
with an inscription and a date. These things consecrate
the place, in his imagination. Even
these names, though unknown to him, are not
without associations in his mind.

“In that warm latitude he rises with the day.
The night-vapors are already rolling away over
the Campagna sea-ward. As he looks from his
window, above and beyond their white folds he
recognises the tremulous blue sea at Ostia. Over
Soracte rises the sun,—over his own beloved
mountain; though no longer worshipped there, as

of old. Before him, the antique house, where
Raphael lived, casts its long, brown shadow down
into the heart of modern Rome. The city lies still
asleep and silent. But above its dark roofs, more
than two hundred steeples catch the sunshine on
their gilded weather-cocks. Presently the bells begin
to ring, and, as the artist listens to their pleasant
chimes, he knows that in each of those churches
over the high altar, hangs a painting by some great
master's hand, whose beauty comes between him
and heaven, so that he cannot pray, but wonder
only.

“Among these works of art he passes the day;
but oftenest in St. Peter's and the Vatican. Up
the vast marble stair-case,—through the Corridor
Chiaramonti,—through vestibules, galleries, chambers,—he
passes, as in a dream. All are filled
with busts and statues; or painted in daring
frescoes. What forms of strength and beauty!
what glorious creations of the human mind! and
in that last chamber of all, standing alone upon his
pedestal, the Apollo found at Actium,—in such a

majestic attitude,—with such a noble countenance,
life-like, god-like!

“Or perhaps he passes into the chambers of the
painters; but goes no further than the second.
For in the middle of that chamber a large painting
stands upon the heavy easel, as if unfinished,
though more than three hundred years ago the
great artist completed it, and then laid his pencil
away forever, leaving this last benediction to the
world. It is the Transfiguration of Christ by Raphael.
A child looks not at the stars with greater
wonder, than the artist at this painting. He knows
how many studious years are in that picture. He
knows the difficult path that leads to perfection,
having himself taken some of the first steps.
—Thus he recalls the hour, when that broad canvass
was first stretched upon its frame, and Raphael
stood before it, and laid the first colors upon it,
and beheld the figures one by one born into life,
and `looked upon the work of his own hands with
a smile, that it should have succeeded so well.'
He recalls too, the hour, when, the task accomplished,

the pencil dropped from the master's dying
hand, and his eyes closed to open on a more
glorious transfiguration, and at length the dead Raphael
lay in his own studio, before this wonderful
painting, more glorious than any conqueror under
the banners and armorial hatchments of his funeral!

“Think you, that such sights and thoughts as
these do not move the heart of a young man and
an artist! And when he goes forth into the open
air, the sun is going down, and the gray ruins of
an antique world receive him. From the Palace
of the Cæsars he looks down into the Forum, or
towards the Coliseum; or westward sees the last
sunshine strike the bronze Archangel, which stands
upon the Tomb of Adrian. He walks amid a
world of Art in ruins. The very street-lamps,
that light him homeward, burn before some painted
or sculptured image of the Madonna! What
wonder is it, if dreams visit him in his sleep,—
nay, if his whole life seem to him a dream! What
wonder, if, with a feverish heart and quick hand,

he strive to reproduce those dreams in marble or
on canvass.”

Foolish Paul Flemming! who both admired
and praised this little sketch, and yet was too blind
to see, that it was written from the heart, and not
from the imagination! Foolish Paul Flemming!
who thought, that a girl of twenty could write
thus, without a reason! Close upon this followed
another pencil sketch, which he likewise read, with
the lady's permission. It was this.

“The whole period of the Middle Ages seems
very strange to me. At times I cannot persuade
myself that such things could have been, as history
tells us; that such a strange world was a part of
our world,—that such a strange life was a part
of the life, which seems to us who are living it
now, so passionless and commonplace. It is only
when I stand amid ruined castles, that look at me
so mournfully, and behold the heavy armour of
old knights, hanging upon the wainscot of Gothic
chambers; or when I walk amid the aisles of
some dusky minster, whose walls are narrative of

hoar antiquity, and whose very bells have been
baptized, and see the carved oaken stalls in the
choir, where so many generations of monks have
sat and sung, and the tombs, where now they sleep
in silence, to awake no more to their midnight
psalms;—it is only at such times, that the history
of the Middle Ages is a reality to me, and
not a passage in romance.

