Fredrika Bremer

“ Astonished, and somewhat embarrassed, I now perceived that the ear and the shoulder, whose possessor had seized so horribly upon the contents of the rusk basket, and over whom I had poured out my gall belonged to nobody else than to August's father, and my patron. The fat gentleman who sat upon the sofa was Wilhelmina's uncle.
The kindness and gayety of my new friends made me soon feel at home and happy. The old people treated me like a child of the house, the young ones as a brother, and the two little ones seemed to anticipate a gingerbread-friend in me. ”

“ August would in his rapture announce to me my good luck instantly, and in order, at the same time, to gratify his passion for merry jokes, made himself known upon my stairs in a way which occasioned me a severe, although not dangerous, contusion on the temples, and the unexpected removal across the street, out of the deepest darkness into the brightest light. The good youth besought a thousand times forgiveness for his thoughtlessness ”

“ We—that is to say, my Wilhelmina and I—hope, during this time, to be able to dry a great many tears, and to shed as few ourselves as our lot, as children of the earth, may permit.
We hope not to survive each other.
Lastly, we hope always to be able to hope; and when the hour comes that the hopes of the green earth vanish before the clear light of eternal certainty, then we hope that the All-good Father may pass a mild sentence upon His grateful and, in humility, hoping children. ”

“ I lay upon a sofa, and—no, I really did not deceive myself,—that charming girl, who on this evening had so incessantly floated before my thoughts, stood actually beside me, and with a heavenly expression of sympathy bathed my head with vinegar. A young man whose countenance seemed known to me held my hand between his. I perceived also the fat gentleman, another thin one, the lady, the children, and in distant twilight I saw the shimmer of the paradise of the tea-table ”

“ What a movement suddenly takes place in the room! The old gentleman heaves himself up from the sofa—the person with one ear starts forward, and in so doing, gives the young lady a blow (the dromedary!) which makes her knock against the tea-table, whereby the poor lady, who was just about springing up from the sofa, is pushed down again—the children hop about and clap their hands—the door flies open—a young officer enters—the young girl throws herself into his arms. ”

“ I found at length, in a remote street, a little room, which was more suited to my gloomy prospects than to the bright hopes which I cherished two hours before.
I had obtained permission to spend the winter in Stockholm, and had thought of spending it in quite a different way to what now was to be expected. But what was to be done? To let the courage sink was the worst of all; to lay the hands in the lap and look up to heaven, not much better. "The sun breaks forth when one least expects it," thought I, as heavy autumn clouds descended upon the city. ”

“ I felt, and especially this evening, more than ever an inexpressible desire to have somebody to love,—to have some one about me who would cleave to me—who would be a friend to me;—in short, to have (for me the highest felicity on earth) a wife—a beloved, devoted wife! ”

“ For one moment I contemplated myself in the only whole glass which I had in my room—that of truth,—and then wrote again with gloomy feeling:—"Unhappy, indeed, may the forlorn one be called, who, in the anxious and cool moments of life (which, indeed, come so often) , is pressed to no faithful heart, whose sigh nobody returns, whose quiet grief nobody alleviates with a 'I understand thee, I suffer with thee!'
"He is cast down, nobody raises him up; he weeps, nobody sees it, nobody will see it; he goes, nobody follows him; he comes, nobody goes to meet him; he rests, nobody watches over him. ”

“ Why wanders he, the lonesome one; why waits he; why flies he not, the shadow, to the land of shades? Ah, he still hopes, he is a mendicant who begs for joy, who yet waits in the eleventh hour, that a merciful hand may give him an alms.
"One only little blossom of earth will he gather, bear it upon his heart, in order henceforth not so lonesomely, not so entirely lonesome, to wander down to rest." ”

“ After I had received two cups of tea from Wilhelmina's pretty hand, to which I almost feared taking, in my abstraction of mind, more rusks than my excellent patron, I rose up to take my leave. They insisted absolutely upon my passing the night there; but I abode by my determination of spending the first happy night in my old habitation, amid thanksgiving to the lofty Ruler of my fate. ”

“ An ear and a piece of a shoulder are all that peep forth near the window. I cannot exactly take it amiss that the respectable person turns his back to me; but that he keeps the young lady a quarter of an hour standing before him, lets her courtesy and offer her good things, does thoroughly provoke me. It must be a lady—a man could not be so unpolite towards this angelic being. But—or—now she takes the cup; and now, oh, woe! a great man's hand grasps into the rusk-basket—the savage! ”

“ Some moments afterwards I fancied I heard a sigh—I was silent, and listened,—again there was very evidently a sigh—and yet once again, so deep and so mournful, that I exclaimed with secret terror, "Who is there?" No answer. For a moment I stood still, and considered what this really could mean, when a horrible noise, as if cats were sent with yells lumbering down the whole flight of stairs, and ended with a mighty blow against my door, put an end to my indecision. I took up the candle, and a stick, and went out. At the moment when I opened the door my light was blown out. ”

“ With a stout blow of the fist upon the table, August's father exclaimed, "And because you have saved my son's life, and because you are such a downright honest and good fellow, and have suffered hunger yourself that you might give others to eat you shall really have the parsonage at H—— Yes, you shall become clergyman, I say!—I have jus patronatum, you understand!" ”

“ But for all that, true to my resolution, not to give myself up to anxious thoughts when they could do no good, I seized the pen with stiff fingers, and, in order to dissipate my vexation, wished to attempt a description of domestic happiness, of a happiness which I had never enjoyed. For the rest, I philosophized whilst I blew upon my stiffened hands. "Am I the first who, in the hot hour of fancy, has sought for a warmth which the stern world of reality has denied him? ”

“ Early deprived of my parents, without brothers and sisters, friends, and relations, I stood in the world yet so solitary and forlorn, that but for an inward confidence in heaven, and a naturally happy temper, I should often enough have wished to leave this contemptuous world ”

“ I wonder now, whether the good man with one ear has left anything remaining. That most charming of girls, how she caresses the little ones, and kisses them, and gives to them all the rusks and the cakes that have escaped the fingers of Monsieur Gobble. ”

“ And now all his creditors stand there prettily, and open their mouths; all the things in the house are hardly worth two farthings; and out of the house they find, as the only indemnification—a calash! ”

“ He has his own fireside, friends devoted to him, and, counts as his relations all those who have none of their own. He loves, he is beloved; he can make people feel happy, he is himself happy."
Truly had my Wilhelmina described the present; and, animated by feelings which are gay and delicious as the beams of the spring sun, I will now, as hitherto, let my little troop of light hopes bound out into the future.
I hope, too, that my sermon for the next Sunday may not be without benefit to my hearers ”