Jean Paul

“ Fate deals the days according to their lot. What dost thou long for, Nathalie?
“Not love. Oh! those who press the thorny white rose of love to their hearts draw blood from out them; the warm tears of bliss which fall into the blossom soon grow chill, and are dried up amain. Love, all gleam and bloom, hangs on the morning sky of life, like some great rose-red Aurora in the heavens. Ah! do not enter that bright glittering cloud—it is but mist and tears. No, no; long not for love; die of a lovelier sorrow. Sink into the chill of death under a nobler poison-tree than is the lovely myrtle. ”

“ Angel of tears and of patience! Thou that art oftener about men! Oh, forget my heart and my eye and let them bleed--indeed they do so willingly;--but tranquillize, like death, the heart and the eye of my friend, and show them on the earth nothing but the heavens beyond it. Ah, angel of tears and of patience! Thou knowest the eye and the heart, which pours itself out for him, thou wilt bring his soul before them, as one sets out flowers under the summer rain! But do it not, if it makes him too sad! O, angel of patience! I love thee! I know thee! I shall die in thy arms! ”

“ Gottreich, in the midst of the united fragrance and beauty of the flowers of joy, even with the morning-star of life above him, could not but think on the time when the same should appear to him as the evening star, warning him of sleep. Then said he to himself: "All is now so certain and so clear before me,--the beauty and the holiness of life, the splendor of the universe, the Creator, the dignity and the greatness of man's heart, the bright images of eternal truth, the whole starry firmament of ideas, which enlightens, instructs, and upholds man! ”

“ He has, after all, a bright, bold, reflecting faculty," said Gaspard. "Only effeminate, shameless, double-meaning, many-sided debility of heart he has; talks of power, and cannot tear through the thinnest mesh of pleasure," said Albano.
"Charles," said Hiort, tenderly, as if answering him, "yes, there is yet one help. When on the ground of life one fresh color after another fades,—when existence is now nothing, neither comedy nor tragedy, only a stale show-piece,—still is there one heaven open to man, which shall receive him,—love. ”

“ She fell weeping upon his heart, and suddenly gave vent to the swell of inward sighs: "Shall I not then be dead at that time," said she with deep emotion, "and look down from eternity to see that thou art rewarded for thy love to Liana? And that, too, certainly in a high degree!"
Weep, be angry, suffer, exult, and wonder more and more, passionate youth! But, to be sure, thou comprehendest not this lowly soul!—Holy humility! thou only virtue which God, not man, created! Thou art higher than all which thou concealest or knowest not! Thou heavenly beam of light! ”

“ Dear Emanuel, that, alas! thou wilt do! The heaven of joy presses downward to thy lips, and amidst breezes, amidst tones, amidst kisses, it drinks up thy flickering breath; for the earthly body which will only graze, not pluck, digests only lowly joys, and chills under the beam of a higher sun!—
With emotion I draw aside from Victor's distracted, irrecognizable face the veil which covers his sorrows. Let us look upon thee, disconsolate man, who art going to meet a spring where thy heart is to lose everything: Emanuel by death, Clotilda by love, Flamin by jealousy, even Joachime by suspicion! ”

“ Death will give me his hand and lead me away--the days beyond the earth will purify me for virtue and thee----then come, Beata, then, when an angel shall have borne thee through thy earthly evening twilight into the second world, then at last will a heart, broken here below, but healed up yonder, meet thine and sink on thy bosom and yet not die with rapture, and I shall say once more: 'Take me again, beloved soul, I, too, am blessed!'--all earthly wounds will vanish, the circle of Eternity will embrace and bind us together!... ”

“ Best one, thy heart is too good not to be outwitted by those who cannot reach thee. O if, some day, the sharp edge of court ton should pass bloodily across the veins of thy breast (Flamin's looks seemed to ask, Art thou not then even satirical?) —O if he, who has no faith in virtue and disinterestedness, should one day himself cease to show any; if he should sorely betray thee; should the hand, which court-life had hardened, like a lemon-squeezer, wring blood and tears from thy heart, then, I beseech thee, despair not, only not of friendship,—for thy mother and I love thee far otherwise. ”

“ Even her very tears had ceased to flow. Oh! gaze no more, sad soul, towards the west, where stands the house of mourning all behung with funeral crape; nor to the east, upon the grave and house of death. For this one day, turn thy sad gaze away from that drear charnel house where the loved corpse is laid, so that the cool night breeze may fan and wake him from his sleep earlier than if he were shut up within the narrow grave! Yet, no! bereaved one, gaze thy fill on thy beloved one while he still is here, and ere he falls to dust—and steep thy heart deep in the eternal woe. ”

