Stein

“ 'Who knows? He is gone, inscrutable at heart, and the poor girl is leading a sort of soundless, inert life in Stein's house. Stein has aged greatly of late. He feels it himself, and says often that he is "preparing to leave all this; preparing to leave . . ." while he waves his hand sadly at his butterflies.'
September 1899--July 1900. ”

“ Stein was one of those strong and courageous, direct, decided, and altogether manly characters that cannot be present in any age, when there is a call for noble action, without putting their stamp on it. ”

“ Stein’s early training, together with the sternly practical bent of his own nature, made him completely impervious to the enthusiasm which the French Revolution had aroused in many minds in Germany. He disliked its methods as an interruption to the orderly development of peoples. Nevertheless he carefully noted the new sources of national strength which its reforms called forth in France. ”

“ Is it a caprice—a sudden thought—an act of folly?”
Stein was silent.
“In any case, Don Frederico, it is ungrateful.”
These bitter, and at the same time affectionate words, caused Stein the utmost emotion. He covered his face with both hands, and his long-repressed grief burst forth in sobs.
The duke approached him.
“Don Frederico,” said he to him, “there is no indiscretion in confiding one’s griefs to a friend. In the grave circumstances of life, every thing obliges those who suffer to receive the good counsel of those who are interested in their happiness. ”

“ Stein related his campaigns, his misadventures, his arrival at the convent, his love, and his marriage.
The duke listened with much interest; and the recital gave him a great desire to know Marisalada, the fisherman, and the cabin which Stein preferred to a palace. Thus, on the occasion of his first going out, he directed his walk, accompanied by his doctor, to the sea-coast. Spring had commenced, and the freshness of the breeze, the pure breath of the immense element, lent its charm to their pilgrimage. The fort of St. ”

“ The duke was seated near her.
“It is nothing, Maria,” said Stein. “It is nothing, duke. A nervous attack, already dissipated. Her pulse is perfectly tranquil. You need only repose, Maria. Work is killing you. It is already some time that your nerves have been extraordinarily irritated. Your nervous system rebels against the zeal you devote to the study of your characters. I am in no way uneasy, and now I go to attend a patient, who is in a dangerous condition. Take the prescription which I will order for you, and some orgeat on retiring; and to-morrow when you rise some ass’s milk. ”

“ Stein was born in the house where he retired to spend his last years in study: his grave and pious nature is shown in the mottoes with which he adorned his home: "A tower of strength is our God" over the house-door, and in his library, above his books and busts and gathering of life-memorials, "Confidence in God, singleness of mind and righteousness." ”

“ WILLIAM. That, he said, was an honor to both masters and servants; but before the court nothing could be based on it.
FORESTER. But he does not know that Stein wants to depose me, because I had his best interests at heart, that the forest is exposed on the north and west. A lawyer does not know that a forest is like a vault, where one stone always holds and supports the others. Thus the vault can withstand any force, but take out only a dozen stones from the centre, and the whole thing comes tumbling about your ears. ”

“ It had been a fine house for p. 280the colonies, well built of stone, almost like a one-storeyed house at home in Germany—in Poland. Burnt. Absolutely gutted with fire. He remembered the pathetic appearance of a grand piano, crushed beneath a fallen beam, worth, he supposed, as much as three thousand rupees, worth half that second-hand, now only a twisted tangle of strings and a warped iron frame. No trace of Godovius or of his servants. No trace of anything in the world but ashes. Stein said nothing. It was a dangerous thing when a man like Stein, a man of deep feeling, remained silent. ”

“ These are serious words; and though Stein was one of those intense and strongly accentuating minds that never could state a truth without overstating it, (as Martin Luther also was continually doing,) they are not wise who would treat the hard blows from the cudgel of such a man as if they were puffs and whiffs of angry smoke from some wrathful Heine, or other furious poetical politician in Paris. Stein was the most practical of men; he had lived all his life amid the details of practice ”

“ Within this instant the rude ferocity of the fisherman’s daughter was changed, and her regard for Stein induced a certain confidence and docility which caused the greatest surprise to all the family.
Maria advised Stein to profit by the ascendency he obtained day by day over the mind of Marisalada, to engage her to be instructed and employ her time in learning the law of God, and to try and become a good Christian; a woman of sense and reason; a good manager. ”

“ Stein joined the party of a younger son, the one of whom thirty years later he never spoke otherwise but as "my poor Mohammed Bonso." They both became the heroes of innumerable exploits; they had wonderful adventures, and once stood a siege in the Scotsman's house for a month, with only a score of followers against a whole army. I believe the natives talk of that war to this day. Meantime, it seems, Stein never failed to annex on his own account every butterfly or beetle he could lay hands on. ”

“ His parents had died while he was with the army of Navarre; his sister Charlotte was married to a farmer in easy circumstances, who had made of his wife’s two brothers cultivators—not much instructed, but handy and assiduous at their work. Stein, therefore, believed himself free and sole arbiter of his fate. ”

“ But Stein was too fierce and fiery a spirit, not merely too ardent, but too open and reckless a "French-hater," to remain long as prime-minister of Prussia under such a suspicious and jealous-eyed master-general of continental police as Napoleon. ”

“ There never had been such a wonderful man as Mr. Stein. He had in his pocket a letter for Cornelius (“the Johnnie who’s going to get the sack,” he explained, with a momentary drop in his elation) , and he exhibited with glee a silver ring, such as natives use, worn down very thin and showing faint traces of chasing.
‘This was his introduction to an old chap called Doramin—one of the principal men out there—a big pot—who had been Mr. Stein’s friend in that country where he had all these adventures. Mr. Stein called him “war-comrade.” War-comrade was good. ”