“Likewise the illuminated manuscripts of those
ages have something of this power of making the
dead Past a living Present in my mind. What
curious figures are emblazoned on the creaking
parchment, making its yellow leaves laugh with
gay colors! You seem to come upon them unawares.
Their faces have an expression of wonder.
They seem all to be just startled from their
sleep by the sound you made when you unloosed
the brazen clasps, and opened the curiously-carved
oaken covers, that turn on hinges, like the great
gates of a city. To the building of that city some
diligent monk gave the whole of a long life. With
what strange denizens he peopled it! Adam and

Eve standing under a tree, she, with the apple in
her hand;—the patriarch Abraham, with a tree
growing out of his body, and his descendants sitting
owl-like upon its branches;—ladies with
flowing locks of gold; knights in armour, with
most fantastic, long-toed shoes; jousts and tournaments;
and Minnesingers, and lovers, whose heads
reach to the towers, where their ladies sit;—
and all so angular, so simple, so childlike,—all in
such simple attitudes, with such great eyes, and
holding up such long, lank fingers!—These things
are characteristic of the Middle Ages, and persuade
me of the truth of history.”

At this moment Berkley entered, with a Swiss
cottage, which he had just bought as a present for
somebody's child in England; and a cane with a
chamois-horn on the end of it, which he had just
bought for himself. This was the first time,
that Flemming had been sorry to see the good-natured
man. His presence interrupted the delightful
conversation he was carrying on “under
four eyes,” with Mary Ashburton. He really

thought Berkley a bore, and wondered it had
never occurred to him before. Mrs. Ashburton,
too, must needs lay down her book; and the conversation
became general. Strange to say, the
Swiss dinner-hour of one o'clock, did not come a
moment too soon for Flemming. It did not even
occur to him that it was early; for he was seated
beside Mary Ashburton, and at dinner one can
say so much, without being overheard.

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

When the learned Thomas Diafoirus wooed
the fair Angélique, he drew from his pocket a
medical thesis, and presented it to her, as the
first-fruits of his genius; and at the same time,
invited her, with her father's permission, to attend
the dissection of a woman, upon whom he was to
lecture. Paul Flemming did nearly the same
thing; and so often, that it had become a habit.
He was continually drawing, from his pocket or his
memory, some scrap of song or story; and inviting
some fair Angélique, either with her father's permission
or without, to attend the dissection of an

author, upon whom he was to discourse. He
soon gave proofs of this to Mary Ashburton.

“What books have we here for afternoon reading?”
said Flemming, taking a volume from the
parlour table, when they had returned from the
dining-room. “O, it is Uhland's Poems. Have
you read any thing of his? He and Tieck are
the best living poets of Germany. They dispute
the palm of superiority. Let me give you a lesson
in German, this afternoon, Miss Ashburton;
so that no one may accuse you of `omitting the
sweet benefit of time, to clothe your age with
angel-like perfection.' I have opened at random
upon the ballad of the Black Knight. You repeat
the German after me, and I will translate to
you. Pfingsten war, das Fest der Freude!”

“I should never persuade my unwilling lips to
pronounce such sounds. So I beg you not to
perplex me with your German, but read me the
ballad in English.”

“Well, then, listen. I will improvise a translation
for your own particular benefit.

“That is indeed a striking ballad!” said Miss
Ashburton, “but rather too grim and ghostly for
this dull afternoon.”

“It begins joyously enough with the feast of
Pentecost, and the crimson banners at the old
castle. Then the contrast is well managed.
The Knight in black mail, and the waving
in of the mighty shadow in the dance, and the
dropping of the faded flowers, are all strikingly
presented to the imagination. However, it tells

its own story, and needs no explanation. Here is
something in a different vein, though still melancholy.
The Castle by the Sea. Shall I
read it?”

“Yes, if you like.”

Flemming read;

How do you like that?”

