Thomas Carlyle

“ But brighter and brighter shoots beam on beam, till in boundless expanse opens the grove where I behold Anselmus. Here glowing hyacinths, and tulips, and roses, lift their fair heads; and their perfumes, hi loveliest sound, call to the happy youth: "Wander, wander among us, our beloved; for thou understandest us! Our perfume is the Longing of Love: we love thee, and are thine for evermore!" The golden rays burn in glowing tones: We are Fire, kindled by Love. Perfume is Longing; but Fire is Desire: and dwell we not in thy bosom? We are thy own!" ”

“ Her meaning here was good, and I could not take it ill; to you also, my Friends, her wealth and her open-heartedness are nothing new.
Melted into sensibility, I said: "Now, Berga, if there be a reunion appointed for us, surely it is either in Heaven or in Flätz; and I hope in God, the latter." With these words, we whirled stoutly away. I looked round through the back-window of the coach at my good little village of Neusattel, and it seemed to me, in my melting mood, as if its steeples were rising aloft like an epitaphium over my life, or over my body, perhaps to return a lifeless corpse. ”

“ He fell into deep thoughts on the subject.
"Be of courage, young man!" cried the Archivarius; "if thou hast continuing Belief and true Love, Serpentina will help thee."
His voice sounded like ringing metal; and as Anselmus looked up in utter terror, Archivarius Lindhorst was standing before him in the kingly form, which, during the first visit, he had assumed in the library. Anselmus felt as if in his deep reverence he could not but sink on his knee; but the Archivarius stept up the trunk of a palm-tree, and vanished aloft among the emerald leaves. ”

“ Thou glidest to and fro with troubled look, like a hopeless lover; and all that thou sawest men attempting or attaining, in the noisy vortex of their many-coloured existence, awakened in thee no sorrow and no joy, as if thou hadst neither part nor lot in this sublunary world.
If such, favourable reader, has at any time been thy humour, then from thy own experience thou knowest the state into which the Student Anselmus had now fallen. On the whole, I could wish much, courteous reader, that it were in my power to bring the Student Anselmus with proper vividness before thy eyes. ”

“ Her heart was like to fail; it was as if ice-cold talons were clutching into her soul: but, with a strong effort, she collected herself; pressed closer to the crone, and said: "It must all be accomplished now, come of it what may!"
"Right, right, little daughter!" replied the crone; "be steady, like a good girl; thou shalt have something pretty, and Anselmus to boot."
At last the crone paused, and said: "Here is the place!" She dug a hole in the ground, then shook coals into it, put the trevet over them, and placed the cauldron on the top of it. ”

“ I help thee: be bold, be steadfast, dear Anselmus! I toil with thee, that thou mayest be mine!" And as, in the fulness of secret rapture, he caught these sounds, the unknown characters grew clearer and clearer to him; he scarcely required to look on the original at all; nay, it was as if the letters were already standing in pale ink on the parchment, and he had nothing more to do but mark them black. So did he labour on, encompassed with dear inspiring tones as with soft sweet breath, till the clock struck six, and Archivarius Lindhorst entered the apartment. ”

“ Anselmus! seest thou not how we still skim along before thee? Sisterkin looks at thee again: believe, believe, believe in us!" And he thought he saw in the reflected light three green-glowing streaks: but then, when he gazed, full of fond sadness, into the water, to see whether these gentle eyes would not again look up to him, he perceived too well that the shine proceeded only from the windows in the neighbouring houses. He was sitting mute in his place, and inwardly battling with himself, when Conrector Paulmann repeated, with still greater emphasis: "How are you, Herr Anselmus?" ”

“ Veronica again gave way to her dreaming; yet now, it was as if a hostile shape were still coming forward among these lovely visions of her future household life as Frau Hofräthinn, and the shape were laughing in spiteful mockery, and saying: "This is all very stupid and trashy stuff, and lies to boot; for Anselmus will never, never, be Hofrath, and thy husband; he does not love thee in the least, though thou hast blue eyes, and a fine figure, and a pretty hand." ”

“ The Equinox
"There is nothing in the world to be made of this Anselmus," said Conrector Paulmann; "all my good advices, all my admonitions, are fruitless; he will apply himself to nothing; though he is a fine classical scholar too, and that is the foundation of all."
But Registrator Heerbrand, with a sly, mysterious smile, replied: "Let Anselmus have his time, dear Conrector! he is a strange subject this Anselmus, but there is much in him; and when I say much, I mean a Privy Secretary, or even a Court-councillor, a Hofrath." ”

“ In his Humour he sports with the highest and the lowest, he can play at bowls with the sun and moon. His Imagination opens for us the Land of Dreams; we sail with him through the boundless abyss, and the secrets of Space, and Time, and Life, and Annihilation hover round us in dim cloudy forms, and darkness and immensity and dread encompass and overshadow us. Nay, in handling the smallest matter, he works it with the tools of a giant. A common truth is wrenched from its old combinations, and presented us in new, impassable, abyssmal contrast with its opposite error. ”

“ Notwithstanding the distance of the solitary street where the Archivarius Lindhorst's antique residence lay, the Student Anselmus was at the front-door before the stroke of twelve. He stood here, and was looking at the large fine bronze knocker; but now when, as the last stroke tingled through the air with loud clang from the steeple-clock of the Kreuzkirche, or Cross-church, he lifted his hand to grasp this same knocker, the metal visage twisted itself, with horrid rolling of its blue-gleaming eyes, into a grinning smile. ”

“ The youth Phosphorus put on a glittering coat of mail, sporting with the light in a thousand hues, and did battle with the Dragon, who struck the cuirass with his black wing, till it rung and sounded; and at this loud clang the flowrets again came to life, and like variegated birds fluttered round the Dragon, whose force departed; and who, thus being vanquished, hid himself in the depths of the Earth. The Lily was freed; the youth Phosphorus clasped her, full of warm longing, of heavenly love ”

“ Thou perceivest well, dear Anselmus, that the Salamander of whom I speak is no other than my father. Spite of his higher nature, he was forced to subject himself to the paltriest contradictions of common life; and hence, indeed, often comes the wayward humour with which he vexes many. He has told me now and then, that, for the inward make of mind, which the Spirit-prince Phosphorus required as a condition of marriage with me and my sisters, men have a name at present, which, in truth, they frequently enough misapply: they call it a childlike poetic character. ”

“ Thou knewest not, at this season, what to do, or whither to turn; a dim feeling that somewhere, and some time or other, there must be a higher wish fulfilled, a wish overstepping the circle of all earthly joys, and which the spirit, like a strictly-nurtured and timid child, durst not even utter, still swelled thy breast; and in this longing for the unknown Somewhat, which, wherever thou wentest or stoodest, hovered round thee like an airy dream with thin translucent forms melting away in thy sharper glance, thou wert mute for all that environed thee here below. ”