Paul Heyse

“ I have told myself that I had no happiness to expect from this love, no future, no help for my own needs; the thirst for rule which you falsely impute to me--or no, let me confess it, which perhaps usually sways me--was never so ignominiously baffled as by you. Everything that can offend the vanity, the pride, even the honor of a man, or repel his affection, I have experienced at your hands. And now, Christiane, I ask you on your conscience: do you doubt the power of nature, or as I call it, the mystical force, which alone is capable, in spite of everything, of bringing me back to your feet? ”

“ People are always speaking so contemptuously of our good Spree, and, to be sure, it is by no means the proudest of our German rivers, nor the poorest just here, in the midst of Berlin. But, to an artist's eye--apart from the impression it makes in the open country, and especially in a romantic spot like the Spreewald--can there be anything more charming than this view of the canal, bridges, places of lading, water steps, and the honest old Spree boats, lying so sleepily in the noonday sun, like great fat crocodiles on the banks of the Nile? ”

“ I have given up the hope of winning it, spite of the pain it has cost me, I despair of initiating you into the depths of my life with God, making you a sharer in the bliss of my fears and longings. But believe me, Christiane, there is an earthly compensation for the highest divine ecstacies, of which all minds are not capable, a compensation which matures the soul and at the same time prepares it for higher degrees of knowledge: the blending of spiritual and sensual passion, that thrills me with ardent yearning if I only touch your hand, meet your eyes, feel your breath on my face. ”

“ Suddenly two arms embraced the motionless figure, and a fair head in a neat little cap nestled to the pale cheek of the silent friend. "Leah," whispered Reginchen's voice, "if you love me, don't do it, don't go away; it can't be the right thing; or at least speak plainly first. What, for God's sake, what has happened, to drive you away so suddenly, as if--as if you were not at home here."
She covered the eyes and cheeks of the rigid face with the tenderest kisses. The next instant Leah gently released herself. ”

“ A hazardous enterprise, like the final expression of thought, can be undertaken only when, like a somnambulist, we wander over the heights of life, intoxicated by the winged flight of a rapturous happiness, or the march of a grand, solemn fate, with a courage which helps us to surmount all heights and depths. No can can be so bold, except he who has shaken off all the burdens of mortality and escaped into eternity. ”

“ We belong to each other, Edwin, we were created for each other from the beginning; how else would it have been possible for your love to continue despite our separation, and me tardy, sorrowful recognition that you're the only man, to whom I owe all I have and am,--all; honor, life, soul, and body. You're going now, Edwin. You'll try to forget me. Do so! You must first learn that all resistance is unavailing, that when you do yield, you may submit to the superior power of Nature without a murmur, without remorse. ”

“ We have no belief in the eternal torments of hell, in an avenging God, or a redeeming Saviour. But we know what is right, Toinette, we know that all the bliss of love's greatest rapture would become a poison, if bought with the heart's blood of others whom we were compelled to sacrifice. We look for no eternity, in which to atone for the sins of the present. We can only be honest and brave and good here upon earth, and we will be, my poor love, for you have an heroic soul, which can find its real happiness only in refusing to be bowed by any fate, and in conquering or dying in the conflict. ”

“ We must struggle for the weak who allow themselves to be intimidated by formulas preferring to leave their free souls in imprisonment than to shake themselves free from the hands of their tyrants, to learn to know and love this earth instead of despising its beauty in view of an imaginary world to come. Despise an earth, which has contained you, my Balder, a sky to which your noble eyes have been raised? ”

“ I have felt too strongly attracted toward you, from the first words that fell from your lips, to be able to go away now and say to myself: this strong, beautiful soul will never find the way to the holy of holies. Even such a powerful guide as music will only lead you to the threshold. Believe me, my dear Fräulein, I too have had similar experiences; I too once said like you: the God who has created heaven and earth and myself, is too great for my love, too distant for my longing, too silent for my confidence. ”

“ A smell of fresh leather, cobbler's thread, and varnish, penetrated to his retreat, and these odors, in connection with those coarse natural sounds, would have disgusted any one else with this Midsummer Night's Dream. But the youth in the straw hat could not seem to make up his mind to exchange the hard seat under the scanty foliage for his usual bed. He had removed his hat and leaned back against the wall, whose damp surface was pleasant to his burning head. He gazed through the roof of poles at the small patch of sky visible between the walls, and began to count the stars. ”

“ Can there be a victory without a conflict? What you are to me, Christiane, I know only too well. What I am or shall be to you--you will soon learn, though you may now thrust the knowledge ever so far away. Or do you know another man," he continued gazing steadily into her face, "who in the hour when you are forsaken by all, when you feel more wretched than you have ever felt before, would come to you and offer you his hand to save you, who could again make desirable the life you would fain throw away as a worthless possession?" A lightning like glance from her gloomy eyes fell upon him. ”

“ For me, who only wanted to thoroughly shake off the school dust and forget everything that could remind me of the agreement of triangles and the theory of parallelograms, this twilight mood was exactly the right one, in which all forms blend together and I as it were returned with a living body into the Infinite. 'Give my soul full freedom'--how often I've repeated the words! How often I've thought of and pitied you, because, as a woman, you can never enjoy the strange, sweet wondrous delight, which I inhaled in full draughts with the night breeze. The spell can only work in perfect solitude. ”