“It is very graceful, and pretty. But Uhland
seems to leave a great deal to his reader's imagination.
All his readers should be poets themselves,
or they will hardly comprehend him. I confess, I

hardly understand the passage where he speaks of
the castle's stooping downward to the mirrored
wave below, and then soaring upward into the
gleaming sky. I suppose, however, he wishes to
express the momentary illusion we experience at
beholding a perfect reflection of an old tower in
the sea, and look at it as if it were not a mere
shadow in the water; and yet the real tower rises
far above, and seems to float in the crimson evening
clouds. Is that the meaning?”

“I should think it was. To me it is all a
beautiful cloud landscape, which I comprehend
and feel, and yet should find some difficulty perhaps
in explaining.”

“And why need one always explain? Some
feelings are quite untranslatable. No language
has yet been found for them. They gleam upon
us beautifully through the dim twilight of fancy,
and yet, when we bring them close to us, and
hold them up to the light of reason, lose their
beauty, all at once; just as glow-worms, which
gleam with such a spiritual light in the shadows
of evening, when brought in where the candles

are lighted, are found to be only worms, like so
many others.”

“Very true. We ought sometimes to be content
with feeling. Here, now, is an exquisite
piece, which soothes one like the fall of evening
shadows,—like the dewy coolness of twilight after
a sultry day. I shall not give you a bald translation
of my own, because I have laid up in my
memory another, which, though not very literal,
equals the original in beauty. Observe how finely
it commences.

“O, that is beautiful,—`beautiful exceedingly!'
Who translated it?”

“I do not know. I wish I could find him out.
It is certainly admirably done; though in the
measure of the original there is something like the
rocking motion of a boat, which is not preserved
in the translation.”

“And is Uhland always so soothing and spiritual?”

“Yes, he generally looks into the spirit-world.

I am now trying to find here a little poem on the
Death of a Country Clergyman; in which he introduces
a beautiful picture. But I cannot turn to
it. No matter. He describes the spirit of the
good old man, returning to earth on a bright
summer morning, and standing amid the golden
corn and the red and blue flowers, and mildly
greeting the reapers as of old. The idea is beautiful,
is it not?”

“Yes, very beautiful!”

“But there is nothing morbid in Uhland's mind.
He is always fresh and invigorating, like a breezy
morning. In this he differs entirely from such writers
as Salis and Matthisson.”

“And who are they?”

“Two melancholy gentlemen to whom life was
only a Dismal Swamp, upon whose margin they
walked with cambric handkerchiefs in their hands,
sobbing and sighing, and making signals to Death,
to come and ferry them over the lake. And now
their spirits stand in the green fields of German
song, like two weeping-willows, bending over a

grave. To read their poems, is like wandering
through a village churchyard on a summer evening,
reading the inscription upon the grave-stones,
and recalling sweet images of the departed; while
above you,

“How musically those lines flow! Are they
Matthisson's!”

“Yes; and they do indeed flow musically. I
wish I had his poems here. I should like to read
to you his Elegy on the Ruins of an Ancient
Castle. It is an imitation of Gray's Elegy. You
have been at Baden-Baden?

“Yes; last summer.”

“And have not forgotten—”

“The old castle? Of course not. What a
magnificent ruin it is!”

“That is the scene of Matthisson's Poem, and

seems to have filled the melancholy bard with
more than wonted inspiration.”

“I should like very much to see the poem, I
remember that old ruin with so much delight.”

“I am sorry I have not a translation of it for
you. Instead of it I will give you a sweet and
mournful poem from Salis. It is called the Song
of the Silent Land.

Is not that a beautiful poem?”

Mary Ashburton made no answer. She had
turned away to hide her tears. Flemming wondered,
that Berkley could say she was not beautiful.
Still he was rather pleased than offended at
it. He felt at that moment how sweet a thing it
would be to possess one, who should seem beautiful
to him alone, and yet to him be more beautiful
than all the world beside! How bright the world
became to him at that thought! It was like one
of those paintings in which all the light streams
from the face of the Virgin. O, there is nothing
holier in this life of ours, than the first consciousness
of love,—the first fluttering of its silken
wings; the first rising sound and breath of that

wind, which is so soon to sweep through the soul,
to purify or to destroy!

