'^ 
 
 
 m-^m 
 
 ^^■Ef^^--^ 
 
 
 ■«^ 
 
 w. 
 
 -m 
 
 '^^1 
 
 •jg 
 
 ■' r^ VW. -vii. 
 
 5^^^^*^ 
 
 I 
 
 '^^^'^ 
 
 ^-^ 
 
 * 
 
 K'^i. 
 
 •^^i^- 
 
 :;.(&> 
 
 "SSi'- ■ '■ 
 
 'j< 
 
 ^Am^i.
 
 w^ 
 
 W: 
 
 ^%* 
 
 A^, 
 
 X/Til'^J; 
 
 
 ^i^M 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 ^mm^^^i^^ 
 
 W^^^ 
 
 W. 
 
 dW^ 
 
 m^A 
 
 "~-!wryfr 
 
 % 
 
 :^ 
 
 
 
 ■^^^1:^^^ 
 
 Wr 
 
 »i,«=rlj'ih'£_./

 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 I SAN DIEGO
 
 Pausanias and Cleonice.-^PAUSANIAS.
 
 I I
 
 PAUSAN lUS 
 
 THE SPARTAN 
 
 Ji2a!^t^>^ 
 
 Sir EDWARDy BULWER LYTTON, Bart, 
 
 CHICAGO AND NEW YORK: 
 
 BELFORD, CLARKE & COMPANY, 
 
 Publishers.
 
 TROWS 
 
 PRINTrNG AND BOOKBIMDINQ COMPANY, 
 
 ^EW YORK.
 
 DEDICATION. 
 
 TO 
 
 THE REVEREND BENJAMIN HALL KENNEDY. D.D., 
 
 CANON OF ELY, AND REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNI* 
 VERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 My dear Dr. Kennedy, — Revised by your helpful hand, 
 and corrected by your accurate scholarship, to whom may 
 these pages be so fitly inscribed as to that one of their au- 
 thor's earliest and most honored friends,* whose generous 
 assistance has enabled me to place them before the public in 
 their present form ? 
 
 It is fully fifteen, if not twenty, years since my father 
 commenced the composition of an historical romance on the 
 subject of Pausanias, the Spartan Regent. Circumstances, 
 which need not here be recorded, compelled him to lay aside 
 the work thus begun. But the subject continued to haunt his 
 imagination and occupy his thoughts. He detected in it sin- 
 gular opportunities for effective exercise of the gifts most 
 peculiar to his genius ; and repeatedly, in the intervals of 
 other literary labor, he returned to the task which, though 
 again and again interrupted, was never abandoned. To that 
 rare combination of the imaginative and practical faculties 
 which characterized my father's intellect, and received from 
 his life such varied illustration, the story of " Pausanias," in- 
 deed, briefly as it is told by Thucydides and Plutarch, ad- 
 dressed itself with singular force. The vast conspiracy of 
 
 * The late Lord Lytton, in his unpublished autobiographical mem- 
 oirs, describing his contemporaries at Cambridge, speaks of Dr. Kennedj 
 as a " young giant of learning."
 
 ^ DEDTCA TION". 
 
 the Spartan Regent, had it been successful, would have 
 changed the whole course of Grecian history. To any stu- 
 dent of political phenomena, but more especially to one 
 who, during the greater part of his life, had been per 
 sonally engaged in active politics, the story of such a 
 conspiracy could not fail to be attractive. To the stu- 
 dent of human nature the character of Pausanias himself 
 offers sources of the deepest interest; and, in the strange 
 career and tragic fate of the great conspirator, an imagina- 
 tion fascinated by the supernatural must have recognized re- 
 markable elements of awe and terror. A few months pre- 
 vious to his death, I asked my father whether he had aban- 
 doned all intention of finishing his romance of " Pausanias." 
 He replied, " On the contrary, I am finishing it now," and 
 entered, with great animation, into a discussion of the subject 
 and its capabilities. This reply to my inquiry surprised and 
 impressed me ; for, as you are aware, my father was then en- 
 gaged in the simultaneous composition of two other and very 
 different works, " Kenelm Chillingly " and the " Parisians." 
 It was the last time he ever spoke to me about " Pausanias ; " 
 but from what he then said of it I derived an impression that 
 the book was all but completed, and needed only a few finish- 
 ing touches to be ready for publication at no distant date. 
 
 This impression was confirmed, subsequent to my father's 
 death, by a letter of instruction about his posthumous papers 
 which accompanied his will. In that letter, dated 1856, spe- 
 cial allusion is made to " Pausanias " as a work already far 
 advanced toward its conclusion. 
 
 You, to whom, in your kind and careful revision of it, this 
 unfinished work has suggested many questions which, alas ! 
 I can not answer, as to the probable conduct and fate of its 
 fictitious characters, will readily understand my reluctance to 
 surrender an impression seemingly so -well justified. I did 
 not, indeed, cease to cherish it until reiterated and exhaus- 
 tive search had failed to recover from the " wallet " wherein 
 Time " puts alms for oblivion " more than those few imper- 
 fect fragments which, by your valued help, are here arranged 
 in such order as to carry on the narrative of " Pausanias," 
 with no solution of continuity, to the middle of the second 
 volume. 
 
 There the manuscript breaks off. Was it ever continued 
 further? I know not. Many circumstances induce me to 
 believe that the conception had long been carefully completed 
 in the mind of its author ; but he has left behind him only a
 
 DEDrCA TIOAT. 5 
 
 very meagre and imperfect indication of the course which, 
 beyond the point where it is broken, his narrative was in- 
 tended to follow. In presence of this fact, I have had to 
 choose between the total suppression of the fragment, and the 
 publication of it in its present form. My choice has not 
 been made without hesitation ; but I trust that, from many 
 points of view, the following pages will be found to justify it. 
 Judiciously (as I cannot but think) for the purposes of his 
 fiction, my father has taken up the stor)^ of " Pausanias " at 
 a period subsequent to the battle of Plataea ; when the Spar- 
 tan Regent, as Admiral of the United Greek Fleet in the 
 waters of Byzantium, was at the summit of his power and 
 reputation. Mr. Grote, in his great work, expresses the 
 opinion (which certainly cannot be disputed by unbiased 
 readers of Thucydides) that the victory of Plataea was not at- 
 tributable to any remarkable abilities on the part of Pau- 
 sanias. But Mr. Grote fairly recognizes as quite exceptional 
 the fame and authority accorded to Pausanias, after the 
 battle, by all the Hellenic States, the influence which his 
 name commanded, and the awe which his character inspired. 
 Not to the mere fact of his birth as a HeracleicI,not to the lucky 
 accident (if such it were) of his success at Platasa, and cer- 
 tainly not to his undisputed (but surely by no means uncom- 
 mon) physical courage, is it possible to attribute the peculiar 
 position which this remarkable man so long occupied in the 
 estimation of his contemporaries. For the little that we know 
 about Pausanias we are mainly dependent upon Athenian 
 writers, who must have been strongly prejudiced against him. 
 Mr. Grote, adopting (as any modern historian needs must do) 
 the narrative so handed down to him, never once pauses to 
 question its estimate of the character of a man who was at 
 one time the glory, and at another the terror, of all Greece. 
 Yet in comparing the summary proceedings taken against 
 Leotychides with the extreme, and seemingly pusillanimous, 
 deference paid to Pausanias by the Ephors long after they 
 possessed the most alarming proofs of his treason, Mr. Grote 
 observes, without attempting to account for the fact, that 
 Pausanias, though only Regent, was far more pow'erful than 
 any Spartan King. Why so pow-erful ? Obviously, because 
 he possessed uncommon force of character ; a force of 
 character strikingly attested by every known incident of his 
 career ; and which, when concentrated upon the conception 
 and execution of vast designs (even if those designs be crim- 
 inal), must be recognized as the special attribute of genius.
 
 5 BE Die A TION. 
 
 Thucydides, Plutarch, Diodorus, Grote, all these writers as 
 cribe solely to the administrative incapacity of Pausanias that 
 offensive arrogance which characterized his command at By- 
 zantium, and apparently cost Sparta the loss of her maritime 
 hegemony. But here is precisely one of those problems in 
 public policy and personal conduct which the historian be- 
 queaths to the imaginative writer, and which needs, for its 
 solution, a profound knowledge rather of human nature than 
 of books. For, dealing with such a problem, my father, in 
 addition to the intuitive penetration of character and motive 
 which is common to every great romance-writer, certainly 
 possessed two qualifications special to himself: the habit of 
 ^tzS^ixi^ practically with political questions, and experience in 
 the active management of men. His explanation of the pol- 
 icy of Pausanias at Byzantium, if it be not (as I think it is) 
 the right one, is at least the only one yet offered, I venture 
 to think that, historically, it merits attention ; as, from the 
 imaginative point of view, it is undoubtedly felicitous. By 
 elevating our estimate of Pausanias as a statesman, it in- 
 creases our interest in him as a man. 
 
 The author of " Pausanias " does not merely tell us that 
 his hero, when in conference with the Spartan commission- 
 ers, displayed " great natural powers which, rightly trained, 
 might have made him not less renowned in council than in 
 war," but he gives us, though briefly, the arguments used by 
 Pausanias. He presents to us the image, always interesting, 
 of a man who grasps firmly the clear conception of a definite 
 but difficult policy, for success in which he is dependent on 
 the conscious or involuntary co-operation of men impenetra- 
 ble to that conception, and possessed of a collective author- 
 ity even greater than his own. To retain Sparta temporarily 
 at the head of Greece was an ambition quite consistent with 
 the more criminal designs of Pausanias: and his whole con- 
 duct at Byzantium is rendered more intelligible than it ap- 
 pears in history, when he points out that " for Sparta to 
 maintain her ascendency two things are needful : first, to 
 continue the war by land ; secondly,to disgust the lonians with 
 their sojourn at Byzantium, to send them with their ships back 
 to their own havens, and so leave Hellas under the sole guar- 
 dianship of the Spartans and their Peloponnesian allies." 
 And who has not learned, in a later school, the wisdom of 
 the Spartan commissioners ? Do not their utterances sound 
 familiar to us? " Increase of dominion is waste of life and 
 treasure. Sparta is content to hold her own. What care we
 
 DEDICA TIOX. 1 
 
 who leads the Greeks into blows ? The fewer blows, the 
 better. Brave men fight if they must : wise men never fight 
 if they can help it." Of this scene and some others in the 
 first volume of the present fragment (notably the scene in 
 which the Regent confronts the allied chiefs, and defends 
 himself against the charge of connivance at the escape of the 
 Persian prisoners), I should have been tempted to say that 
 they could not have been written without personal experience 
 of political life, if the interview between Wallenstein and the 
 cSwedish embassadors in Schiller's great trilogy did not lecur 
 to my recollection as I write. The language of the embassa- 
 dors in that interview is a perfect manual of practical diplo- 
 macy ; and yet in practical diplomacy Schiller had no per- 
 sonal experience. There are, indeed, no limits to the 
 creative power of genius. But it is perhaps the practical 
 politician who will be most interested by the chapters in 
 which Pausanias explains his policy, or defends his position. 
 