“ By Heaven! up there among the heart-cherries, it seemed as if real wolf-cherries must be working in the head of the boy: as the earth had her dark, middle ages, so have children often dark, middle days, full of pure monkery and mischief. On the high boughs, the growing landscape, and the sun declining towards the mountains, and particularly the spires of Pestitz, gleamed upon him with such heavenly light, that he could not now imagine to himself anything higher than the bird-pole near him, nor any more blessedly enthroned crown-eagle than one on the pole.... ”

“ By night, when the daily rain ceased, he visited alone the great ruins of the earth, the Forum, the Colosseum, the Capitol; he became more passionate, unsocial, sharp; a deep, brooding seriousness reigned on the lofty brow, and a sombre spirit burned through the eye.
Gaspard, unobserved, kept his eye upon all secret unfoldings of the youth. A mere sorrow for Liana did not seem to be his case. In the northern winter this wound would only have frozen up, and not healed up; but here, in the temple of the world, where gods lie buried, a noble heart gathered strength, and beat for older graves. ”

“ Fixlein beheld Death, not as the poet does, in the uptowering, asunder-driving concave-mirror of Imagination; but as the child, as the savage, as the peasant, as the woman does, in the plane octavo-mirror on the board of a Prayer-book; and Death looked to him like an old white-headed man, sunk down into slumber in some latticed pew.--
And yet he thought oftener of him than last year; for joy readily melts us into softness; and the lackered Wheel of Fortune is a cistern-wheel that empties its water in our eyes.... ”

“ The genius of night had stood till now, invisibly, before Emanuel, and poured high raptures into his bosom, but no passions; and he said: "We are not alone,—my soul feels the passing by of its kindred, and lifts itself up,—under the earth is sleep, above the earth is dream, but between sleep and dream I see luminous eyes move along like stars,—a cool breath comes from the sea of eternity over the glowing earth,—my heart mounts up, and will break away from life,—all around me is as great as if God passed through the night.—Spirits! ”

“ Ah, Beata, what can I give you for this whole Elysium wherewith you entwine and festoon the dark ground of my life, and for your whole, whole heart?--Mine--that indeed you already had for nothing, and that is all I have to give; for all fair hours, for all your charms, for all your love, for all that you give, have I nothing but this true, happy, warm heart....
"Yes, I have only this; but if the divine spark of the highest love can glow in the human heart it dwells in mine, and burns for one whom I can only love but not repay. ”

“ I know not whether you or Emanuel said, 'The thought of death must be only our means of improvement, not our end and aim; if the earth of the grave falls into the heart, just as when it falls into the heart-leaves of a flower, it destroys instead of fructifying it';—but on my leaves fate and Giulia have already thrown some earth.—And I gladly bear it, as I can now, since gaining your friendship, flee for refuge to a heart, before which I may dare to open mine, in order to show it therein all the woes, all the sighs, all the doubts, all the questions of an oppressed soul. ”

“ Nathalie leant on Firmian’s hand, that he might help her to rise, and said, “I feel quite able to go home now.” He kept hold of her hand, but did not rise nor speak. He was gazing at the dry, prickly stalk of the old rose-twig which she had given him. Unwittingly, and without feeling what he was doing, he pressed the thorns into his fingers. His laden bosom heaved with deeper, warmer sighs; burning tears stood in his eyes, and the moon’s light trembled before them like a shower of falling light. A whole universe lay upon his soul and upon his tongue, and kept both motionless. ”

“ Unfortunate is the female soul which loses its way, and is caught in one of these great webs stretched out in mid-heaven; and happy is she, when she tears through them, unpoisoned, and merely soils her bees'-wings. But this all-powerful fancy, this streaming love, this softness and strength, this all-mastering coolness and collectedness, will overspread every female Psyche with webs, if she neglects to brush away the first threads. O that I could warn you, poor maidens, against such condors, which fly up with you in their claws! The heaven of our days hangs full of these eagles. ”

“ And then I was lifted up and borne along on wings of ether, with the light breaking through my closed eyelids. And a creative finger touched me, and high in heaven, upon a green cloud, I opened my eyes. Above me was the blue abyss of the stars; below me stretched a blue ocean, on whose horizon glittered, in the glow of the sunset, the countless islands of the blessed; around me floated scattered cloudlets, tinted with the red and white of roses and of lilies, and with the many colors of manifold flowers.
"Who, O God, has brought me to life out of my woe?" I cried. ”

“ Albano sank away into musing,—the autumnal wind of the past swept over the stubble,—on this holy eminence he saw the constellations, Rome's green hills, the glimmering city, the Pyramid of Cestius; but all became past, and on the twelve hills dwelt, as upon graves, the lofty old spirits, and looked sternly into the age as if they were still its kings and judges.
"This in remembrance of the place and the time!" said the Princess, returning and handing him the laurel and the flower. "Thou mighty one, a colosseum is thy flower-pot; for thee nothing is too great, and nothing too small!" ”

