Carl Werner :: :: University of Virginia Library

are in a land, of all others, one of the most renowned
for its superstitions, its wild fancies, its
marvellous imaginations. The minds of its people
have become spiritualized by the popular faith; and
thought takes the shape of poetry at its birth, and
fancy is busy every where. Their rivers and their
rocks, their green knolls and sinking valleys, their
dense forests, wild wastes, and deserted ruins, like
these around us, are all haunted and venerable.
The dell and dingle have their different spirits, the
wood and rivulet theirs; and the gentle-hearted
peasants who inhabit them are, in some instances,
almost as rigldly tenacious of the privileges of the
genius loci, as they are of their own rights and religion.
A tale of diablerie will not, therefore, seem
out of place, in a region so abundantly supplied
with this material; and the story which I am
about to relate to you, though differing materially
from those which we are accustomed to hear, is
yet as native to this neighborhood as any of the
rest. The parties who figure in it, were born in
the little hamlet of —, not a mile distant, and
you will hear the story from any of the villagers
to whom you may refer for confirmation of it.

“It is now about fifty years since the events
which I am about to relate to you are said to
have occurred. The village of — stood then

pretty much as it does now, except that there were
then two families in it, of which there are no descendants
or surviving relics now. The family of
Herman Ottfried was one of the most respectable
in it; nor was that of Carl Werner less so. The
former consisted only of Herman, and the fair
Matilda, his sister; while that of Carl Werner
existed in himself alone. He was an only child,
whose mother had been long since dead, and whose
father had died just before the time when my narrative
begins. Herman was about twenty-five
years of age, Carl Werner not more than twenty-one
— yet they were inseparable friends. Matilda,
the sister of Herman, was but seventeen; and it is
more than probable, that the great intimacy between
Carl and Herman, and the strong regard
which the former professed for the latter, arose
from the yet stronger feeling which he entertained
for the sister. But of this anon. Herman was a
good natured, laughing, and mischievous creature,
ready always for fun and frolic, not easily apprehensive
of danger, nor always scrupulous about
proprieties in his pranks. He had good sense
enough to keep him from any extravagant folly,
or extreme rashness; and good feeling enough to
restrain him from any excess which might inflict
pain upon the deserving and the good. He was

of graceful person, manly and strong, brave, generous,
and well-principled. The favorite of the
village, he was yet wanting in one of those traits of
character in which all beside him were abundantly
provided — he had no more faith in a ghost than
he had in a sermon; and though not deficient in
proper veneration, he had but slight regard for
either.

“In this respect, as in several others, he differed
greatly from his more youthful friend and companion,
Carl Werner. Carl was superstitious to the
last degree; his memory was perfectly crowded
with legends the most extravagant, and he had a
feverish and perpetual desire, continually, to increase
his collection. He was, in very truth, a
dreamer — one of those gifted men, who see strange
sights and hear uncommon sounds, which are denied
to the vulgar faculty; and his senses were
accordingly employed always in scenting out and
searching after the supernatural. But let me not
be understood to say that Carl was a simpleton.
Far from it. He was, in reality, as I have phrased
it already, a highly gifted man. He was a poet
— a man of quick and daring imagination — one
whose verses were full of fire, and acknowledged
to be of more than ordinary merit, — but he was
rather too much of a mystic. Deeply impregnated

with the traditionary lore of `The Teuton,' and
irritably alive to all its exciting influences, the fancy
which was in him, the active and subtle spirit
of his thoughts, gathered from all objects and associations
food and stimulant for its own continued
exercise. His very existence, so deeply had
he drank of the witch beverage and been led away
into the haunted forests of his fancy, had become
rather metaphysical than real. His life was passed
in dreams; and even his love for Matilda, so
far from humanizing his mind and binding it to
earth, seemed to have the effect of elevating it the
more, and of making it hourly more and more spiritual;
until, at length, he appeared to regard the
maiden rather as a creation of his thought — a
dream of heaven — than an object for the contemplation
and the enjoyment of his senses. His life
was thus diseased by his imagination, while yet in
the green, in the blossom, and the bud.