 In publishing a romance which its author has left unfin- 
 ished, I may perhaps be allowed to indicate briefly what I 
 believe to have been the general scope of its design, and the 
 probable progress of its narrative. 
 
 The "domestic interest" of that narrative is supplied by 
 the story of Cleonice : a story which, briefly told by Plutarch, 
 suggests one of the most tragic situations it is possible to 
 conceive. The pathos and terror of this dark, weird episode 
 in a life which history herself invests with all the character 
 of romance, long haunted the imagination of Byron, and 
 elicited from Goethe one of the most whimsical illustrations 
 of the astonishing absurdity into which criticism sometimes 
 tumbles, when it " o'erleaps itself and falls o ' the other." 
 
 Writing of Manfred and its author, he says : " There are, 
 properly speaking, two females w'hose phantoms forever haunt 
 him ; and which, in this piece also, perform principal parts. 
 One under the name of Astarte, the other without form or 
 actual presence, and merely a voice. Of the horrid occur- 
 rence which took place with the former, the following is re- 
 lated : When a bold and enterprising young man, he won the 
 affections of a Florentine lady. Her husband discovered 
 the amour, and murdered his wife. But the murderer was 
 the same night found dead in the street, and there was no 
 one to whom any suspicion could be attached. Lord Byron 
 removed from Florence, and these spirits haunted hifn all his 
 life after. This romantic incident is rendered highly probable 
 by innumerable allusions to it in his poems ; as, for instance,
 
 8 DEDICA TION, 
 
 when turning his sad contemplations inward, he applies to 
 himself the fatal history of the King of Sparta. It is as fol- 
 lows : Pausanias, a Lacedgemonian general, acquires glory 
 by the important victory at Plataea ; but afterward forfeits 
 the confidence of his countrymen by his arrogance, obstinacy, 
 and secret intrigues with the common enemy. This man 
 draws upon himself the heavy guilt of innocent blood, which 
 attends him to his end ; for, while commanding the fleet of 
 the allied Greeks in the Black Sea, he is inflamed with a 
 violent passion for a Byzantine maiden. After long resis- 
 tance, he at length obtains her from her parents, and she is 
 to be delivered up to him at night. She modestly desires the 
 servant to put out the lamp, and, while groping her way in the 
 dark she overturns it. Pausanias is awakened from his sleep : 
 apprehensive of an attack from murderers, he seizes his sword 
 and destroys his mistress. The horrid sight never leaves 
 him. Her shade pursues him unceasingly ; and in vain he 
 implores aid of the gods and the exorcising priests. That 
 poet must have a lacerated heart who selects such a scene 
 from antiquity, appropriates it to himself, and burdens his 
 tragic image with it."* 
 
 It is extremely characteristic of Byron that, instead of 
 resenting this charge of murder, he was so pleased by the 
 criticism in which it occurs that he afterwards dedicated 
 " The Deformed Transformed " to Goethe. Mr. Grote re- 
 peats the stor)' above alluded to, with all the sanction of his 
 grave authority, and even mentions the name of the young 
 lady ; apparently for the sake of adding a few black strokes 
 to his character of Pausanias. But the supernatural part of 
 the legend was, of course, beneath the notice of a nineteenth- 
 century critic ; and he passes it by. This part of the story 
 is, however, essential to the psychological interest of it. For 
 whether it be that Pausanias supposed himself, or that con- 
 temporary gossips supposed him, to be haunted by the phan- 
 tom of the woman he had loved and slain, the fact in either 
 case affords a lurid glimpse into the inner life of the man ; just 
 as, although Goethe's murder-story about Byron is ludicrously 
 untrue, yet the fact in either case affords a lurid glimpse into 
 the inner life of the man ; just as, although Goethe's mur- 
 der-story about Byron is ludicrously untrue, yet the fact that 
 such a story was circulated, and could be seriously repeated 
 by such a man as Goethe without being resented by Byron 
 
 • xMoore's " Life and Letters of Lord Byron, " p. 723.
 
 DEDICA TION. g 
 
 himself, offers significant illustration, both of what Byron 
 was, and of what he appeared to his contemporaries. Grote 
 also assigns the death of Cleonice to that period in the life 
 of Pausanias when he was in the command of the allies at 
 Byzantium, and refers to it as one of the numerous outrages 
 whereby Pausanias abused and disgraced the authority con- 
 fided to him. Plutarchj however, who tells the stor)' in 
 greater detail, distinctly fixes the date of its catastrophe 
 subsequent to the return of the Regent to Byzantium, as a 
 solitary volunteer, in the trireme of Hermione. The follow- 
 ing is his account of the affair : — 
 
 " It is related that Pausanias, when at Byzantium, sought, 
 with criminal purpose, the love of a young lady of good 
 family, named Cleonice. The parents, yielding to fear or 
 necessity, suffered him to carry away their daughter. Before 
 entering his chamber, she requested that the light might be 
 extinguished, and, in darkness and silence, she approached 
 the couch of Pausanias, who was already asleep. In so doing, 
 she accidentally upset the lamp. Pausanias, suddenly aroused 
 from slumber, and supposing that some enemy was about to 
 assassinate him, seized his sword, which lay by his bedside, 
 and with it struck the maiden to the ground. She died of her 
 wound ; and from that moment repose was banished from the 
 life of Pausanias. A spectre appeared to him every night in 
 his sleep, and repeated to him, in reproachful tones, this 
 hexameter verse : 
 
 "' Whither I wait thee, march, and receive the dooin thoti deservest : Soontr 
 or later, but ever, to man critne bringfth disaster,^ 
 
 The allies, scandalized by this misdeed, concerted with 
 Cimon, and besieged Pausanias in Byzantium ; but he suc- 
 ceeded in escaping. Continually troubled by the phantom, 
 he took refuge, it is said, at Heraclea, in that temple where 
 the souls of the dead are evoked. He appealed to Cleonice, 
 and conjured her to mitigate his torment. She appeared to 
 him, and told him that on his return to Sparta he would attain 
 the end of his sufferings ; indicating, as it would seem, by 
 these enigmatic words, the death which there awaited him. 
 This" (adds Plutarch) " is a story told by most of the his- 
 torians." * 
 
 I feel, no iloubt, that this version of the story, or at least 
 the general outline of it, would have been followed by the 
 
 * Plutarch, " Life of Cimon."
 
 ,0 DEDICATION. 
 
 romance, had my father lived to complete it. Some modi- 
 fication of its details would doubtless have been necessary 
 for the purposes of fiction. But that the Cleonice of the 
 novel is destined to die by the hand of her lover is clearly 
 indicated. To me it seems that considerable skill and judg- 
 ment are shown in the pains taken, at the very opening of 
 the book, to prepare the mind of the reader for an incident 
 which would have been intolerably painful, and must have 
 prematurely ended the whole narrative interest, had the 
 character of Cleonice been drawn otherwise than as we find 
 it in this first portion of the book. From the outset she ap- 
 pears before us under the shadow of a tragic fatality. Of 
 that fatality she is herself intuitively conscious, and with it 
 her whole being is in harmony. No sooner do we recognize 
 her real character than we perceive that, for such a character, 
 there can be no fit or satisfactory issue from the ditBculties 
 of her position, in any conceivable combination of earthly 
 circumstances. But she is not of the earth, earthly. Her 
 thoughts already habitually hover on the dim frontier of 
 some vague spiritual region in which her love seeks refuge 
 from the hopeless realities of her life ; and, recognizing this 
 betimes, we are prepared to see above the hand of her ill- 
 fated lover, when it strikes her down in the dark, the merciful 
 and releasing hand of her natural destiny. 
 
 " But, assuming the author to have adopted Plutarch's 
 chronology, and deferred the death of Cleonice till the return 
 of Pausanias to Byzantium (the latest date to which he could 
 possibly have deferred it), this catastrophe must still have 
 occurred somewhere in the course, or at the close, of his 
 second volume. There would, in that case, have still re- 
 mained about nine years (and those the most eventful) of his 
 hero's career to be narrated. The premature removal of the 
 heroine from the' narrative, so early in the course of it, would 
 therefore, at first sight, appear to be a serious defect in the 
 conception of this romance. Here it is, however, that the 
 credulous gossip of the old biographer comes to the rescue 
 of the modern artist. I apprehend that the Cleonice of the 
 novel would, after her death, have been still sensibly present 
 to the reader's imagination throughout the rest of the romance. 
 She would then have moved through it like a fate, re-appear- 
 ing in the most solemn moments of the story, and at all 
 times apparent, even when unseen, in her visible influence 
 upon the fierce and passionate character, the sombre turbu 
 lent career, of her guilty lover. In short, we may fairly sup
 
 DEDICATION. H 
 
 p.se that, in all the closing scenes of the tragedy, Cleonice 
 would have still figured and acted as one of those supernat- 
 ural agencies which my father, following the example of his 
 great predecessor, Scott, did not scruple to introduce into 
 the composition of historical romance.* 
 
 Without the explanation here suggested, those metaphys- 
 ical conversations between Cleonice, Alcman, and Pausa- 
 nias, which occupy the opening chapters of Book 11. , might 
 be deemed superfluous. But, in fact, they are essential to 
 the preparation of the catastrophe ; and that catastrophe, if 
 reached, would undoubtedly have revealed to any reflective 
 reader their important connection with the narrative which 
 they now appear to retard somewhat unduly. 
 
 Quite apart from the unfinished manuscript of this story 
 of Pausanias, and in another portion of my father's papers 
 which have no reference to this story, I have discovered the 
 following, undated, memorandum of the destined contents of 
 the second and third volumes of the work. 
 
 PAUSANIAS. 
 
 VOL ir. 
 Lysander — Sparta — Ephors — Decision to recall Pausanias. 60. 
 
 Pausanias with Pharnabazes — On the point of success — Xerxes' 
 daughter — Interview with Cleonice — Recalled. 60. 
 
 Sparta — Alcman with his family. 60. 
 
 Cleonice — Antagoras — Yields to suit of marriage. 60. 
 
 Pausanias suddenly re-appears, as a volunteer — Scenes. 60. 
 
 vol.. III. 
 Pausanias removes Cleonice, etc. — Conspiracy against him — Up to 
 Cleunice's death. 100. 
 
 His expulsion from Byzantium — His despair — His journey into 
 Thrace — Scythians, etc. .'' 
 
 Heraclea — Ghost. 60. 
 His return — to Colonce. ? 
 
 Antagoras resolved on revenge — Communicates with Sparta. ? 
 
 The * * * — Conference with Alcman — Pausanias depends on He 
 lots, and money. 40. 
 
 His return — to death. 120. 
 
 * " Harold."
 
