gave her an undecided outline, but at length Wilhelmi advanced to her, and said, "Here is our friend." Bending low, Karlson kissed the warm living hand, and was dumb with emotion. But the firm features of Gione's earnest face, which wanted but Nadine's juvenile bloom, changed into a shining joy, greater than he dared to return or reward. "We have long expected and missed you in this paradise," she said, with unshaken voice; and her clear, calm eye opened a view into a richly-gifted, steadfast soul. "Welcome to the infernal regions," said Nadine; "you believe in reunion and Elysium now?" Though she received him with an assemblage or Flora of wit, or was it grace? for they were difficult to distinguish, this cheerfulness of character and acquirement seemed not to be the cheerfulness of a contented or reposeful mind.
My friend introduced me properly, that no supermember or hors d'[oe]uvre should remain in this corporation of friendship.
To all of us--even to me--for around me never before seen beings floated in silver reflections--it seemed as if the world had ceased, Elysium had opened, and the separated, covered, sub-terrestrial regions cradled only tranquil, but happy souls.
There was a certain heartfulness in the joyous interest which this affectionate trinity took in Karlson's appearance, which generally accompanies the last step before the disclosure of some hidden plan, but this plan was concealed. To speak something also to me, Nadine said, that there was a critical philosopher and arguer with them, who would rejoice to hear any one for or against his opinions,--namely, the house-chaplain. When we stepped from the illumined diamond and magic cave into the dark night, we saw the cloak of Erebus hang in thick cloudy folds over the earth, and pale lightning shot from the nightly mist, the flowers breathed from covered calysses, and under the fast approaching storm the nightingales raised their melodious voices behind their blooming hedges.
Suddenly Gione walked more slowly by Karlson's side, and said, with much warmth, but without hesitation: "I heartily love truth, even at the expense of stage-like effect: I must, in the name of the Baron, discover to you that he and I will to-morrow be forever united. You must forgive your friend that he would not celebrate this ceremony without his."
I think that now, in Karlson's heart, the cooled lava immediately became fluid and glowing. Suddenly lightning flashed from a cloud around the rising moon, and illumined the rain-drops, intended for darkness, in Gione's and in Karlson's eyes. Wilhelmi asked, "Can you not forgive me?" Karlson pressed him warmly and lovingly to his grateful heart: this lofty confidence of friendship, and this affectionate proof of it, raised his strengthened soul above all desires, and another's virtue spread in his breast the calm tranquillity of his own. We took shelter for the night in three Thabor huts,--the ladies in the first, Wilhelmi with the critical philosopher in the second, Karlson and myself in the third,--which the Baron had hired for us. The fatigue of the journey, and even of our feelings, deferred our joys and confidences for another night. But I cannot tell you how nobly sorrow changed into exaltation in my friend's countenance, how grief fell like a cloud from his heaven, and discovered the serene blue beneath. The sacrifices and virtues of our beloved ones belong to the inexpressible joys which the soul at least can count and appreciate; which it can imitate.
His and my eyes overflowed with holy gladness from a singularly elysian mood of harmony in anticipation of the coming day. Ah, my Victor! nations and men are only the best when they are the gladdest, and deserve Heaven when they enjoy it. The tear of grief is but a diamond of the second water, but the tear of joy of the first. And therefore fatherly fate, thou spreadest the flowers of joy, as nurses do lilies in the nursery of life, that the awakening children may sleep the sounder! O, let philosophy, which grudges our pleasures, and blots them out from the plans of Providence, say by what right did torturing pain enter into our frail life? Have we not already an eternal right to a warm down bed? I think not now of the deepest mattress in the earth, because we are so pierced with stigmas of the past, so covered with its wounds.
You once said to me: "In your early years, you have been drawn and driven from the stoic philosophy by Sorites; for if the sensation of pleasure be as little as the stoics pretend, it were wiser to convert than to benefit your neighbor,--wiser to preach morality from pulpit and desk than to practise it in the work-rooms,--wiser to turn towards your neighbor the dirt-balls and soap-pills of moral philosophy, than the enlarged marble soap-bubbles of joy. Further, that it is a mistake to assert that virtue makes more worthy of happiness, if happiness possessed not an eternal, independent value in itself; for else it might be maintained that virtue would make the possessor of a straw, &c. worthy--"
You said this once. Do you believe it yet?--I do.
The Thundering Morning.--The Short Trip after the Long One.--The Sofa-cushions.
Through the whole night, a half-lost thundering was heard, as though it murmured in its sleep. In the morning, before sunrise, Karlson and myself stepped out into the wide cloud-tapestried bridal-chamber of nature. The moon approached the double moment of its waning and its fulness. The sun, standing on America as on a burning altar, drove the cloudy incense of its feu de joie high and red into the air; but a morning tempest boiled angrily above it, and darted its fierce lightnings to meet his ascending rays. The oppressive heat of nature drew longer and louder plaints from the nightingales, and evanescent aroma from the long flower-meads. Heavy warm drops were pressed from the clouds, and beat loudly on the stream and on the foliage. Only the Mittagshorn, the pinnacle of the Pyrenees, stood brightly and clearly in the heavenly blue. Now a gust of wind from the waning moon dispersed the raging storm, and the sun stood victoriously under a triumphal arch of lightnings. The wind restored the heaven's blue, and dashed the rain behind the earth, and around the dazzling sun-diamond there lay only the silvered fringes of the once threatening clouds.
O my Victor, what a new-born day was now on earth, encamped in the glorious valley. The nightingales and the larks loudly sung its welcome, the rosechafers rustled round its lily garlands, and the eagle, riding on the highest cloud, surveyed it from mountain to mountain. How rurally all things surrounded the serpentine field-embracing Adour. The marble walls, not raised by human skill, surround its flower-beds like large vases, and the Pyrenees, with their high tops, watch over and protect the lowly scattered shepherd huts. Tranquil Tempe! May a storm never disturb thy gardens and thy murmuring Adour. May a stronger one never visit thee, than would gently rock the cradle of nature, or dash a bee from the honey-dew of the wheat-sheaf, or force but a single drop from the waterfall upon the flowers of thy shores.
You must not think that I am placing my paintbrushes at my side to copy the heavenly rounded valley by the measure of art for you; I will let you peep into this picture-book of nature as chance shall turn each succeeding page. My stations will lead you through its different chambers, in which the rich dowry of Spring, like that of a king's daughter, is placed for show. But truly it is a more glorious thing to see the whole dowry disposed over the person of the royal bride herself.
A servant seeking the chaplain, roused us both from our reverie. We saw him advance towards a gentleman standing on the banks of the Adour, who slowly turned down his rolled-up shirt-sleeves. It was the chaplain, who had been catching crabs during the storm, and had subsequently fished. As I knew that his hairy hand had worked for the food of the critical, as well as his own philosophy, with trowel and mortar, with pen and ink, I boldly advanced towards him, and told him what I was writing. But the coarse, obstinate, yet timid free-mason, coldly welcomed me in a language as broad as his own frosty visage.
He despises biographers; for the windows of a philosophical audience are too high,--perhaps, as in ancient temples, in the roof,--so that