Old histories tell us, that the great Emperor
Charlemagne stamped his edicts with the hilt of
his sword. The greater Emperor, Death, stamps
his with the blade; and they are signed and executed
with the same stroke. Flemming received
that night a letter from Heidelberg, which told
him, that Emma of Ilmenau was dead. The fate
of this poor girl affected him deeply; and he said
in his heart;

“Father in Heaven! Why was the lot of
this weak and erring child so hard! What had
she done, to be so tempted in her weakness, and
perish? Why didst thou suffer her gentle affections
to lead her thus astray?”

And, through the silence of the awful midnight,
the voice of an avalanche answered from the distant
mountains, and seemed to say;

“Peace! peace! Why dost thou question
God's providence!”

7. CHAPTER VII.
TAKE CARE!

Fair is the valley of Lauterbrunnen with its
green meadows and overhanging cliffs. The ruined
castle of Unspunnen stands like an armed warder
at the gate of the enchanted land. In calm serenity
the snowy mountains rise beyond. Fairer
than the Rock of Balmarusa, you frowning precipice
looks down upon us; and, from the topmost
cliff, the white pennon of the Brook of Dust shimmers
and waves in the sunny air!

It was a bright, beautiful morning after night-rain.
Every dewdrop and raindrop had a whole
heaven within it; and so had the heart of Paul
Flemming, as, with Mrs. Ashburton and her dark-eyed
daughter, he drove up the Valley of Lauter-brunnen,—the
Valley of Fountains-Only.

“How beautiful the Jungfrau looks this morning!”
exclaimed he, looking at Mary Ashburton.

She thought he meant the mountain, and assented.
But he meant her likewise.

“And the mountains, beyond,” he continued;
“the Monk and the Silver-horn, the Wetter-horn
the Schreck-horn, and the Schwarz-horn, all those
sublime apostles of Nature, whose sermons are
avalanches! Did you ever behold anything more
grand!”

“O yes. Mont Blanc is more grand, when
you behold it from the hills opposite. It was there
that I was most moved by the magnificence of
Swiss scenery. It was a morning like this; and
the clouds, that were hovering about on their huge,
shadowy wings, made the scene only the more magnificent.
Before me lay the whole panorama of
the Alps; pine forests standing dark and solemn at
the base of the mountains; and half-way up a veil
of mist; above which rose the snowy summits,
and sharp needles of rock, which seemed to float
in the air, like a fairy world. Then the glaciers

stood on either side, winding down through the
mountain ravines; and, high above all, rose the
white, dome-like summit of Mont Blanc. And
ever and anon from the shroud of mist came the
awful sound of an avalanche, and a continual roar,
as of the wind through a forest of pines, filled the
air. It was the roar of the Arve and Aveiron,
breaking from their icy fountains. Then the mists
began to pass away; and it seemed as if the whole
firmament were rolling together. It recalled to
my mind that sublime passage in the Apocalypse;
`I saw a great white throne; and him that sat thereon;
before whose face the heavens and the earth
fled away, and found no place!' O, I cannot believe
that upon this earth there is a more magnificent
scene.”

“It must be grand, indeed,” replied Flemming.
“And those mighty glaciers,—huge monsters with
bristling crests, creeping down into the valley! for
it is said they really move.”

“Yes; it filled me with a strange sensation of
awe to think of this. They seemed to me like

the dragons of Northern Romance, which come
down from the mountains and devour whole villages.
A little hamlet in Chamouni was once
abandoned by its inhabitants, terrified at the approach
of the icy dragon. But is it possible you
have never been at Chamouni?

“Never. The great marvel still remains unseen
by me.”

“Then how can you linger here so long? Were
I in your place I would not lose an hour.”

These words passed over the opening blossoms
of hope in the soul of Flemming, like a cold wind
over the flowers in spring-time. He bore it as best
he could, and changed the subject.