 12 DEDICATION. 
 
 This is the only indication I can find of the intended 
 conckision of the story. Meagre though it be, however, it 
 sufficiently suggests the manner in which the author of the 
 romance intended to deal with the circumstances of Cleo- 
 nice's death as related by Plutarch. With her forcible re- 
 moval by Pausanias, or her willing flight with him from the 
 house of her father, it would probably have been difficult to 
 reconcile the general sentiment of the romance, in connec- 
 tion with any circumstances less conceivable than those 
 which are indicated in the memorandum. But, in such cir- 
 cumstances, the step taken by Pausanias might have had no 
 worse motive than the rescue of the woman who loved him' 
 from forced union with another ; and Cleonice's assent to 
 that step might have been quite compatible with the purity 
 and heroism of her character. In this manner, moreover, a 
 strong motive is prepared for that sentiment of revenge on 
 the part of Antagoras whereby the dramatic interest of the 
 story might be greatly heightened in the subsequent chap- 
 ters. The intended introduction of the supernatural element 
 is also clearly indicated. But, apart from this, fine oppor- 
 tunities for psychological analysis would doubtless have oc- 
 curred in tracing the gradual deterioration of such a char- 
 acter as that of Pausanias when, deprived of the guardian 
 influence of a hope passionate, but not impure, its craving 
 for fierce excitement must have been stimulated by remorse- 
 ful memories and impotent despairs. Indeed, the imperfect 
 manuscript now printed contains only the exposition of a 
 tragedy. All the most striking effects, all the strongest 
 dramatic situations, have been reserved for the pages of the 
 manuscript which, alas ! are either lost or unwritten. 
 
 Who can doubt, for instance, how effectually, in the clos- 
 ing scenes of this tragedy, the grim image of Alithea might 
 have assumed the place assigned to it by history ? All that 
 we now see is the preparation made for its effective presen- 
 tation in the foreground of such later scenes, by the chapter 
 in the second volume describing the meeting between Ly- 
 sander and the stern mother of his Spartan chief. In Ly- 
 sander himself, moreover, we have the germ of a singularly 
 dramatic situation. How would Lysander act in the final 
 struggle which his character and fate are already preparing 
 for him, between patriotism and friendship, his fidelity to 
 Pausanias, and his devotion to Sparta ? Is Lysander's fa- 
 ther intended for that Ephor who, in tiie last moment, made 
 the sign that warned Pausanias to take refuge in the temple
 
 dedication: h 
 
 which became his living tomb ? Probably. Woul-d The- 
 mistocles, who was so seriously compromised in the conspir- 
 acy of Pausanias, have appeared and played a part in those 
 scenes on which the curtain must remain unlifted? Possi- 
 bly. Is Alcman the Helot who revealed to the Ephors the 
 gigantic plots of his master just when those plots were on 
 the eve of execution ? There is much in the relations be- 
 tween Pausanias and the Mothon, as they are described in 
 the opening chapters of the romance, which favors, and in- 
 deed renders almost irresistible, such a supposition. But 
 then, on the other hand, what genius on the part of the au- 
 thor could reconcile us to the perpetration by his hero of a 
 crime so mean, so cowardly, as that personal perfidy to which 
 history ascribes the revelation of the Regent's far more ex- 
 cusable treasons, and their terrible punishment .■* 
 
 These questions must remain unanswered. The magician 
 can wave his wand no more. The circle is broken, the spells 
 are scattered, the secret lost. The images which he evoked, 
 and which he alone could animate, remain before us incom- 
 plete, semi-articulate, unable to satisfy the curiosity they in- 
 spire. A group of fragments, in many places broken, you 
 have helped me to restore. With what reverent and kindly 
 care, with what disciplined judgment and felicitous sugges- 
 tion, you have accomplished the difficult task so generously 
 undertaken, let me here most gratefully attest. Beneath the 
 sculptor's name allow me to inscribe upon the pedestal your 
 own, and accept this sincere assurance of the inherited es- 
 teem and personal regard with which I am, my dear Dr. 
 Kennedy, 
 
 Your obliged and faithful 
 
 Lyiton. 
 CiNTRA, ytdy ^th, 1875.
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 On one of the quays which bordered the unrivalled har- 
 bor of Byzantium, more than twenty-three centuries before 
 the date at which this narrative is begun, stood two Athe- 
 nians. In the waters of the haven rode the vessels of the 
 Grecian fleet. So deep was the basin, in which the tides 
 are scarcely felt, * that the prows of some of the ships 
 touched the quays, and the setting sun glittered upon the 
 smooth and waxen surfaces of the prows, rich with diversi- 
 fied colors and wrought gilding. To the extreme right of 
 the fleet, and nearly opposite the place upon which the 
 Athenians stood, was a vessel still more profusely orna- 
 mented than the rest. On the prow were elaborately carved 
 the heads of the twin deities of the Laconian mariner, Cas- 
 tor and Pollux ; in the centre of the deck was a wooden 
 edifice or pavilion, having a gilded roof and shaded by pur- 
 ple awnings, an imitation of the luxurious galleys of the 
 Barbarian ; while the parasemon, or flag, as it idly waved 
 in the faint breeze of the gentle evening, exhibited the ter- 
 rible serpent, which, if it was the fabulous type of demi- 
 gods and heroes, might also be regarded as an emblem of 
 the wily but stern policy of the Spartan State. Such was 
 the galley of the commander of the armamei.t, which (after 
 
 * Gibbon, ch. 17.
 
 1 6 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 the reduction of Cyprus) had but lately wrested from the 
 yoke of Persia that link between her European and Asiatic 
 domains, that key of the Bosporus — " the Golden Horn " 
 of Byzantine.* 
 
 High above all other Greeks (Themistocles alone ex- 
 cepted) soared the fame of that renowned chief, Pausa- 
 nias. Regent of Sparta, and General of the allied troops at 
 the victorious battle-field of Plataa. The spot on which 
 the Athenians stood was lonely, and now unoccupied, save 
 by themselves and the sentries stationed at some distance 
 on either hand. The larger proportion of the crews in the 
 various vessels were on shore ; but on the decks idly re- 
 clined small groups of sailors, and the murmur of their 
 voices stole, indistinguishably blended, upon the translucent 
 air. Behind rose, one above the other, the Seven Hills, on 
 which long afterward the Emperor Constantine built a sec- 
 ond Rome ; and over these heights, even then, buildings 
 were scattered of various forms and dates ; here the pillared 
 temples of the Greek colonists, to whom Byzantium owed its 
 origin, there the light roofs and painted domes which the 
 Eastern conquerors had introduced. 
 
 One of the Athenians was a man in the meridian of man- 
 hood, of a calm, sedate, but somewhat haughty aspect; the 
 other was in the full bloom of youth, of lofty stature, and 
 with a certain majesty of bearing ; down his shoulders 
 flowed a profusion of long curled hair, f diA'ided in the cen- 
 tre of the forehead, and connected with golden clasps, in 
 which was wrought the emblem of the Athenian nobles — 
 the Grasshopper — a fashion not yet obsolete, as it had be- 
 come in the days of Thucydides. Still, to an observer, 
 there was something heavy in the ordinary expression of 
 the handsome countenance. His dress differed from the 
 earlier fashion of the lonians ; it dispensed with those 
 loose linen garments which had something of effeminacy in 
 their folds, and was confined to the simple and statuelike 
 grace that characterized the Dorian garb. Yet the clasp 
 that fastened the chlamys upon the right shoulder, leaving 
 the arm free, was of pure gold and exquisite workmanship, 
 
 * "'The harbor of Constantinople, which may be considered as an 
 arm of the Bosporus, obtained in a very remote period the denomination 
 of the Golden Ilorn. The curve which it describes might be compared 
 to the horn of a stag, or, as it should seem, with more propriety, to that 
 of an ox."— Gib., ch. 17 ; Strab.,1. x. 
 
 t Ion aptid Plut.
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. ij 
 
 and the materials of the simple vesture were of a quality that 
 betokened wealth and rank in the wearer. 
 
 " Yes, Cimon," said the elder of the Athenians, " yondei 
 galley itself affords sufficient testimony of the change that 
 has come over the haughty Spartan. It is difficult, indeed, 
 to recognize in this luxurious satrap, who affects the dress, 
 the manners, the very insolence of the Barbarian, that Pau- 
 sanias who, after the glorious day of Platasa, ordered the 
 slaves to prepare in the tent of Mardonius such a banquet 
 as would have been served to the Persian, while his own 
 Spartan broth and bread were set beside it, in order that 
 he might utter to the chiefs of Greece that noble pleasantry, 
 ' Behold the folly of the Persians, who forsook such splendor 
 to plunder such poverty.' " * 
 
 " Shame upon his degeneracy, and thrice shame ! " said 
 the young Cimon, sternly. " I love the Spartans so well that 
 I blush for whatever degrades them. And all Sparta is 
 dwarfed by the effeminacy of her chief." 
 
 " Softly, Cimon," said Aristides, with a sober smile, 
 " Whatever surprise we may feel at the corruption of Pau- 
 sanias, he is not one who will allow us to feel contempt. 
 Through all the voluptuous softness acquired by intercourse 
 with these Barbarians, the strong nature of the descendant 
 of the demi-god still breaks forth. Even at the distaff I 
 recognize Alcides, whether for evil or for good. Pausanias 
 is one on whom our most anxious gaze must be duly bent. 
 But in this change of his I rejoice ; the gods are at work for 
 Athens. See you not that, day after day, while Pausanias 
 disgusts the allies with the Spartans themselves, he throws 
 them more and more into the arms of Athens ? Let his mad- 
 ness go on, and ere long the violet-crowned city will become 
 the queen of the seas."- 
 
 " Such was my own hope," said Cimon, his face assuming 
 a new expression, brightened with all the intelligence of am- 
 bition and pride , " but I did not dare own it to myself till 
 you spoke. Several officers of Ionia and the Isles have al- 
 ready openly and loudly proclaimed to me their wish to 
 exchange the Spartan ascendency for the Athenian." 
 
 " And with all your love for Sparta," said Aristides, look- 
 ing steadfastly and searchingly at his comrade; "you would 
 not, then, hesitate to rob her of a glory which you might 
 bestow on your own Athens ? " 
 
 * Ilerod., ix. S2
 
 l8 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 " Ah, am I not Athenian ? " answered Cimon, with a 
 deep passion in his voice. " Though my great father perished 
 a victim to the injustice of a faction — though he who had 
 saved Athens from the Mede died in the Athenian dungeon 
 — still, fatherless, I see in Athens but a mother ; and if her 
 voice sounded harshly in my boyish years, in manhood I have 
 feasted on her smiles. Yes, I honor Sparta, but I love 
 Athens. You have my answer." 
 