“ Stein, although only an imitation diamond, is so well polished that a less practised eye might well take him for genuine. He has more self-control and better manners than we generally find with people of low birth. ”

“ No man had lived there for days. I thought of the woman whose work was in the kitchen. I went to Stein. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘there has been black work, black work. . . . These devils have killed them.’ Stein said nothing:
“I thought, ‘These people, the missionary and his wife, had gone to Godovius for protection. Alas! p. 281they have shared his fate. Now there are three white people to be avenged.’ Stein told the askaris to load their rifles. He himself walked behind the machine-gun porters. ‘Now we will see to these Waluguru swine,’ he said. Stein was a man of few words but a colossal courage. ”

“ I always felt as if men were speaking from the heart, and I could say, after a few words: This man has a good heart, and that man has a bad heart. And with Stein this proves to be correct. I have seen many proofs of his good heart. Thus, there died a few days ago an immensely old woman in the village, who was once upon a time housekeeper at the château, and drew a little pension from papa. Nobody took any notice of her except Stein, and he took care of her burial, and accompanied, together with Bruno, her remains to the grave-yard. ”

“ So they did not guess that little brother, who had never known a cradle of his own, was tucked there in the warm hay of the holy manger; while overhead still the golden star waited to twinkle, and round about, the candles to flame into radiant light, the angels to sing their glad songs, and the wise kings and the shepherds to bow lower still before the little Jesus. And still, up in the gray old tower, the bells were fairly quivering with the gold and silver notes they would by and by chime forth. Nor had they long now to wait, for the midnight was drawing near. ”

“ He is upright, and saving, and truly religious, but, ach Himmel, if he were only not so uncertain! Nobody, not even Stein, steady himself as a rock, can make him know what he wants to do and at once to do it. ”

“ The next night we stopped at the little village of Stein, famous in former times for its robber-knight, Hans von Stein. The ruins of his castle stand on the rock above, and the caverns hewn in the sides of the precipice, where he used to confine his prisoners, are still visible. Walking on through a pleasant, well-cultivated country, we came to Wasserburg, on the Inn. The situation of the city is peculiar. The Inn has gradually worn his channel deeper in the sandy soil, so that he now flows at the bottom of a glen, a hundred feet below the plains around. ”

“ The chief man in this great work was the celebrated Baron von Stein, whose name is of infrequent mention in popular histories of the Napoleonic age, but who had more to do with the overthrow of the Man of Destiny than any other person. It is one of those strange facts which are so constantly meeting us in history, that it was by Napoleon's advice that Stein was employed by the Prussian king. "Take the Baron von Stein," said the Emperor, when the king at Tilsit spoke of the misery of his situation; "he is a man of sense." ”

“ In some respects there has been a tendency to magnify the achievements of Stein. As usually happens with men of great force of character, the work of less noteworthy individuals is ascribed to the one commanding personality. This was so even during the fourteen months of phenomenal activity, October 1807 to December 1808. More painstaking research has shown that the credit for originating many of the far-reaching reforms then promulgated must be shared with Heinrich Theodor von Schön and many others. ”

“ It was that naturalist who, engaging him as a sort of assistant, took him to the East. They travelled in the Archipelago together and separately, collecting insects and birds, for four years or more. Then the naturalist went home, and Stein, having no home to go to, remained with an old trader he had come across in his journeys in the interior of Celebes--if Celebes may be said to have an interior. This old Scotsman, the only white man allowed to reside in the country at the time, was a privileged friend of the chief ruler of Wajo States, who was a woman. ”

“ Stein's newspaper notice. "Nonsense!" he said, knitting his brows. "There are just as many lies printed as uttered. But what do you mean by the two who are to blame? What business is the affair of yours? You are and always were an insolent fellow——"
"Squire!" shouted Red Jakob, and an evil light shone in his deep-set eyes; but, after a pause, he continued, more gently: "I do deserve a scolding this time, although not for what you think. It fretted me to see the gracious Fruleen so deceived. I saw them both in the forest—Squire Otto and Frau von Magelone—who was at Klausenburg on a visit. ”

“ Frau von Stein dominated the poet’s life for twelve years, until his journey to Italy in 1786–1788. Of other events of this period the most notable were two winter journeys, the first in 1777, to the Harz Mountains, the second, two years later, to Switzerland—journeys which gave Goethe scope for that introspection and reflection for which his Weimar life left him little time. On the second of these journeys he revisited Friederike in Sesenheim, saw Lili, who had married and settled in Strassburg, and made the personal acquaintance of Lavater in Zürich. ”

“ Or are you one of these people who believe that there is no problem, that all things will solve themselves? Do you believe that, Stein? Do you think that Peter Ambrose Miller thinks that way?"
No, Stein didn't think that way, and Miller didn't think that way. We all knew that.
"All right," and he rubbed the back of his neck with a tired hand. "We have that weapon now. We, meaning the United States, and the whole wide world, from Andorra to Zanzibar. Now means today, in my lexicon. ”

“ Stein's, speculative insight is combined with patient investigation and judicious inference; in less skilful hands the method he sets up as a rival to the 'speculative-constructive' is apt to result in mere biographical gossip, throwing no real light upon the history of philosophy. As the late Professor Green remarked, "it is possible for knowledge about philosophers to flourish inversely as the knowledge of philosophy." ”

“ He climbed awkwardly into the sidecar, and the soldier, after a hesitant acceptance, kicked the starter. The Old Man gripped the sides firmly as they bounced away in the baking breeze, and Stein looked absently at his watch. It was close to noon.
At twelve-thirty the gas truck rolled ponderously back to its den. At one, our two pilots struck out across the strip for the post buildings, shimmering in the heat. At one-thirty, I turned to Stein, who had been biting his nails for an hour.
"Enough is enough," I said. "Who finds out what—you or I?" ”