I do not mean to describe the Valley of Lauterbrunnen,
nor the bright day passed there. I know
that my gentle reader is blessed with the divine
gift of a poetic fancy; and can see already how
the mountains rise, and the torrents fall, and the
sweet valley lies between; and how, along the dusty
road, the herdsman blows his horn, and travellers
come and go in charabans, like Punch and

Judy in a show-box. He knows already how romantic
ladies sketch romantic scenes; while
sweet gentlemen gather sweet flowers; and how
cold meat tastes under the shadow of trees, and
how time flies when we are in love, and the beloved
one near. One little incident I must, however,
mention, lest his fancy should not suggest it.

Flemming was still sitting with the ladies, on
the green slope near the Staubbach, or Brook of
Dust, when a young man clad in green, came
down the valley. It was a German student, with
flaxen ringlets hanging over his shoulders, and a
guitar in his hand. His step was free and elastic,
and his countenance wore the joyous expression of
youth and health. He approached the company
with a courteous salutation; and, after the manner
of travelling students, asked charity with the confident
air of one unaccustomed to refusal. Nor
was he refused in this instance. The presence of
those we love makes us compassionate and generous.
Flemming gave him a piece of gold; and
after a short conversation he seated himself, at a

little distance on the grass, and began to play and
sing. Wonderful and many were the sweet accords
and plaintive sounds that came from that little
instrument, touched by the student's hand.
Every feeling of the human heart seemed to find
an expression there, and awaken a kindred feeling
in the hearts of those who heard him. He sang
sweet German songs, so full of longing, and of
pleasing sadness, and hope and fear, and passionate
desire, and soul-subduing sorrow, that the tears
came into Mary Ashburton's eyes, though she understood
not the words he sang. Then his countenance
glowed with triumph, and he beat the
strings like a drum, and sang;

Many were the words of praise, when the young
musician ended; and, as he rose to depart, they
still entreated for one song more. Whereupon he
played a lively prelude; and, looking full into
Flemming's face, sang with a pleasant smile, and
still in German, this little song.

The last stanza he sung in a laughing, triumphant
tone, which resounded above the loud clang
of his guitar, like the jeering laugh of Till Eulenspiegel.
Then slinging his guitar over his
shoulder, he took off his green cap, and made a
leg to the ladies, in the style of Gil Blas; waved
his hand in the air, and walked quickly down the
valley, singing “Adé! Adé! Adé!”

8. CHAPTER VIII.
THE FOUNTAIN OF OBLIVION.

The power of magic in the Middle Ages created
monsters, who followed the unhappy magician
everywhere. The power of Love in all ages
creates angels, who likewise follow the happy or
unhappy lover everywhere, even in his dreams.
By such an angel was Paul Flemming now haunted,
both when he waked and when he slept. He
walked as in a dream; and was hardly conscious
of the presence of those around him. A sweet
face looked at him from every page of every book
he read; and it was the face of Mary Ashburton!
a sweet voice spake to him in every sound he
heard; and it was the voice of Mary Ashburton!
Day and night succeeded each other, with pleasant
interchange of light and darkness; but to him the

passing of time was only as a dream. When he
arose in the morning, he thought only of her, and
wondered if she were yet awake; and when he
lay down at night he thought only of her, and
how, like the Lady Christabel,
And the livelong day he was with her, either in
reality or in day-dreams, hardly less real; for, in
each delirious vision of his waking hours, her beauteous
form passed like the form of Beatrice through
Dante's heaven; and, as he lay in the summer afternoon,
and heard at times the sound of the wind
in the trees, and the sound of Sabbath bells ascending
up to heaven, holy wishes and prayers ascended
with them from his inmost soul, beseeching
that he might not love in vain! And whenever, in
silence and alone, he looked into the silent, lonely
countenance of Night, he recalled the impassioned
lines of Plato;—
O how beautiful it is to love! Even thou, that
sneerest at this page, and laughest in cold indifference
or scorn if others are near thee, thou, too,
must acknowledge its truth when thou art alone;
and confess, that a foolish world is prone to laugh
in public, at what in private it reverences, as one
of the highest impulses of our nature,—namely,
Love!