 " You speak well," said Aristides, with warmth ; " you 
 are worthy of the destinies for which I foresee that the son of 
 Miltiades is reserved. Be wary, be cautious ; above all, be 
 smooth, and blend with men of every state and grade. I 
 would wish that the allies themselves should draw the con- 
 trast between the insolence of the Spartan chief and the 
 courtesy of the Athenians. What said you to the Ionian 
 officers ? " 
 
 " I said that Athens held there was no difference be- 
 tween to command and to obey, except so far as was best 
 for the interests of Greece ; that, as on the field of Plataea 
 when the Tegeans asserted precedence over the Athenians, 
 wc, the Athenian army, at once exclaimed, through your 
 voice, Aristides, * We come here to fight the Barbarian, not 
 to dispute among ourselves ; place us where you will ' * — 
 even so^now, while the allies give the command to Sparta, 
 Sparta we will obey. But if we were thought by the Grecian 
 States the fittest leaders, our answer would be the same that 
 we gave at Platsea, ' Not we, but Greece be consulted : place 
 us where you will ! ' " 
 
 " O wise Cimon ! " exclaimed Aristides, " I have no cau- 
 tion to bestow on you. You do by intuition that which I 
 attempt by experience. But hark ! What music sounds in 
 the distance ? The airs that Lydia borrowed from the 
 East ? " 
 
 " And for which," said Cimon, sarcastically, " Pausanias 
 hath abandoned the Dorian flute." 
 
 Soft, airy, and voluptuous were indeed the sounds which 
 now, from the streets leading upward from the quay, floated 
 along the delicious air. The sailors rose, listening and eager, 
 from the decks ; there was once more bustle, life, and anima 
 tion on board the fleet. From several of the vessels the 
 trumpets woke a sonorous signal-note. In a few minutes the 
 quays,before so deserted, swarmed with the Grecian mariners, 
 
 * Plut., in Vit. Arist.
 
 PAUSANIAS. THE SPARTAN: 
 
 '9 
 
 who emerged hastily, whether from various houses in the 
 haven, or from the encamiDment which stretched along it, 
 and hurried to their respective ships. On board the galley of 
 Pausanias there was more especial animation ; not only 
 mariners, but slaves, evidently from the Eastern markets^ 
 were seen jostling each other, and heard talking, quick and 
 loud, in foreign tongues. Rich carpets were unfurled and 
 laid across the deck, while trembling and hasty hands 
 smoothed into yet more graceful folds the curtains that 
 shaded the gay pavilion in the centre. The Athenians 
 looked on, the one with thoughtful composure, the other with 
 a bitter smile, while these preparations announced the unex- 
 pected, and not undreaded, approach of the great Pausanias. 
 
 " Ho, noble Cimon ! " cried a young man who, hurrying 
 toward one of the vessels, caught sight of the Athenians and 
 paused. " You are the very person whom I most desired to 
 see. Aristides too ! — we are fortunate." 
 
 The speaker was a young man of slighter make and lower 
 stature than the Athenians, but well shaped, and with features 
 the partial effeminacy of which was elevated by an expression 
 of great vivacity and intelligence. The steed trained for 
 Elis never bore in its proportions the evidence of blood and 
 rare breeding more visibly than the dark brilliant eye of this 
 young man ; his broad, low, transparent brow, expanded 
 nostril, and sensitive lip revealed the passionate and some- 
 what arrogant character of the vivacious Greek of the .^gean 
 Isles. 
 
 " Antagoras," replied Cimon, laying his hand with frank 
 and somewhat blunt cordiality on the Greek's shoulder, " like 
 the grape of your own Chios, you can not fail to be welcome 
 at all times. Biut why would you seek us now ? " 
 
 " Because I will no longer endure the insolence of this 
 rude Spartan. Will you believe it, Cimon — will you be- 
 lieve it, Aristides ? Pausanias has actually dared to sen- 
 tence to blows, to stripes, one of my own men — a free Chian 
 —nay, a Decadarchus.* I have but this instant heard it. 
 And the offence — gods ! the offcjice! — was that he ventured 
 to contest with a Laconian, an underling in the Spartan army, 
 which one of the two had the fair right to a wine-cask ! Shall 
 this be borne, Cimon .-' " 
 
 " Stripes to a Greek ! " said Cimon, and the color mounted 
 to his brow. " Thinks Pausanias that the Ionian race are 
 already his Helots ? " 
 
 * Leader of ten men.
 
 ao PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN^. 
 
 ** Be calm," said Aristides ; " Pausanias a]:)proaches. 1 
 will accost him." 
 
 " But listen still ! " exclaimed Antagoras, eagerly, pluck 
 ing the gown of the Athenians, as the latter turned away 
 "When Pausanias heard of the contest between my soldier 
 and his Laconian, what said he, think you ? ' Prior claim ; 
 learn henceforth that, where the Spartans are to be found, 
 the Spartans in all matters have the prior claim.' " 
 
 " We will see to it," returned Aristides, calmly ; " bul 
 keep by my side." 
 
 And now the music sounded loud and near, and suddenly, 
 as the procession approached, the character of that music 
 altered. The Lydian measures ceased, those who had at- 
 tuned them gave way to musicians of loftier aspect and 
 simpler garb ; in whom might be recognized, not indeed the 
 genuine Spartans, but their free, if subordinate, countrymen 
 of Laconia ; and a minstrel, who walked beside them, broke 
 out into a song, partially adapted from the bold and lively 
 strain of Alcasus, the first two lines in each stanza ringing 
 much to that chime, the two latter reduced into briefer com- 
 pass, as, with allowance for the differing laws of national 
 rhythm we thus seek to render the verse : 
 
 SONG. 
 
 Multitudes, backward I Way for the Dorian I 
 Way for the Lord of rocky Laconia J 
 Heaven to Hercules opened 
 Way on the earth for his son. 
 
 Steel and fate, blunted, break on his fortitude; 
 Two evils only never endureth he — 
 Death by a wound in retreating, 
 Life with a blot on his name. 
 
 Rocky his birthplace ; rocks are immutable ; 
 So are his laws, and so shall his glory be. 
 Time is the Victor of Nations, 
 Sparta the Victor of Time. 
 
 Watch o'er him heedful on the wide ocean, 
 Brothers of Helen, luminous guiding stars; 
 Dangerous to Truih are the fickle, 
 Dangerous to Sparta the seas. 
 
 Multitudes, backward ! Way for the Conqueror I 
 Way for the footstep half the world fled before; 
 Nothing tliat Phoebus can shine on 
 Needs so much space as Renown.
 
 PA USA N/ AS, THE SPARTAN. 21 
 
 Behind the musicians came ten Spartans, selected from 
 the celebrated three hundred who claimed the right to be 
 stationed around the king in battle. Tall, stalwart, sheathed 
 in armor, their shields slung at their backs, their crests of 
 plumage or horse-hair waving over their strong and stern 
 leaiures, these hardy warriors betrayed to the keen eye oi 
 Aristides tlieir sullen discontent at the part assigned to them 
 in the luxurious procession ; their brows were knit, their lips 
 contracted, and each of them who caught the glance of the 
 Athenians turned his eyes, as half in shame, half in anger to 
 the ground. 
 
 Coming now upon the quay, opposite to the galley of 
 Pausanias, from which was suspended a ladder of silken cords, 
 the procession halted, and, opening on either side, left space 
 in the midst for the commander. 
 
 " He comes," whispered Antagoras to Cimon. "By Her- 
 cules ! I pray you survey him well. Is it the conqueror of 
 Mardonius, or the ghost of Mardonius himself ?" 
 
 The question of the Chian seemed not extravagant to the 
 blunt son of Miltiades, as his eyes now rested on Pausanias. 
 
 The pure Spartan race boasted, perhaps, the most superb 
 models of masculine beauty which the land blessed by Apollo 
 could afford. The laws that regulated marriage insured a 
 healthful and vigorous progeny. Gymnastic discipline from 
 early boyhood gave ease to the limbs, iron to the muscle, 
 grace to the whole frame. Every Spartan, being born to 
 command, being noble by his birth, lord of the Laconians, 
 Master of the Helots, superior in the eyes of Greece to all 
 other Greeks, was at once a Republican and an Aristocrat. 
 Schooled in the arts that compose the presence, and give 
 calmness and majesty to the bearing, he combined with the 
 mere physical advantages of activity and strength a conscious 
 and yet natural dignity of mien. Amidst the Greeks assembled 
 at the Olympian contests, others showed richer garments, 
 more sumptuous chariots, rarer steeds; but no state could 
 vie with Sparta in the thews and sinews, the aspect and the 
 majesty, of the men. Nor were the royal race, the descend- 
 ants of Hercules, in external appearance unworthy of their 
 countrymen and of their fabled origin. 
 
 Sculptor and painter would have vainly tasked their imag- 
 inative minds to invent a nobler ideal for the effigies of a hero 
 than that which the Victor of Plataea offered to their inspira- 
 tion. As he now paused amidst the group, he towered 
 high above them all, even above Cimon himself. But in his
 
 22 PA US A NI AS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 Stature there was nothing of the cumbrous bulk and stolid 
 heaviness which often destroy the beauty of vast strength. 
 Severe and early training, long habits of rig'd abstemiousness, 
 the toils of war, and, more than all, perhaps, the constant 
 play of a restless, anxious, aspiring temper, had left, undis- 
 figured by superfluous flesh, the grand proportions of a frame, 
 the very spareness of which had at once the strength and the 
 beauty of one of those hardy victors in the wrestling or box- 
 ing match, whose agility and force are modelled by discipline 
 to the purest forms of grace. Without that exact and chiselled 
 harmony of countenance which characterized perhaps the 
 Ionic rather than the Doric race, the features of the royal 
 Spartan were noble and commanding. His complexion was 
 sunburned, almost to Oriental swarthiness, and the raven's 
 plume had no darker gloss than that of his long hair, which 
 (contrary to the Spartan custom), flowing on either side, 
 mingled with the closer curls of the beard. To a scrutinizing 
 gaze, the more dignified and prepossessing effect of this ex- 
 terior would perhaps have been counterbalanced by an eye, 
 bright indeed and penetrating, but restless and suspicious, by 
 a certain ineffable mixture of arrogant pride and profound 
 melancholy in the general expression of the countenance, ill 
 according with that frank and serene aspect which best be- 
 comes the face of one who would lead mankind. About him 
 altogether — the countenance, the form, the bearing — there 
 was that which woke a vague, profound, and singular interest, 
 an interest somewhat mingled with awe, but not altogether un- 
 calculated to produce that affection which belongs to admira- 
 tion, save when the sudden frown or disdainful lip repelled the 
 gentler impulse, and tended rather to excite fear, or to irritate 
 pride, or to wound self-love. 
 
 But if the form and features of Pausanias were eminently 
 those of the purest race of Greece, the dress which he as- 
 sumed was no less characteristic of the Barbarian. He wore, 
 not the garb of the noble Persian race, which, close and sim- 
 ple, was but a little less manly than that of the Greeks, but 
 the flowing and gorgeous garments of the Mede. His long 
 gown, which swept the earth, was covered with flowers 
 wrought in golden tissue. Instead of the Spartan hat, the high 
 Median cap or tiara crowned his perfumed and lustrous hair, 
 while (what of all was most hateful to Grecian eyes) he wore, 
 though otherwise unarmed, the curved cimeter and short dirk 
 that were the national weapons of the Barbarian. And as it 
 was not customary, nor indeed legitimate, for the Greeks
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 23 
 
 to wear weapons on peaceful occasions and with their ordi- 
 nary costume, so this departure from the common practice 
 had not only in itself something offensive to the jealous eyes 
 of his comrades, but was rendered yet more obnoxious by 
 the adoption of the very arms of the East. 
 