“ Ah! if she only had a brain like that of my little hedge princess Leah! But that's the strangest thing of all: she's clever and yet entirely without any craving for knowledge; without prejudices and perfectly indifferent to the opinions of others, kind hearted without any interest in mankind; gay without being contented, bright without being warm--and I, as a punishment for my sins, am condemned to lavish as much heart's blood upon this strange specimen of her sex, as if I were attempting a moral transfusion, instead of the physical one that has long been tried. ”

“ With the rapturous timidity of a young man in love, but far distant from the object of his longing, and who meantime indemnifies himself for all deprivations by the boldness of his waking dreams, he conjured up the image of his beloved wife and murmured confusedly a thousand happy, sweet, and sorrowful words. He sued for her heart as if she had never granted him a kind word, and in imagination whispered his yearning love in her ear and waited with a throbbing heart for some sound from her lips that might seem to favor his suit. ”

“ When, as the count introduced Edwin to her, she turned and raised a pair of laughing blue eyes to his, he could easily understand that this fairy-like vision must exercise no little power in converting unbelievers. Now, to be sure, beside the far nobler beauty of the mistress of the house, the danger even to such a butterfly heart as that of the young count, was not irresistible. Only her own husband, a handsome young man with a delicate, thoughtful face, whose family resemblance to the countess could not escape notice, seemed to be perpetually under the spell of those childish blue eyes. ”

“ I'll wager that if you had listened, you would not have been bored; for you have a tendency toward melancholy, and philosophy is like a magic lantern; the clear outlines of the pictures of the world it conjures up can only appear on a dark background, but on that dark background is thrown the real brightness, the light that brings cheerfulness and peace, while the common every day sunlight, like ordinary human reason, is only sufficient for the every day restless flickering dawn. ”

“ I know enough of your life to be able to cheer myself with the thought that no one stands nearer to you than I. Is it so utterly insane to cherish the hope, that I might in time become still dearer, that you might find it worth while to continue to live, if you should share your life with me, belong to me and find your happiness in mine? Dear Toinette, I'll not praise myself: but all whom I have ever loved will bear witness that I'm to be trusted. ”

“ Balder had sank back on the bed and closed his eyes again. His pale face was almost transfigured, he looked like a hero resting after a victory, and for the moment did not even feel the pain in his chest. The room was perfectly still, the sunlight played amid the palm leaves, the mask of the youthful prisoner, suffused with a rosy light which came from the open door of the stove, seemed to breathe and whisper to its image on the narrow couch: "Die, your death shall be painless!" ”

“ Don't you believe that one, who can experience whenever he wishes such a fullness of life in himself, to whom for this purpose everything lends its aid, sorrow and joy, loss and gain, each showing him a new side of his own nature--don't you believe, my dear fellow, that such a fortunate man must consider it a mistaken conclusion, even if a philosopher gave it utterance, it would be better not to be born. To be sure, no one can deny that there are times when sorrow stifles the desire for existence and excites an overwhelming longing for mere unconsciousness? ”

“ Field after field, and forest after forest, tiny villages and lonely huts flitted past them; the air grew no cooler, but the earth grew darker, and the sky lighter. The horses dashed onward with their silent load; the deep stillness of the summer night enwrapped them; over the black tree tops hung the tender crescent of the moon, and now and then a flash of light lit up the firmament, as if from a distant thunder cloud; a dreamy, quiet mood stole over our friend, the subdued happiness of a half dormant soul ”

“ Real happiness can be nothing but to sacrifice ourselves without losing ourselves, because we find ourselves again in something better than we are; to forget self in another, without fear of being ashamed of it, because that other at the same moment is thinking only of what we ourselves forget. You'll not understand me, and no matter if you don't. I'll light the lamp."
"You speak of love," he said quietly. "I understand you, because the same happiness you hope to find in earthly love, opens before us children of God in the bliss of eternity. ”

“ And so all the tragedy of life which a shallow philosophy pronounces to be the misery of the world, is merely another, higher form of enjoying life peculiar to lofty souls. When death steps in at last, it's like the sleep that comes after a holiday, when people have been so long in an ecstacy of delight that they are weary at last and have no strength for future enjoyments." He was silent a moment and wore a rapt expression. Then he suddenly said:
"If the festival is over for me, Franzel, you must hold fast to Edwin." ”

“ Take Mozart, Glück, the Italian composers--there everything is complete, every piece has its beginning, its middle and its end, exactly like ordinary love affairs. We are allured, we enjoy, and we grow weary--voilà tout, and if the music or the girl is beautiful, after a time we're again allured--a new aria, a new ecstacy--and so on indefinitely till the world tires us and our hair grows grey. ”

“ But Balder remained seated and after a pause said: "So you want to deprive those whom you believe to be your friends, of all hope of conquering what you call your fate? I believe, like you, in the power of blood, but I believe too, in the power of the will and the might of love. Only one thing seems hopeless to me: the commonplace. I've not known many people, yet among the few I have known were some who felt so perfectly well satisfied with what was base and mean, that nothing higher and purer could touch and win them. ”