“ He staggered, without following any path, down into the village, with the pewit in its great circles, and the may-chafer in its little ones, sweeping around him. At the foot of the mountain the hybrid day grew darker,—in the starry heaven the curtain rose,—the vapor of evening, which had gone up hot, fell cold, as men do, back to the earth: one more loud lark went circling upward, as the last echo of day, over the mountain.
At last he neared Emanuel's linden. He would rather have embraced him under the great heavens than under the close ceiling of a room. ”

“ The sun beams, all dew-drops sparkle beneath it, eight tears of joy descend with the milder image of the sun, and four human beings stand blissful and touched with emotion on an earth which lies so far from heaven! Veiled Destiny! will our death be like that of Gustavus? Veiled destiny! that sittest behind our earth and behind a mask and lea vest us time to be--ah! when death dissolves us and a great Genius has lifted us out of the vault into heaven, then when its suns and joys overpower our soul, wilt thou give us also there a familiar human breast, on which we may open our feeble eyes? ”

“ With a deeply moved heart he gazed after the gently radiant luminary as it sank, amid the glowing cloud-embers, towards that distant spot where his widowed Lenette would be standing in her silent room, with her face lighted up by the evening red. “Ah! dear, good Lenette,” the voice within him cried, “why can I not press thee to this full, tender heart, here in this paradise, in bliss? I should love thee better here, and forgive thee easier.”
Yes, of a truth, it is thou, kind Nature—never ending Love, who changest, in us, distance of body into nearness of soul. ”

“ I should already be hovering around thee unfettered on the wings of eternity, to look upon thee, and if I could not wipe away thy tears with the ethereal hand, I would console thy heavy heart with a strange rapture! Ay, if man were blinded in the forecourt of the second world, still thy form would remain as an after-shining sun-image before my closed eyes!—O Clotilda, if thou shouldst come! Ah, probably thou wilt not come; and only the Eternal, who numbers the hours of the second life, knows when I shall see thee again, on the second earth, and how great are there the pains of longing. ”

“ Albano interrupted her, for his feelings were striking against each other like swords, "I revere, but I hate her dangerous phantom. Fancy and sickness are the parents of the air-born, destroying angel, who flies scorching, like a dumb heat-lightning, over all the blossoms of youth!"
She answered, with emotion, "O thou good, pure spirit! thou hast never distressed me, thou hast ever comforted, guided, made me happy and holy,—a phantom is it, Albano? It even preserves me against all phantoms of terror, against all ghostly fear, because it is always about me. ”

“ But when I am grown old, and in the obstruction of death, will not all that now rustles so bloomingly and livingly about me appear gray and dull? Just when man is approaching that heaven which he has so long contemplated, Death holds the telescope inverted before his dim eye, and lets him see only what is empty, distant, shadowy. But is this indeed true? Shall I be more likely to be right when I only feel and think and hope, with half a life, incapable of a keen glance or an intense sensation,--or am I right now, that my whole heart is warm, that my whole head is clear, and my strength fresh? ”

“ We will go from the altar, my Julienne,—thou and I and he,—to Valencia, to Isola Bella, or whithersoever he will, and stay together. Thanks, dear moon and music! How childlike the tones and the rays play with each other! Embrace me, my beloved; forgive that Linda has been naughty!" Here the storm of her heart dissolved into sweet weeping. So, in countries upon which the sun shines vertically down, is the blue sky daily transformed into thunder, tempest, and black rain, and daily the sun goes down again blue and golden. ”

“ The dark, cloudy, dimly gleaming ideas, which the universal philosopher demands of all sensations, must glide slowly over the soul or stand perfectly still, if it is to enjoy itself; just as clouds that move slowly betoken fair weather, while flying ones indicate foul. "There are," said Beata, "virtuous days when one pardons everything and has all power over one's self, when joy seems to kneel down in the heart and pray that it may remain there longer, and when all is cleared up and illumined within us;--then when one weeps over it for joy this grows so great that all is gone by again." ”

“ The temple of nature, like a Christian temple, was sublimely dimmed. Victor could not make his way up out of the trenches of long valleys, out of the glooms of woods, and out of the mists of meadows with their play of colors, till the midnight hour, when he climbed a mountain like a throne, and there lay down on his back in order to plunge his eyes into the heavens, and cool off from his dreaming and racing. The low-hanging blue of heaven seemed to him to be a thin blue cloud, a sea dashed into blue mists, and one sun after another with its long rays slightly parted this blue flood. ”