 By the side of Pausanias was a man whose dark beard 
 was already sown with gray. This man, named Gong}'lus, 
 though a Greek — a native of Eretria, in EubcE — was in high 
 command nuder the great Persian king. At the time of the 
 Barbarian invasion under Datis and Artaphernes, he had 
 deserted the cause of Greece, and had been rewarded with 
 the lordship of four towns in yEolis. Few among the apostate 
 Greeks were more deeply instructed in the language and man- 
 ners of the Persians ; and the intimate and sudden friendship 
 that had grown up between him and the Spartan was regarded 
 by the Greeks with the most bitter and angry suspicion. As if 
 to show his contempt for the natural jealousy of his country- 
 men, Pausanias, however, had just given to the Eretrian the 
 government of Byzantium itself, and with the command of the 
 citadel had intrusted to him the custody of the Persian prisoners 
 captured in that port. Among these were men of the highest 
 rank and influence at the court of Xerxes ; and it was more 
 than rumored that of late Pausanias had visited and conferred 
 with them, through the interpretation of Gongylus, far more 
 frequently than became the General of the Greeks. Gongylus 
 had one of those countenances which are observed when many 
 of more striking semblance are overlooked. But the features 
 were sharp and the visage lean, the eyes vivid and sparkling 
 as those of the lynx, and the dark pupil seemed yet more 
 dark from the extreme whiteness of the ball, from which it 
 lessened or dilated with the impulse of the spirit which gave 
 it fire. There was in that eye all the subtle craft, the plot- 
 ting and restless malignity, which usually characterized those 
 Greek renegades who prostituted their native energies to the 
 rich service of the Barbarian ; and the lips, narrow and thin, 
 wore that everlasting smile which to the credulous disguises 
 wile, and to the experience betrays it. Small, spare, and pre- 
 maturely bent, the Eretrian supported himself by a staff, 
 upon which now leaning, he glanced, quickly and pryingly, 
 around, till his eyes rested upon the Athenians, with the young 
 Chian standing in their rear. 
 
 " The Athenian Captains are here to do you homage, Pau 
 sanias," said he, in a whisper, as he touched with his smaU 
 lean finger^-^ the arm of the Spartan,
 
 24 
 
 FAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 Pausanias turned and muttered to himself, and at that in- 
 stant Aristides approached. 
 
 " If it please you, Pausanias, Cimon and myself, the leaders 
 of the Athenians, would crave a hearing upon certain 
 matters." 
 
 " Son of I.ysimachus, say on." 
 
 " Your pardon, Pausanias," returned the Athenian, lower- 
 ing his voice, and with a smile — " this is too crowded a council- 
 hall ; may we attend you on board your galley ? " 
 
 " Not so," answered the Spartan, haughtily ; " the morning 
 to affairs, the evening to recreation. We shall sail in the 
 bay to see the moon rise, and if we indulge in consultations, 
 it will be over our wine-cups. It is a good custom." 
 
 " It is a Persian one," said Cimon, bluntly. 
 
 " It is permitted to us," returned the .Spartan, coldly, 
 " to borrow from those we conquer. But enough of this. 
 I have no secrets with the Athenians. No matter if the 
 whole city hear what you would address to Pausanias." 
 
 " It is to complain," said Aristides with calm emphasis, 
 but still in an undertone. 
 
 " Ay, I doubt it not ; the Athenians are eloquent in grum- 
 bling." 
 
 " It was not found so at Platsa," returned Cimon. 
 
 " Son of Miltiades," said Pausanias, loftily, " your wit 
 outruns your experience. But my time is short. To the 
 matter!" 
 
 " If you will have it so, I will speak," said Aristides, rais- 
 ing his voice. " Before your own Spartans, our comrades in 
 arms, I proclaim our causes of complaint. Firstly, then, I 
 demand release and compensation to seven Athenians, free- 
 born and citizens, whom your orders have condemned to the 
 unworthy punishment of standing all day in the open sun 
 with the weight of iron anchors on their shoulders." 
 
 " The mutinous knaves ! " exclaimed the Spartan. 
 " They introduced into the camp the insolence of their own 
 Agora, and were publicly heard in the streets inveighing 
 against myself as a favorer of the Persians." 
 
 "It was easy to confute the charge ; it was tyrannical to 
 punish words in men whose deeds had raised you to the com- 
 mand of Greece." 
 
 " Their deeds ! Ye gods, give me patience ! By the 
 help of Juno the Protectress, it was this brain and this arm that 
 — But I will not justify myself by imitating the Athenian 
 fashion of wordy boasting. Pass on to your next complaint."
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 25 
 
 " You have placed slaves — yes, Helots — around the 
 springs, to drive away with scourges the soldiers that come 
 for water." 
 
 "Not so, but merely to prevent others from filling theii 
 vases until the Spartans are supj^lied.'' 
 
 " And by what right — ? " began Cimon, but Aristides 
 checked him with a gesture, and proceeded. 
 
 " That precedence is not warranted by custom, nor by 
 the terms of our alliance ; and the springs, O Pausanias, are 
 bounteous enough to provide for all. I proceed. You have 
 formally sentenced citizens and soldiers to the scourge. Nay, 
 this very day you have extended the sentence to one in act- 
 ual command among the Chians. Is it not so, Antagoras ? " 
 
 "It is," said the young Chian, coming forward boldly; 
 " and in the name of my countrymen I demand justice." 
 
 " And I also, Uliades of Samos," said a thick-set and 
 burly Greek who had joined the group unobserved, " / de- 
 mand justice. What, by the gods ! Are we to be all equals 
 in the day of battle ? ' My good sir, march here ;' and, ' My 
 dear sir, just run into that -breach ; ' and yet when we have 
 won the victory and should share the glory, is one state, nay, 
 one man, to seize the whole, and deal out iron anchors and 
 tough cowhides to his companions ? No, Spartans, this is 
 not your \'iew of the case ; you suffer in the eyes of Greece 
 by this misconduct. To Sparta itself I appeal." 
 
 " And what, most patient sir," said Pausanias, with calm 
 sarcasm, though his eye shot fire, and the upper lip, on which 
 no Spartan suffered the beard to grow, slightly quivered — 
 " what is yoi/r contribution to the catalogue of complaints ? " 
 
 "Jest not, Pausanias; you will find me in earnest," an- 
 swered Uliades, doggedly, and encouraged by the evident 
 effect that his eloquence had produced upon the Spartans 
 themselves. " I have mef with a grievous wrong, and all 
 Greece shall hear of it, if it be not redressed. My own 
 brother, who at Mycale slew four Persians with his own hand, 
 headed a detachment for forage. He and his men were 
 met by a company of mixed Laconians and Helots, their 
 forage taken from them, they themselves assaulted, and my 
 brother, a man who has moneys and maintains forty slaves 
 of his own, struck thrice across the face by a rascally Helot. 
 Now, Pausanias, your answer! " 
 
 " You have prepared a notable scene for the commander 
 of your forces, son of Lysimachus," said the Spartan, ad- 
 drcssmg himself to Aristides. " Far be it from me to affecl
 
 25 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTA!^. 
 
 the Agamemnon, but your friends are less modest in imita- 
 ting the ven-erable model of Thersites. Enough " (and, 
 changing the tone of his voice, the chief stamped his foot 
 vehemently to the ground ) : " we owe no account to our in- 
 feriors ; we render no explanation save to Sparta and her 
 Ephors." 
 
 " So be it, then," said Aristides, gravely ; "we have our 
 answer, and you will hear of our appeal." 
 
 Pausanias changed color. " How ? " said he, with a slight 
 hesitation in his tone. " Mean you to threaten me — Me — 
 with carrying the busy tales of your disaffection to the Spar- 
 tan government .'' " 
 
 " Time will show. Farewell, Pausanias. We will detain 
 you no longer from your pastime." 
 
 " But," began Uliades. 
 
 " Hush, " said the Athenian, laying his hand on the Sa- 
 mian's shoulder. '' We will confer anon." 
 
 Pausanias paused a moment, irresolute and in thought. 
 His eyes glanced toward his own countrymen, who, true to 
 their rigid discipline, neither spake nor moved, but whose 
 countenances were sullen and overcast, and at that moment 
 his pride was shaken, and his heart misgave him. Gongylus 
 watched his countenance and, once more laying his hand 
 on his arm, said, in a whisper, — 
 
 " He who seeks to rule never goes back." 
 
 " Tush ! you know not the Spartans." 
 
 " But I know Human Nature ; it is the same ever}'-where. 
 You cannot yield to this insolence ; to-morrow, of your own 
 accord, send for these men separately and pacify them." 
 
 "You are right. Now to the vessel ! " 
 
 With this, leaning on the shoulder of the Persian, and 
 with a slight wave of his hand toward the Athenians — he did 
 not deign even that gesture to the* island officers — Pausanias 
 advanced to the vessel, and slowly ascending, disappeared 
 within his pavilion. The Spartans and the musicians fol- 
 lowed ; then, spare and swarthy, some half score of Egyp- 
 tian sailors ; last came a small party of Laconians and He- 
 lots, who, standing at some distance behind Pausanias, had 
 not hitherto been observed. The former were but slightly 
 armed ; the latter had forsaken their customary rude and 
 savage garb, and wore long gowns and gay tunics, somewhat 
 in the fasliion of the Lydians. With these last there was 
 one of a mien and aspect that strongly differed from the 
 lowering and ferocious cast of countenance common to th*
 
 PA us AN/AS, THE SPARTAN. 2; 
 
 Helot race. He was of the ordinar}' stature, and his frame 
 was not characterized by any appearance of unusual strength ; 
 but he trod the earth with a firm step and an erect crest, as 
 if the curse of the slave had not yet destroyed the inborn 
 dignity of the human being. There were a certain delicacy 
 and refinement, rather of thought than beauty, in his clear, 
 sharp, and singularly intelligent features. In contradistinc- 
 tion from the free-born Spartans, his hair was short, and 
 curled close above a broad and manly forehead ; and his large 
 eyes of dark blue looked full and bold upon the Athenians 
 with something, if not of defiance, at least of pride in their 
 gaze, as he stalked by them to the vessel. 
 
 " A sturdy fellow for a Helot," muttered Cimon. 
 
 " And merits well his freedom," said the son of Lysima 
 chus. " I remember him well. He is Alcman, the foster- 
 brother of Pausanias, whom he attended at Plata^a. Not a 
 Spartan that day bore himself more bravely." 
 
 " No doubt they will put him to death when he goes back 
 to Sparta," said Antagoras. " When a Helot is brave, the 
 Ephors clap the black mark against his name, and at the 
 next crypteia he suddenly disappears." 
 