One by one the objects of our affection depart
from us. But our affections remain, and like vines
stretch forth their broken, wounded tendrils for
support. The bleeding heart needs a balm to heal
it; and there is none but the love of its kind,—
none but the affection of a human heart! Thus
the wounded, broken affections of Flemming began
to lift themselves from the dust and cling
around this new object. Days and weeks passed;
and, like the Student Crisostomo, he ceased to love
because he began to adore. And with this adoration
mingled the prayer, that, in that hour when
the world is still, and the voices that praise are
mute, and reflection cometh like twilight, and the

maiden, in her day-dreams, counted the number of
her friends, some voice in the sacred silence of her
thoughts might whisper his name! And was it
indeed so? Did any voice in the sacred silence of
her thoughts whisper his name?—We shall soon
learn.

They were sitting together one morning, on the
green, flowery meadow, under the ruins of Burg
Unspunnen. She was sketching the ruins. The
birds were singing one and all, as if there were no
aching hearts, no sin nor sorrow, in the world. So
motionless was the bright air, that the shadow of
the trees lay engraven on the grass. The distant
snow-peaks sparkled in the sun, and nothing frowned,
save the square tower of the old ruin above
them.

“What a pity it is,” said the lady, as she stopped
to rest her weary fingers; “what a pity it is,
that there is no old tradition connected with this
ruin.”

“I will make you one, if you wish,” said
Flemming.

“Can you make old traditions?”

“O yes; I made three the other day for the
Rhine, and one very old one for the Black Forest.
A lady with dishevelled hair; a robber with a horrible
slouched hat; and a night-storm among the
roaring pines.”

“Delightful! Do make one for me.”

“With the greatest pleasure. Where will you
have the scene? Here, or in the Black Forest?”

“In the Black Forest, by all means? Begin.”

“First promise not to interrupt me. If you
snap the golden threads of thought, they will float
away on the air like gossamer threads, and I shall
never be able to recover them.”

“I promise.”

“Listen, then, to the Tradition of `The Fountain
of Oblivion.' ”

“Begin.”

Flemming was reclining on the flowery turf,
at the lady's feet, looking up with dreamy eyes
into her sweet face, and then into the leaves of
the linden-trees overhead.

“Gentle Lady! Dost thou remember the
linden-trees of Bülach, those tall and stately
trees, with velvet down upon their shining leaves
and rustic benches underneath their overhanging
eaves! A leafy dwelling, fit to be the home of
elf or fairy, where first I told my love to thee,
thou cold and stately Hermione! A little peasant
girl stood near, and listened all the while, with
eyes of wonder and delight, and an unconscious
smile, to hear the stranger still speak on in accents
deep yet mild,—none else was with us in that
hour, save God and that peasant child!”

“Why, it is in rhyme!”

“No, no! the rhyme is only in your imagination.
You promised not to interrupt me, and you
have already snapped asunder the gossamer threads
of as sweet a dream as was ever spun from a
poet's brain.”

“It certainly did rhyme!”

“This was the reverie of the Student Hieronymus,
as he sat at midnight in his chamber, with
his hands clasped together, and resting upon an

open volume, which he should have been reading.
His pale face was raised, and the pupils of his
eyes dilated as if the spirit-world were open before
him, and some beauteous vision were standing
there, and drawing the student's soul through his
eyes up into Heaven, as the evening sun through
parting summer-clouds, seems to draw into its
bosom the vapors of the earth. O, it was a sweet
vision! I can see it before me now!

“Near the student stood an antique bronze
lamp, with strange figures carved upon it. It
was a magic lamp, which once belonged to the
Arabian astrologer El Geber, in Spain. Its light
was beautiful as the light of stars; and, night after
night, as the lonely wight sat alone and read in
his lofty tower, through the mist, and mirk, and
dropping rain, it streamed out into the darkness,
and was seen by many wakeful eyes. To the
poor Student Hieronymus it was a wonderful Aladdin's
Lamp; for in its flame a Divinity revealed
herself unto him, and showed him treasures.
Whenever he opened a ponderous, antiquated

tome, it seemed as if some angel opened for him
the gates of Paradise; and already he was known
in the city as Hieronymus the Learned.

