H.O.

“ But there will come better days! happy days! Thou art young, and youth brings health for the soul and body!”
She led Otto into the garden, where the willow plantations protected the other trees from the sharp west wind. The gooseberry-bushes bore fruit, but it was not yet ripe: one bush Otto had planted when a cutting; it was now large. Rosalie had tied the twigs to a palisade, so that, as an espalier, it could thoroughly drink in the sun’s rays. Otto regarded the fetters more than the good intention. ”

“ Everything great and beautiful powerfully affected Otto’s soul; only in one direction had he shown no interest—in the political direction, and it was precisely politics which had most occupied the grandfather in his seclusion. But Otto’s soul was too vivacious, too easily moved, too easily carried away by what lay nearest him. “One must first thoroughly enter into life, before the affairs of the world can seize upon us!” said he. “With the greater number of those who in their early youth occupy themselves with politics, it is merely affectation. ”

“ It was almost evening before he reached the house where Rosalie awaited him. His last scene with the blind fisher-woman had again thrown him into his gloomy mood. “After all, she really knows nothing!” said he to himself. “This Heinrich is my evil angel! might he only die soon!” It was in Otto’s soul as if he could shoot a ball through Heinrich’s heart. “Did he only lie buried under the heather, and with him my secret! I will have blood! yes, there is something devilish in man! Were Heinrich only dead! But others live who know my birth,—my sister! ”

“ This spring-day of life, on which the ice-covering of the school is broken, when the tree of Hope puts forth its buds and the sun of Freedom shines, falls with us, as is well known, in the month of October, just when Nature loses her foliage, when the evenings begin to grow darker, and when heavy winter-clouds draw together, as though they would say to youth,—“Your spring, the birth of the examination, is only a dream! even now does your life become earnest!” ”

“ Here it is gray, gray as in Denmark. To be sure Otto says that it is beautiful, that we have the heaven of home above us, but I am not so poetical. The eating is good, and the filth of the people strikes one horribly after being in Switzerland, the enchanting Switzerland! Yes, there is nature! We have made a crusade through it, you may think. But now you shall hear about the journey, and the entrance into ‘la bella Italia,’ which is yet below all my expectations. I cannot at all bear these feeble people; I cannot endure this monk-odor and untruthfulness. ”

“ We mutually visit each other upon our different estates, where we lead most merry lives, dance with the peasant-girls at the brewing-feast, hunt in the woods, and fish in the lakes. The only melancholy object which presents itself with us is a funeral, and the only romantic characters we possess are a little hump-backed musician, a wise woman, and an honest schoolmaster, who still firmly believes, as Jeronimus did, that the earth is flat, and that, were it to turn round, we should fall, the devil knows where!”
“I love nature in Jutland!” exclaimed Otto. ”

“ He pressed her hand silently, and with the earnest glance of confidence and truth they looked at each other.
“I shall speedily leave my native country,” said Otto. “It may be forever. I should return with sorrow to a home where no happiness awaited me. I stand so entirely alone in the world!”
“But you have friends,” said Louise; “sincere friends. You must think with pleasure of returning home to Denmark. My mother loves you as if she were your own mother. Wilhelm and Sophie—yes, we will consider you as a brother.”
“And Sophie?” exclaimed Otto. ”

“ Otto now explained what an extraordinary aversion he had felt, what a painful feeling had seized upon him, and made it impossible to him.
“There you were playing the martyr!” said Wilhelm, laughing. “Could you not immediately tell me how you were constituted? So are most men. When they have no trouble, they generally hatch one themselves; they will rather stand in the cold shadow than in the warm sunshine, and yet the choice stands open to us. ”

“ He placed his hand upon his heart,
And said: “You think you’re awful smart,
But I have foiled you thus!”
His parents humbly bent the knee,
And meekly said: “H. O. M. T.,
You’re one too much for us!” ”