 " Pausanias may share the same fate as his Helot, for all 
 I care," quoth Uliades. " Well, Athenians, what say you to 
 the answer we have received } " 
 
 "That Sparta shall hear of it," answered Aristides. 
 
 " Ah, but is that all.'' Recollect the lonians have the 
 majority in the fleet ; let us not wait for the slow Ephors. 
 Let us at once throw off this insufferable yoke, and proclaim 
 Athens the Mistress of the Seas. What say you, Cimon ? " 
 
 " Let Aristides answer." 
 
 " Yonder lie the Athenian vessels," said Aristides. 
 " Those who put themselves voluntarily under our protec- 
 tion we will not reject. But remember we assert no claim ; 
 we yield but to the general wish." 
 
 " Enough ; I understand you," said Antagoras. 
 
 " Not quite," returned the Athenian, with a smile. " The 
 \ 'reach between you and Pausanias is begun, but it is not yet 
 wide enough. You yourselves must do that which will annul 
 all power in the Spartan, and then if ye come to Athens ye 
 will find her as bold against the Doric despot as against the 
 Barbarian foe." 
 
 " But speak more plainly. What would ye have us do ? " 
 asked Uliades, rubbing his chin in great perplexity. 
 
 " Nay, nay, I have already said enough. Fare ye well,
 
 j8 pausanias, the spartan. 
 
 fellow-countrymen," and, leaning lightly on the shoulder of 
 Cimon, the Athenian passed on. 
 
 Meanwhile, the splendid galley of Pausanias slowly put 
 forth into the farther waters of the bay. The oars of the 
 rowers broke the surface into countless phosphoric sparkles ; 
 and the sound they made, as they dashed amidst the gentle 
 waters, seemed to keep time with the song and the instru- 
 ments on the deck. The lonians gazed in silence as the 
 stately vessel, now shooting far ahead of the rest, swept into 
 the centre of the bay. And the moon, just rising, shone full 
 upon the glittering prow, and streaked the rippling billows 
 over which it had bounded, with a light, as it were, of glory. 
 
 Antagoras sighed. 
 
 " What think you of ? " asked the rough Samian. 
 
 '•' Peace, " replied Antagoras. " In this hour, when the 
 fair face of Artemis recalls the old legends of Endymion, is 
 it not permitted to man to remember that before the iron age 
 came the golden, before war reigned love ? " 
 
 " Tush ! " said Uliades. " Time enough to think of love 
 when we have satisfied vengeance. Let us summon our 
 friends, and hold council on the Spartan's insults. " 
 
 " Whither goes now the Spartan } " murmured Antagoras 
 abstractedly, as he suffered his companion to lead him away. 
 Then, halting abruptly, he struck his clenched hand on his 
 breast. 
 
 " O Aphrodite ! " he cried; " this night — this night I will 
 seek thy temple. Hear my vows — soothe my jealousy ! " 
 
 " Ah, " grunted Uliades, " if, as men say, thou lovest a 
 fair Byzantine, Aphrodite will have sharp work to cure thee 
 of jealousy, unless she first makes thee blind. 
 
 Antagoras smiled faintly, and the two lonians moved on 
 slowly and in silence. In a few minutes more the quays 
 were deserted, and nothing but the blended murmur spread- 
 ing wide and indistinct throughout the camp, and a noisier 
 but occasional burst of merriment from those resorts of 
 obscener pleasure which were profusely scattered along the 
 haven, mingled with the whispers of "the far resounding 
 sea, '
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 29 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 On a couch, beneath his voluptuous awning, reclined 
 Pausanias. The curtains, drawn aside, gave to view the 
 moonlit ocean and the dim shadows of the shore, with the 
 dark woods beyond, relieved by the distant lights of the city. 
 On one side of the Spartan was a small table, that supported 
 goblets and vases of that exquisite wine which Maronea prof- 
 fered to the thirst of the Byzantine ; and those cooling and 
 delicious fruits which the orchards around the city supplied 
 as amply as the fabled gardens of the Hesperides, were heaped 
 on the other side. Toward the foot of the couch, propped 
 upon cushions piled on the floor, sat Gongylus, conversing in 
 a low, earnest voice, and fixing his eyes steadfastly on the 
 Spartan. The habits of the Eretrian's life, which had brought 
 him in constant contact with the Persians, had infected his 
 very language with the luxuriant extravagance of the East. 
 And the thoi:ghts he uttered made his language but too 
 musical to the ears of the listening Spartan. 
 
 " And fair as these climes may seem to you, and rich as 
 are the gardens and granaries of Byzantium, yet to me who 
 have stood on the terraces of Babylon and looked upon groves 
 covering with blossom and fruit the very fortresses and walls 
 of that queen of nations — to me, who have roved amidst the 
 vast delights of Susa, through palaces whose very porticoes 
 might enclose the limits of a Grecian city — who have stood, 
 awed and dazzled, in the courts of that wonder of the world, 
 that crown of the East, the marble magnificence of Persepolis 
 — to me, Pausanias, who have been thus admitted into the 
 very heart of Persian glories, this city of Byzantium appears 
 but a village of artisans and fishermen. The very foliage of 
 its forests, pale and sickly, the very moonlight upon these 
 waters, cold and smileless — ah, if thou couldst but see ! But 
 pardon me, I weary thee ? " 
 
 ■ " Not so," said the Spartan, who, raised upon his elbow, 
 listened to the words of Gongylus with deep attention. 
 " Proceed." 
 
 " Ah, if thou couldst but see the fair regions which the 
 great king has apportioned to thy countryman, Demaratus. 
 And if a domain that would satiate the ambition of the most 
 craving of your earlier tyrants fall to Demaratus, what would
 
 30 PA us A AU AS THE SPARTAN. 
 
 be the splendid satrapy in which the conqueror of Platrca 
 might plant his throne ? " 
 
 " In truth, my renown and my power are greater than 
 those ever possessed by Demaratus," said the Spartan, mus- 
 ingly. 
 
 " Yet," pursued Gongylus, " it is not so much the mere 
 extent of the territories which the Xerxes could proffer to the 
 brave Pausanias — it is not their extent so much that might 
 tempt desire, neither is it their stately forests, nor the fertile 
 meadows, nor the ocean-like rivers, which the gods of the 
 East have given to the race of Cyrus. There, free from the 
 strange constraints which our austere customs and solemn 
 deities impose upon the Greeks, the beneficient Ormuzd scat- 
 ters ever-varying delight upon the paths of men. All that Art 
 can invent, all that the marts of the universe can afford of the 
 rare and voluptuous are lavished upon abodes the splendor of 
 which even our idle dreams of Olympus never shadowed forth. 
 There, instead of the harsh and imperious helpmate to whom 
 the joyless Spartan confines his reluctant love, all the beauties 
 of every clime contend for the smile of their lord. And where- 
 ever are turned the change-loving eyes of Passion, the 
 Aphrodite of our poets, such as the Cytherean and the Cyprian 
 fable her, seems to recline on the lotus leaf or to rise from 
 the unruffled ocean of delight. Instead of the gloomy brows 
 and the harsh tones of rivals envious of your fame, hosts of 
 friends aspiring only to be followers will catch gladness from 
 your smile or sorrow from your frown. There, no jarring 
 contests with little men, who deem themselves the equals of 
 the great, no jealous Ephor is found, to load the commonest 
 acts of life with fetters of iron custom. Talk of liberty ! 
 Liberty in Sparta is but one eternal servitude ; you cannot 
 move, or eat, or sleep, save as the law directs. Your very 
 children are wrested from you just in the age when their voices 
 soimd most sweet. Ye are not men ; ye are machines. 
 Call you this liberty, Pausanias .? I, a Greek, have known 
 both Grecian liberty and Persian royalty. Better be chief- 
 tain to a king than servant to a mob ! But in Eretria at 
 least, pleasure was not denied. In Sparta the very Graces 
 preside over discipline and war only." 
 
 "Your fire falls upon flax," said Pausanias, rising, and 
 with passionate emotion. " And if you, the Greek of a hap- 
 pier state, you who know but by report the unnatural bondage 
 to which the Spartans are subjected, can weary of the very 
 name of Greek, what must be the feelings of one who from
 
 PA us A NI AS, THE SPARTAN. 31 
 
 the cradle upward has been starved out of the genial desires 
 of life ? Even in earliest youth, while yet all other lands and 
 customs were unknown, when it was duly poured into my ears 
 that to be born a Spartan constituted the glory and the bliss 
 of earth, my soul sickened at the lesson, and my reason 
 revolted against the lie. Often when my whole body was 
 lacerated with stripes, disdaining to groan, I yet yearned to 
 strike, and I cursed my savage tutors who denied pleasure 
 even to childhood with all the madness of impotent revenge. 
 My mother herself (sweet name elsewhere) had no kindnes? 
 in her face. She was the pride of the matronage of Sparta 
 because of all our women Alithea was the most unsexed. 
 When I went forth to my first crypteia, to watch, amidst the 
 wintry dreariness of the mountains, upon the movements of 
 the wretched Helots, to spy upon their sufferings, to take 
 account of their groans, and if one more manly than the rest 
 dared to mingle curses with his groans, to mark him for 
 slaughter, as a wolf that threatened danger to the fold ; to 
 lurk, an assassin, about his home, to dog his walks, to fall on 
 him unawares, to strike him from behind, to filch away his 
 life, to bury him in the ravines, so that murder might leave 
 no trace ; when upon this initiating campaign, the virgin trials 
 of our )'outh, I first set forth, my mother drew near, and gird- 
 ing me herself with my grandsire's sword, ' Go forth,' she 
 said, ' as the young hound to the chase, to wind, to double, 
 to leap on the prey, and to taste of blood. See, the sword 
 is bright ; show me the stains at thy return.' " 
 
 " Is it, then, true, as the Greeks generally declare," in- 
 terrupted Congylus, " that in these campaigns, or crypteias, 
 the sole aim and object is the massacre of Helots ? " 
 
 " Not so," replied Pausanias ; " savage though the cus- 
 tom, it smells not so foully of the shambles. The avowed 
 object is to harden the nerves of our youth. Barefooted, 
 Hnattended, through cold and storm, performing ourselves 
 the most menial offices necessar}'^ to life, we wander for a 
 certain season daily and nightly through the rugged terri- 
 tories of Laconia.* ^^'e go as boys — we come back as 
 men. f The avowed object, I say, is inurement to hardship, 
 but with this is connected the secret end of keeping watch 
 on these half-tamed and bull like herds of men whom we 
 call the Helots. If any be dangerous, we mark him for the 
 
 * Plat. Leg. i., p. 633. See also Miiller's "Dorians," vol. ii , p. 41. 
 \ Piieros pubercs — neque prius in urbem redire quam viri facti es 
 sent. — Justin, iii , 3.
 