“But, alas! he could read no more. The
charm was broken. Hour after hour he passed
with his hands clasped before him, and his fair
eyes gazing at vacancy. What could so disturb
the studies of this melancholy wight? Lady, he
was in love! Have you ever been in love? He
had seen the face of the beautiful Hermione;
and as, when we have thoughtlessly looked at
the sun, our dazzled eyes, though closed, behold
it still; so he beheld by day and by night the
radiant image of her upon whom he had too rashly
gazed. Alas! he was unhappy; for the proud
Hermione disdained the love of a poor student,
whose only wealth was a magic lamp. In marble
halls, and amid the gay crowd that worshipped
her, she had almost forgotten that such a being
lived as the Student Hieronymus. The adoration
of his heart had been to her only as the perfume
of a wild flower, which she had carelessly crushed

with her foot in passing. But he had lost all; for
he had lost the quiet of his thoughts; and his
agitated soul reflected only broken and distorted
images of things. The world laughed at the
poor student, who, in his torn and threadbare
cassock, dared to lift his eyes to the Lady Hermione;
while he sat alone, in his desolate chamber,
and suffered in silence. He remembered
many things, which he would fain forget; but
which, if he had forgotten them, he would wish
again to remember. Such were the linden-trees
of Bülach, under whose pleasant shade he had
told his love to Hermione. This was the scene
which he wished most to forget, yet loved most
to remember; and of this he was now dreaming,
with his hands clasped upon his book, and that
kind of music in his thoughts, which you, Lady,
mistook for rhyme.

“Suddenly the cathedral clock struck twelve
with a melancholy clang. It roused the Student
Hieronymus from his dream; and rang in his ears,
like the iron hoofs of the steeds of Time. The

magic hour had come, when the Divinity of the
lamp most willingly revealed herself to her votary.
The bronze figures seemed alive; a white cloud
rose from the flame and spread itself through the
chamber, whose four walls dilated into magnificent
cloud vistas; a fragrance, as of wild-flowers, filled
the air; and a dreamy music, like distant, sweet-chiming
bells, announced the approach of the
midnight Divinity. Through his streaming tears
the heart-broken Student beheld her once more
descending a pass in the snowy cloud-mountains,
as, at evening, the dewy Hesperus comes from the
bosom of the mist, and assumes his station in the
sky. At her approach, his spirit grew more calm;
for her presence was, to his feverish heart, like a
tropical night,—beautiful and soothing and invigorating.
At length she stood before him revealed
in all her beauty; and he comprehended
the visible language of her sweet but silent lips;
which seemed to say;—`What would the Student
Hieronymus to-night?'—`Peace!' he answered,
raising his clasped hands, and smiling through his
tears. `The Student Hieronymus imploreth peace!'
`Then go,' said the spirit, `go to the Fountain of
Oblivion in the deepest solitude of the Black Forest,
and cast this scroll into its waters; and thou
shalt be at peace once more. Hieronymus opened
his arms to embrace the Divinity, for her countenance
assumed the features of Hermione; but she
vanished away; the music ceased; the gorgeous
cloud-land sank and fell asunder; and the student
was alone within the four bare walls of his chamber.
As he bowed his head downward, his eye
fell upon a parchment scroll, which was lying beside
the lamp. Upon it was written only the name
of Hermione!

“The next morning Hieronymus put the scroll
into his bosom, and went his way in search of the
Fountain of Oblivion. A few days brought him
to the skirts of the Black Forest. He entered,
not without a feeling of dread, that land of shadows;
and passed onward under melancholy pines
and cedars, whose branches grew abroad and mingled
together, and, as they swayed up and down,

filled the air with solemn twilight and a sound of
sorrow. As he advanced into the forest, the waving
moss hung, like curtains, from the branches
overhead, and more and more shut out the light
of heaven; and he knew that the Fountain of
Oblivion was not far off. Even then the sound of
falling waters was mingling with the roar of the
pines overhead; and ere long he came to a river,
moving in solemn majesty through the forest, and
falling with a dull, leaden sound into a motionless
and stagnant lake, above which the branches of
the forest met and mingled, forming perpetual
night. This was the Fountain of Oblivion.