“ When spring kindled into life, and opened all her honey-cups, and her serene heaven, and all the hundred gates of her Paradise, hast thou, like me, bitterly looked up and begged of God a heart for thine? O when, at evening, the sun went down like a mountain, and his flames departed from the earth, and now only his red breath floated upward to the silvery stars, hast thou beheld the brotherly shadows of friendship which sank together on battle-fields, like stars of one constellation, stealing forth through the bloody clouds out of the old world, like giants ”

“ On a fresh, blue morning Albano stood, before the resurrection of the sun in heaven, on the high, bloom-encircled pyramid of terraces, where he had once, on awaking, seen his dear father flee without farewell; and he gazed with emotion down into the vacant, broad lake, and around on the summits of the glaciers, which already bloomed in the reflection of Aurora riding down from on high,—and no one was with him but the past. He looked upon himself and into his breast, and thought: "What a long, heavy time has already passed through this bosom since that day! ”

“ So glistening fall the joys of men from heaven, and dissolve even while they fall! So does everything melt away! Ah, what air-castles I saw shine around me on this eminence, and how they gleamed in the evening red! Alas! all are buried under the snow and under the darkness of night!" He looked down into Clotilda's garden, in whose dark bowers, now whitened with snow, he had found and lost again the Eden of his heart. "The tones which flowed over this garden are dried up, but not the tears which streamed after them," thought he. ”

“ So played a divine world around man! "O here in this great scene," said Albano, "where everything finds place, Paradises and dark Orcus-coasts of lava, and the yielding sea, and the gray Gorgon-head of Vesuvius, and the playing children of men, and the blossoms and all,—here where one must glow like a lava,—could not one, like the hot lava round about him, bury himself in the waves, in all his glow, if one knew that anything of this hour could pass away, even so much as a remembrance thereof, or a throbbing of the pulse for a loved heart? ”

“ Thus, oftentimes, is the extreme of warmth replaced by the extreme of coldness or apathy; and under the diving-bell of an intense idea--be it a fixed idea or a passionate or a scientific one--we stand panoplied against the whole outer ocean.
With Beata it fared just so. This soft still-vibrating joy was a second heart, which filled her veins, animated her nerves and colored her cheeks. For love--unlike other passions which assail us like earthquakes, like lightnings--stands in the soul like a still, transparent after-summer day with its whole heaven undisturbed. ”

“ For he now felt, after all, that the resolve of a parting for life was too hard, and only that of doing so by death was easy.—O right easy and sweet it is, he felt, to close the wet eye in the presence of the loved one, then to see nothing more on the earth; but with the high flames of the heart, and with the dear image pressed to the bosom, like the encoffined mother with the dead darling, to step blindfold to the brink of this world, and throw one's self headlong into the still, deep, dark, cold sea of the dead.... ”

“ Not a speck of cloud, not a breath of air, stirred through the wide heaven; the stars reigned alone; earthly distances were lost in the depth of white shadows; and all mountains stood in the silvery fire of the moon. "O, how I love your serene, holy old man!" said Idoine to Albano, when she had already often pressed Julienne's hand. "How happy I am! Ah, life, like the water of the sea, is not quite sweet till it rises towards heaven." Suddenly distant bugle-tones came pealing out to them, which well-meaning country-folk sounded as a greeting before Albano's foster-home. ”

“ Now art thou, Horion, wafted by a wave of harmony out of the mist-rain of life over into the light of eternity! Hear, what tones murmur round the broad fields of Eden! Do not the strains, dissipated into breaths, reverberate from distant flowers, and float, swollen by echo, round the swan-bosom, which, blissfully dissolving, swims on pinions, and draw it on from flood to flood of melody, and sink with it in the distant flowers, which a cloud of fragrances fills, and does not in the fragrant dusk the soul glow again like a ruddy evening, ere it sets in bliss? ”

“ Sister, Linda, what have I, after all, yet done upon the earth?"
"Thou hast made this question, and this is enough in the sight of God," said Julienne, moved by the proud, wounded modesty of the youth, and by his beautiful voice, which, when indignant, sounded as if he were tenderly touched. "Words! what are words?" said he. "O one surely may well be ashamed that one has even to think and speak of anything before he does it, although poor, imperfect man cannot otherwise, but every action, like a statue, must first be modelled in the miserable wax of words. ”

“ No eye looked over to the heights of Blumenbühl, from which, at this very moment, a black train of coaches was passing slowly down, with upright-burning funeral torches, like a moving shadow-realm, to convey the still, good heart, wherein Albano and God lived, with its dead wounds, to the soft place of rest. Flaming rolled the torch-carriage up the mountain-road towards Italy.
Tearless and far-gazing, Albano's eye rested on the glimmering, ceaselessly moving fountain-wheel of time, eternally drawing up constellations in the east, and pouring them out in the west ”