 32 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 knife. One of them had thrice been a ringleader in revolt. 
 He was wary as well as fierce. He had escaped in three 
 succeeding crypteias. To me, as one of the Heraclidas, was 
 assigned the honor of tracking and destroying him. For 
 three days and three nights I dogged his footsteps (for he 
 had caught the scent of the pursuers and fled), through 
 forest and defile, through valley and crag, stealthily and 
 relentlessly. I followed him close. At last, one evening, 
 having lost sight of all my comrades, I came suddenly 
 upon him as I emerged from a wood. It was a broad 
 patch of waste land, through which rushed a stream "swol- 
 len by the rains, and plunging with a sullen roar down 
 a deep and gloomy precipice, that to the right and left 
 bounded the waste, the stream in front, the wood in the 
 rear. He was reclining by the stream, at which, with the 
 hollow of his hand, he quenched his thirst. I paused to 
 gaze upon him, and as I did so he turned and saw me. He 
 rose and fixed his eyes on mine, and we examined each 
 other in silence. The Helots are rarely of tall stature, but 
 this was a giant. His dress, that of his tribe, of rude sheei> 
 skins, and his cap, made from the hide of a dog, increased 
 the savage rudeness of his appearance. I rejoiced that he 
 saw me, and that, as we were alone. I might fight him fairly. 
 It would have been terrible to slay the wretch if I had caught 
 him in his sleep." 
 
 " Proceed," said Gong}lus, with interest, for so little was 
 known of Sparta by the rest of the Greeks, especially out- 
 side the Peloponnesus, that these details gratified his nat- 
 ural spirit of gossiping inquisitiveness. 
 
 " * Stand ! ' said I, and he moved not. I approached him 
 slowly. 'Thou art a Spartan,' said he, in a deep and harsh 
 voice, 'and thou comest for my blood. Go, boy, go ; thou 
 art not mellowed to thy prime, and thy comrades are far 
 away. The shears of the Fatal deities hover over the 
 thread, not of my life, but of thine.' I was struck, Gongy- 
 his, by this address, for it was neither desperate nor das 
 tardly, as I had anticipated ; nevertheless, it beseemed not a 
 Spartan to fly from a Helot, and I drew the sword which 
 my mother had girded on. The Helot watched my move- 
 ments, and seized a rude and knotted club that lay on the 
 ground beside him. 
 
 " ' Wretch,' said I, ' darest tliou attack face to face a de 
 sccndant of the Hcraclida.^ ? In me behold Pausanias, the 
 son of Cleombrotus.'
 
 PAUSAiYlAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 33 
 
 (( 
 
 ' Be it so ; in the city one is the god-born, the other 
 the man-enslaved. On the mountains we are equals.' 
 
 " * Knowest thou not,' said I, ' that if the gods condemned 
 me to die by thy hand, not only thou, but thy whole house, 
 thy wife and thy children, would be sacrificed to my ghost .-" 
 
 " ' The earth can hide the Spartan's bones as secretly as 
 Iht Helot's,' answered my strange foe. 'Begone, young 
 and unfleshed in slaughter as you are ; why make war upon 
 me ? My death can give you neither gold nor glory. 1 
 have never harmed thee or thine. How much of the ait 
 and sun does this form take from the descendant of the 
 Heraclidre .'' ' 
 
 "'Thrice hast thou raised revolt among the Helots; 
 thrice at thy voice have they risen in bloody, though fruit- 
 less, strife against their masters.' 
 
 " ' Not at my voice, but at that of the two deities who 
 are the war-gods of slaves — Persecution and Despair.'* 
 
 " Impatient of this parley, I tarried no longer. I sprung 
 upon the Helot. He evaded my sword, and I soon found 
 that all my agility and skill were requisite to save me from 
 the massive weapon one blow of which would have sufficed 
 to crush me. But the Helot seemed to stand on the de- 
 fensive, and continued to back toward the wood from which 
 I had emerged. Fearful lest he would escape me, I pressed 
 hard on his footsteps. My blood grew wMrm ; my fury 
 got the better of my prudence. My foot stumbled ; I re- 
 covered in an instant, and, looking up, beheld the terrible 
 club suspended over my head ; it might have fallen, but 
 the stroke of death was withheld. I misinterpreted the 
 merciful delay ; the lifted arm left the body of my enemy 
 exposed. I struck him on the side; the thick hide blunted 
 the stroke, but it drew blood. Afraid to draw back within 
 the reach of his weapon, I threw myself on him, and grap- 
 pled to his throat. We rolled on the earth together; it 
 was but a moment's struggle. Strong as I was even in 
 boyhood, the Helot would have been a match for Alcides. 
 A shade passed over my eyes; my breath heaved short. 
 The slave was kneeling on my breast, and, dropping the 
 club, he drew a short knife from his girdle. I gazed upon 
 
 * When Themistocles sought to extort tribute from the Andrians, he 
 said, " I bring with me two powerful ods — Persuasion and Force." 
 "And on our side," was the answer, " are two deities not less powerful— 
 Tovertyand Despair.' "
 
 34 
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 him grim and mute. 1 was conquered, and I cared not foi 
 the rest. 
 
 "The blood from his side, as he bent over me, trickled 
 down upon my face. 
 
 '• 'And this blood,' said the Helot, 'you shed in the very 
 moment when I spared your life : such is the honor of a 
 Spartan. Do you not deserve to die ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes, for 1 am subdued, and by a slave. Strihc. ! ' 
 
 "'There,' said the Helot, in a melancholy and altered 
 tone, ' there sjDeaks the soul of the Dorian, the fatal spirit 
 to which the gods have rendered up our wretched race. 
 We are doomed — doomed — and one victim will not expiate 
 our curse. Rise, return to Sparta, and forget that thou art 
 mnocent of murder.' 
 
 " He lifted his knee from my breast, and I rose, ashamed 
 and humbled. 
 
 " At that instant 1 heard the crashing of the leaves in the 
 wood, for the air was exceedingly still. I knew that my 
 companions were at hand. ' Fly,' I cried ; ' fly. If they 
 come I cannot save thee, royal though I be. Fly.' 
 
 "'And wouldest thou save me! ' said the Helot in sur- 
 prise. ^ 
 
 " ' Ay, with my own life. Canst thou doubt it ? Lose 
 not a moment. Fly. Yet stay ;' and I tore off a part of 
 the woolen vest that I wore. ' Place this at thy side ; 
 stanch the blood, that it may not track thee. Now, begone !' 
 
 "The Helot looked hard at me, and I thought there were 
 tears in his rude eyes ; then, catching up the club with as 
 much ease as I this staff, he sped with inconceivable ra- 
 pidity, despite his wound, toward the precipice on the right, 
 and disappeared amidst the thick brambles that clothed the 
 gorge. In a few moments three of my companions ap- 
 ]iroached. They found me exhausted, and panting rather 
 v.ith excitement than fatigue. Their quick eyes detected 
 llie blood upon the ground. I gave them no time to pause 
 and examine. ' He has escaped me — he has fled,' I cried : 
 * follow,' and I led them to the opposite part of the ])iecipice 
 {'rom that which the Helot had taken. Heading the search 
 1 pretended to catch a glimpse of the goatskin ever and anon 
 through the trees, and I stayed not the pursuit till night grew 
 dark, and I judged the victun was far away." 
 
 " And he escaped .'' " 
 
 " He did. The crypteia ended. Tliree other Helots 
 were slain, but not by me. We returned to Sparta, and my
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 35 
 
 mother was comforted for my misfortune in not having' slain 
 my foe by seeing the stains on my grandsire's sword. I will 
 tell thee a secret, Gongylus" — and here Pausanias lowered 
 his voice, and looked anxiously toward him — " since that 
 day I have not hated the Helot race. Nay, it may be that 
 I have loved them better than the Dorian." 
 
 " I do not wonder at it. But has not your wounded giant 
 yet met with his death t " 
 
 " No, I nev^er related what had passed between us to any 
 one save my father. He was gentle for a Spartan, and he 
 rested not till Gylippus — so was the Helot named — obtained 
 exemption from the black list. He dared not, however, at- 
 tribute his intercession to the true cause. It happened, 
 fortunately, that Gylippus was related to my own foster- 
 brother, Alcman, brother to my nurse ; and Alcman is cele- 
 brated in Sparta, not only for courage in war, but for arts 
 in peace. He is a poet, and his strains please the Dorian 
 '^ar, for they are stern and simple, and they breathe of war. 
 Alcman's merits won forgiveness for the offenses of Gylip- 
 pus. May the gods be kind to his race ! " 
 
 " Your Alcman seems one of no common intelligence, 
 and your gentleness to him does not astonish me, though it 
 seems often to raise a frown on the brows of your Spartans." 
 
 " We have lain on the same bosom," said Pausanias, 
 touchingly, " and his mother was kinder to me than my own. 
 You must know that to those Helots who have been our 
 foster-brothers, and whom we distinguish by the name of 
 Mothons, our stern law relaxes. They have no rights of 
 citizenship, it is true, but they cease to be slaves ; * nay, 
 sometimes they attain not only to entire emancipation, but 
 to distinction. Alcman has bound his fate to mine. But to 
 return, Gongylus. I tell thee that it is not thy descriptions 
 of pomp and dominion that allure me, though I am not above 
 the love of power ; neither is it thy glowing promises, though 
 blood too wild for a Dorian runs riot in mv veins : but it is 
 my deep loathing, my inexpressible disgust for Sparta and 
 her laws, my horror at the thought of wearing away life in 
 those sullen customs, amidst that joyless round of tyrannic 
 duties, in my rapture at the hope of escape, of life in a land 
 which the eye of the Ephor never pierces ; this it is, and this 
 alone, O Persian, that makes me (the words must out) a 
 
 * The appellation of Mothons was not confined to the Helots who 
 claimed the connection of foster-brothers, but was given also to house 
 hold slaves.
 
 36 FAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 traitor to my country — one who dreams of becoming a 
 dependent on her foe," 
 
 " Nay," said Gongyhis, eagerly ; for here Pausanias 
 moved uneasily, and the color mounted to his brow. " Nay, 
 speak not of dependence. Consider the proposals that you 
 can alone condescend to offer to the great king. Can the 
 conqueror of Platasa, with millions for his subjects, hold him- 
 self dependent, even on the sovereign of the East ? How, 
 hereafter, will the memories of our sterile Greece and your 
 rocky Sparta fade from your mind ; or be remembered only 
 as a state of thralldom and bondage, which your riper man- 
 hood has outgrown ! " 
 
 " I will try to think so, at least," said Pausanias, gloom- 
 ily. " And, come what may, I am not one to- recede. 1 have 
 thrown my shield into a fearful peril ; but I will win it back 
 or perish. Enough of this, Gongylus. Night advances. I 
 will attend the appointment you have made. Take the boat, 
 and within an hour I will meet you with the prisoners at the 
 spot agreed on, near the Temple of Aphrodite. All things 
 are prepared ? "' 
 
 "All," said Gongylus, rising, with a gleam of malignant 
 joy on his dark face. " I leave thee, kingly slave of the 
 rocky Sparta, to prepare the way for thee, as Satrap of hall 
 the East." 
 