“ Wilhelm opened his eyes. Otto was pale; a sleepless night and sorrow of heart had breathed upon his brow and eyes.
“Thostrup!” cried Wilhelm, with joyous surprise, and stretched forth his hand toward him, but it again sank; Otto seized it, and pressed it firmly in his own, adding at the same time, with gravity,—“You have humbled me! Is that sufficient satisfaction for you?”
“We are then friends!” said Wilhelm. “Friends must be very indulgent toward each other. Yesterday you were a little strange, to-morrow I may be so; that is the way in which one retaliates.” ”

“ They all burst out laughing when the Kammerjunker appeared in a white petticoat which only reached a little below the knee, and in a large white lady’s dressing-jacket. Miss Sophie must arrange his hair. She did it charmingly; her hand stroked the hair away from his brow, and glided over his cheeks: he kissed it; she struck him in the face, and begged him not to forget himself! “We are ladies,” said he, and rose in his full splendor. They all laughed except Otto; he could not—he felt a desire to beat him. The spectators arranged themselves in a dark room, the folding doors were opened. ”

“ I have shown too much good nature, and that is the most unfortunate failing a man can be cursed with!”
He seated himself at the piano, and hammered away.
Otto was silent a moment, his checks glowed, but he was soon again calm, and in a joking tone said: “Do not expend your anger upon that poor instrument because we disagree in our views. You are playing only dissonances, which offend my ear more than your anger!”
“Dissonances!” repeated Wilhelm. “Cannot you hear that they are harmonies? There are many things for which you have a bad ear!” ”

“ I will sincerely wish that your heart may be filled with love as mine is; then will the influence of the sand-hills vanish, and you will speak with me as you ought to do, and as my confidence deserves!”
“That will I!” replied Otto. “You make the poor girl miserable! Now you love Eva, but then you will no longer be able. The distance between you and her is too great, and I cannot conceive how the beauty of her countenance can thus fill your whole being. A waiting-girl! yes, I repeat the name which offends your ear: a waiting-girl! Everywhere will it be repeated. ”

“ Otto did not feel well.
“These are only whims,” said Sophie.
The ladies made merry, and Otto remained. Cousin Joachim came and was interesting—very interesting, said all. He related of Paris, spoke also of Copenhagen, and drew comparisons. The quietness of home had made an especial impression on him.
“People here,” said he, “go about as if they bore some heavy grief, or some joy, which they might not express. If one goes into a coffee-house, it is just as if one entered a house of mourning. Each one seats himself, a newspaper in his hand, in a corner. ”

“ You will very likely have found for yourself a little bride there, or will you fetch one out of Lemvig? for no doubt she must be from a town! Yes, I have known him ever since he was a little fellow; yonder, on the wall, he made, out of herrings’ heads, the living devil, just as he lives and breathes. He thrust our sucking-pig into the eel-cart, between the casks. We sought a whole day after the sucking-pig without finding him, and he was forced to make the journey with them to Holstebro. ”

“ It is even so with our story; whilst our characters, by mutual discourse, make themselves worthy of contemplation, there arises, as with the individual branches of the tree, an unseen connection. The branch which shoots high up in the air, as though it would separate itself from the mother-stem, only presses forward to form the crown, to lend uniformity to the whole tree. ”

“ Profiting by Turkey's embarrassments in other parts, the Arabs rose in the summer of 1916, resolved on ridding themselves of the hated Turkish yoke. Sheikh Hussein of Mecca was proclaimed King of the Hejaz.
At this time there were garrisons of Turkish troops stationed at Mecca, Medina and at the port of Jiddah. Their communication with Turkey was by the recently opened railway to Damascus and Aleppo. This railway, south of Damascus, ran along the high plateau on the eastern side of the Dead Sea, through Maan, and along the desert to Medina. ”

“ Men had alternately to hoist and pull each other up under fire, and finally to expel the enemy from the summits in hand-to-hand fighting. Under these conditions no rapid advance could be looked for.
The 60th Division, by night, crossed the Wadi el Auja, north of Jericho (not to be confused with the wadi of the same name to the north of Jaffa) . This Division seized a position astride the Beisan-Jericho road. The 53rd Division captured Tel-Asur, a conspicuous landmark among a mass of high hills, which mountain the enemy tried repeatedly, but in vain, to recover. ”