“Upon its brink the student paused, and gazed
into the dark waters with a steadfast look. They
were limpid waters, dark with shadows only. And
as he gazed, he beheld, far down in their silent
depths, dim and ill-defined outlines, wavering to
and fro, like the folds of a white garment in the
twilight. Then more distinct and permanent
shapes arose;—shapes familiar to his mind, yet
forgotten and remembered again, as the fragments

of a dream; till at length, far, far below him he
beheld the great city of the Past, with silent marble
streets, and moss-grown walls, and spires uprising
with a wave-like, flickering motion. And amid the
crowd that thronged those streets, he beheld faces
once familiar and dear to him; and heard sorrowful,
sweet voices, singing; `O forget us not! forget
us not!' and then the distant, mournful sound of
funeral bells, that were tolling below, in the city of
the Past. But in the gardens of that city, there
were children playing, and among them, one who
wore his features, as they had been in childhood.
He was leading a little girl by the hand, and caressed
her often, and adorned her with flowers.
Then, like a dream, the scene changed, and the
boy had grown older, and stood alone, gazing into
the sky; and, as he gazed, his countenance changed
again, and Hieronymus beheld him, as if it
had been his own image in the clear water; and
before him stood a beauteous maiden, whose face
was like the face of Hermione, and he feared lest
the scroll had fallen into the water, as he bent over
it. Starting as from a dream he put his hand into
his bosom and breathed freely again, when he
found the scroll still there. He drew it forth, and
read the blessed name of Hermione, and the city
beneath him vanished away, and the air grew fragrant
as with the breath of May-flowers, and a
light streamed through the shadowy forest and
gleamed upon the lake; and the Student Hieronymus
pressed the dear name to his lips and exclaimed
with streaming eyes; `O, scorn me as thou
wilt, still, still will I love thee; and thy name shall
irradiate the gloom of my life, and make the waters
of Oblivion smile!' And the name was no longer
Hermione, but was changed to Mary; and the
Student Hieronymus—is lying at your feet! O,
gentle Lady!

9. CHAPTER IX.
A TALK ON THE STAIRS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes,” answered Berkley; “that is the way

with you all, you young men. You see a sweet
face, or a something, you know not what, and
flickering reason says, Good night; amen to common
sense. The imagination invests the beloved
object with a thousand superlative charms; furnishes
her with all the purple and fine linen, all the
rich apparel and furniture, of human nature. I did
the same when I was young. I was once as desperately
in love as you are now; and went through
all the
I adored and was rejected. `You are in love with
certain attributes,' said the lady. `Damn your attributes,
Madam,' said I; `I know nothing of attributes.'
`Sir,' said she, with dignity, `you have
been drinking.' So we parted. She was married
afterwards to another, who knew something about
attributes, I suppose. I have seen her once since,
and only once. She had a baby in a yellow gown.
I hate a baby in a yellow gown. How glad I am
she did not marry me. One of these days, you
will be glad you have been rejected. Take my
word for it.”

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

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

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

sit apart and above the world, with my mournful,
yet holy thoughts.”

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

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

only intoxicate us. By Heaven! we are all of us
mad.”

“But are you sure the case is utterly hopeless?”

“Utterly! utterly!”

“And yet I perceive you have not laid aside
all hope. You still flatter yourself, that the lady's
heart may change. The great secret of happiness
consists not in enjoying, but in renouncing.
But it is hard, very hard. Hope has as many
lives as a cat or a king. I dare say you have heard
the old Italian proverb, `The King never dies.'
But perhaps you have never heard, that, at the
court of Naples, where the dead body of a monarch
lies in state, his dinner is carried up to him
as usual, and the court physician tastes it, to see
that it be not poisoned, and then the servants bear
it out again, saying `The King does not dine to-day.'
Hope in our souls is King; and we also
say, `The King never dies.' Even when in reality
he lies dead within us, in a kind of solemn mockery
we offer him his accustomed food, but are constrained

to say, `The King does not dine to-day.'
It must be an evil day, indeed, when a king of Naples
has no heart for his dinner! but you yourself
are a proof, that the King never dies. You are
feeding your King, although you say he is dead.”

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

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

“What do you mean by that?”

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

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

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

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

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

On the following morning, Flemming and Berkley

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