“ In the spring of that year, however, a British offensive was undertaken in Palestine, which had the immediate effect of drawing to that country strong Turkish and German reinforcements from Aleppo. Nothing more was heard of the offensive in Mesopotamia, and, by the autumn of 1918, there was scarcely a fighting Turk to be found in that country. Just as our expedition against the Dardanelles, by engaging the enemy at a vital spot near home, had materially assisted the defence of Egypt, so did our offensives in Palestine materially assist the defence of Mesopotamia. ”

“ These letters are mostly divided between perpetual family details and perennial jocularity: a succession of witticisms, or at lowest of puns and whimsicalities, mounts up like so many squibs and crackers, fizzing through, sparkling amid, or ultimately extinguished by, the inevitable shower—the steady rush and downpour—of the home-affections. It may easily be inferred from this account that there are letters which one is inclined to read more thoroughly, and in greater number consecutively, than Hood's. ”

“ East of this strong natural boundary formed by the deep trough of the Jordan, we find a very different country. It rises abruptly from the Jordan Valley, and is in itself a plateau. [33] It is at first fertile, but, at distances ranging from 40 to 60 miles inland, it merges into steppe and then into sheer desert. Thus it is a country apart, difficult of access from Jerusalem and Western Palestine, more easy of access from Damascus or from Arabia. Through it, from north to south, runs the Hejaz railway, on its way from Damascus to Medina. ”

“ Serious fighting had practically finished with the capture of Damascus. The northward flight of the Turks continued, closely pursued by our cavalry and armoured cars. A Division of infantry was brought forward in support, but the difficulties of supplying a large force so far away from a base made it impossible to bring forward the infantry in any strength. Australians rounded up a Turkish column some miles north of Damascus, and a few thousand more prisoners were captured. ”

“ I kneeled, and was going to stretch out my hand to take one, when my patron seized me, as I thought, by the clothes, and dragged me away with as much ease as I had been a lamb, saying, with a joyful and elevated voice: "Come, my friend, let us depart: thou art dreaming—thou art dreaming. Rouse up all the energies of thy exalted mind, for thou art an highly favoured one; and doubt thou not that He whom thou servest, will be ever at thy right and left hand, to direct and assist thee." ”

“ There lay no balsam in the gentle airs of the clear summer night, in the fragrance of the wood, in the holy, silent spirit of nature. Poor Otto!
“Weep, only weep! it gives repose, A world is every tear that flows,— A world of anguish and unrest, That rolleth from the troubled breast. “And hast thou wept whilst tears can flow, A tranquil peace thy heart will know; For sorrow, trivial or severe, Hath had its seat in every tear. “Think’st thou that He, whose love beholds The worm the smallest leaf enfolds,— That He, whose power sustains the whole Forgets a world—thy human soul?” ”

“ We had hoped that our offensive in Syria might have been supported by the co-operation of the Russians. Instead, we felt the pinch of their defection in the stiffening of enemy resistance on our front by the transfer of good troops from the Caucasus to Palestine.
There is yet another theatre of warfare in Asiatic Turkey, the operations in which exerted considerable influence on those in Palestine. The whole of the eastern shores of the [25] Red Sea formed part of the Ottoman Empire. The southernmost sector, known as the Yemen, was the farthest outpost of that Empire. ”

“ I saw the Alpine chain, like floating cloud mountains; below mist, above dark shapes with glancing glaciers.”
“Yes, Otto,” said Rosalie, and her eyes sparkled with youthful fire; “so looks the Alpine chain when one goes from Le Locle to Neulfchâtel: so did I see it when I descended the Jura for the list time. It was in August. The trees, with their autumnal foliage, stood yellow and red between the dark firs; barberries and hips grew among the tall fern. The Alps lay in such a beautiful light, their feet blue as heaven, their peaks snow-white in the clear sunshine. ”