 So saying, he quit the awning, and motioned three 
 Egyptian sailors who lay on the deck without. A boat was 
 lowered, and the sound of its oars woke Pausanias fi om the 
 reverie into which the parting words of the Eretri in had 
 plunged his mind. 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 With a slow and thoughtful step, Pausanias pass>id on to 
 the outer deck. The moon was up, and the vessel scarcely 
 seemed to stir, so gently did it glide along the sparkling 
 waters. They were still within the bay, and the shores rose, 
 white and distinct, to his view. A group of Spartans>, reclin- 
 ing by the side of the ship, were gazing listlessl) on the 
 waters. The Regent paused beside them.
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE spartan: 37 
 
 " Ye weary of the ocean, methinks," said he. " We Dor 
 ians have not the merchant tastes of the lonians."* 
 
 " Son of Cleombrotus," said one of the group, a Spartan 
 whose rank and services entitled him to more than ordinary- 
 familiarity with the chief, " it is not the ocean itself that we 
 should dread; it is the contagion of those who, living on the 
 element, seem to share in its ebb and flow. The lonians are 
 never three hours in the same mind." 
 
 " For that reason," said Pausanias, fixing his eyes stead- 
 fastly on the Spartan, " for that reason I have judged it ad- 
 visable to adopt a rough manner with these innovators, to 
 draw with a broad chalk the line between them and the 
 Spartans, and to teach those who never knew discipline the 
 stern duties of obedience. Think you I have done wisely ? " 
 
 The Spartan, who had risen when Pausanias addressed 
 him, drew his chief a little aside from the rest. 
 
 " Pausanias," said he, " the hard Naxian stone best tames 
 and tempers the fine steel ;t but the steel may break if the 
 workman be not skilful. These Athenians are grown inso- 
 lent since Marathon, and their soft kindred of Asia have re- 
 lighted the fires they took of old from the Cecropian Pryt- 
 aneum. Their sail is more numerous than ours ; on the sea 
 they find the courage they lose on land. Better be gentle 
 with those wayward allies, for the Spartan greyhound shows 
 not his teeth but to bite." 
 
 " Perhaps you are right. I w-ill consider these things, and 
 appease the mutineers. But it goes hard with my pride, 
 Thrasyllus, to make equals of this soft-tongued race. Why, 
 these lonians, do they not enjoy themselves in perpetual holi- 
 days ? — spend days at the banquet ? — ransack earth and sea 
 for dainties and for perfumes ? — aad shall they be the equals 
 of us men, who, from the age of seven to that of sixty, are 
 wisely taught to make life so barren and toilsome that we 
 may well have no fear of death ? I hate these sleek and 
 merry feast-givers ; they are a perpetual insult to our solemn 
 existence." 
 
 There was a strange mixture of irony and passion in the 
 Spartan's voice as he thus spoke, and Thrasyllus looked at 
 him in grave surprise. 
 
 " There is nothing to envy in the woman-like debauch- 
 eries of the Ionian," said he, after a pause. 
 
 * No Spartan served as a sailor, or indeed condescended to any trade 
 or calling but that of war. 
 
 t Find." Isth, V. (vi.)73.
 
 38 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 " Envy ! no ; we only hate them, Thrasyllus. Yon Ere 
 trian tells me rare things of the East. Time may come when 
 we shall sup on the black broth in Susa." 
 
 " The gods forbid ! Sparta never invades. Life with iis 
 is too precious, for we are few. Pausanias, I would we were 
 well quit of Byzantium. I do not suspect you, not I ; but 
 there are those who look with vexed eyes on those garments, 
 and I, who love you, fear the sharp jealousies of the Ephors, 
 to whose ears the birds carry all tidings." 
 
 " My poor Thrasyllus," said Pausanias, laughing scornful- 
 ly, " think you that I wear these robes, or mimic the Median 
 manners, for love of the Mede .' No, no ! But there are arts 
 which save countries as well as those of war. This Gongy- 
 lus is in the confidence of Xerxes. I desire to establish a 
 peace for Greece upon everlasting foundations. Reflect ; 
 Persia hath Millions yet left. Another invasion may find a 
 different fortune ; and, even at the best, Sparta gains noth- 
 ing by these wars. Athens triumphs, not Lacedaemon. I 
 would, I say, establish a peace with Persia. I would that 
 Sparta, not Athens, should have that honor. Hence these 
 flatteries to the Persian — trivial to us who render them, sweet 
 and powerful to those who receive. Remember these words 
 hereafter, if the Ephors make question of my discretion. And 
 now, Thrasyllus, return to our friends, and satisfy them as to 
 the conduct of Pausanias." 
 
 Quitting Thrasyllus, the Regent now joined a young Spar- 
 tan who stood alone by the prow in a musing attitude. 
 
 " Lysander, my friend, my only friend, my best-loved 
 Lysander," said Pausanias, placing his hand on the Spartan's 
 shoulder. " And why so sad .-" " 
 
 " How many leagues are we from Sparta ? " answered Ly- 
 sander, mournfully. 
 
 " And canst thou sigh for the black broth, my friend } 
 Come, how often hast thou said, ' Where Pausanias is, there 
 is Sparta ! ' " 
 
 " Forgive me, I am ungrateful," said Lysander, with warmth. 
 My benefactor, my guardian, my hero, forgive me if I have 
 added to your own countless causes of anxiety. Wherever 
 you are, there is life, and there glory. When I was just 
 born, sickly and feeble, I was exposed on Taygetus. You, 
 then a boy, heard my faint cry, and took on me that compas- 
 sion which my parents had forsworn. You bore me to your 
 father's roof, you interceded for my life. You prevailed even 
 on your stern mother. I was saved ; and the gods smiled
 
 PAUSAN'.'AS, THE SPARTAN. 35 
 
 upon the infant whom the son of the humane Hercules pro- 
 tected. I grew up strong and hardy, and belied the signs of 
 my birth. My parents then owned me ; but still you were 
 my fosterer, my saviour, my more than father. As I grew up 
 placed under your care, I inbibed my first lesson of war. By 
 your side I fought, and from your example I won glory. Yes 
 Pausanias, even here, amidst luxuries which revolt me more 
 than the Parthian bow and the Persian sword, even amidst 
 the faces of the stranger, I still feel thy presence my home, 
 thyself my Sparta." 
 
 The proud Pausanias was touched, and his voice trembled 
 as he replied, " Brother in arms and in love, whatever service 
 fate may have allowed me to render unto thee, thy high na- 
 ture and thy cheering affection have more than paid me back. 
 Often in our lonely rambles amidst the dark oaks of the 
 sacred Scotitos, * or by the wayward waters of Tiasa, f w'hen 
 I have poured into thy faithful breast my impatient loathing, 
 my ineffable distaste for the iron life, the countless and wear- 
 isome tyrannies of custom which surround the Spartans, of- 
 ten have I found a consoling refuge in thy divine content- 
 ment, thy cheerful wisdom. Thou lovest Sparta ; why is she 
 not worthier of thy love ? Allowed only to be half men, in 
 war we are demi-gods ; in peace, slaves. Thou wouldst in- 
 terrupt me. Be silent. I am in a wilful mood ; thou canst 
 not comprehend me, and I often marvel at thee. Still we are 
 friends, such friends as the Dorian discipline, which makes 
 friendship necessary in order to endure life, alone can form. 
 Come, take up thy staff and mantle. Thou shalt be my compan- 
 ion ashore. I seek one whom alone in the world I love better 
 than thee. To-morrow to stern duties once more. Alcman 
 shall row us across the bay ; and as we glide along, if thou 
 wilt praise Sparta, I will listen to thee as the lonians listen 
 to their tale-tellers. Ho ! Alcman, stop the rowers, and 
 lower the boat." 
 
 The orders were obeyed, and a second boat soon darted 
 toward tlie same part of the bay as that to which the one that 
 bore Gong}dus had directed its course. Thrasyllus and his 
 companions watched the boat that bore Pausanias and his 
 two comrades, as it bounded, arrow-like, over the glassy sea. 
 
 " Whither goes Pausanias ? " asked one of the Spartans. 
 
 " Back to Byzantium on business," replied Thrasyllus. 
 
 " And we ? " 
 
 *Paus. , Lac.x. t Ibid., c. xviii-
 
 40 FAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 " Are to cruise in the bay *^M1 his return." 
 
 " Pausanias is changed." 
 
 " Sparta will restore him to what he was. Nothing 
 thrives out of Sparta. Even man spoils." 
 
 "True, sleep is the sole constant friend, the same in all 
 climates." 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 On the shore to the right of the port of Byzantine were 
 at that time thickly scattered the villas or suburban retreats 
 of the wealthier and more luxurious citizens. Byzantine 
 was originally colonized by the Megarians, a Dorian race 
 kindred with that of Sparta ; and the old features of the 
 pure and antique Hellas were still preserved in the dialect,* 
 as well as in the forms, of the descendants of the colonists ; 
 in their favorite deities and rites and traditions; even in the 
 names of places, transferred from the sterile Megara to that 
 fertile coast ; in the rigid and Helot-like slavery to which 
 the native Bithnians were subjected ; and in the attachment 
 of their masters to the oligarchic principles of government. 
 Nor was it till long after the present date that democracy in 
 its most corrupt and licentious form was introduced among 
 them. But like all the Dorian colonies, when once they de- 
 parted from the severe and masculine mode of life inheri- 
 ted from their ancestors, the reaction was rapid, the degen- 
 eracy complete. Even then the Byzantines, intermingled 
 with the foreign merchants and traders that thronged theii 
 haven, and womanized by the soft contagion of the East, 
 v/ere voluptuous, timid, and prone to every excess save that 
 of valor. The higher class were exceedingly wealthy, and 
 gave to their vices or their pleasures a splendor and refine- 
 ment of which the elder states of Greece were as yel uncon- 
 scious. At a later period, indeed, we are informed tnat the 
 Byzantine citizens had their habitual residence in the public 
 hostels, and let their houses — not even taking the trouble to 
 
 *" The Byzantine dialect was in the time of Philip, as we know 
 from the decree in Demosthenes, rich in Dorisms." — MULLER on the 
 Doric Dialect.
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN: 41 
 
 remove their wives — to the strangers who crowded their gay 
 capital. And when their general found it necessary to de- 
 mand their aid on the ramparts, he could only secure their 
 attendance by ordering the taverns and cookshops to be re- 
 moved to the place of duty. Not yet so far sunk in sloth 
 and debauch, the Byzantines were nevertheless hosts emi- 
 nently dangerous to the austerer manners of their Greek 
 visitors. The people, the women, the delicious wine, the 
 balm of the subduing climate, served to tempt the senses 
 and relax the mind. Like all the Dorians, when freed from 
 primitive restraint, the higher class, that is, the descendants 
 of the colonists, were in themselves an agreeable, jovial race. 
 They had that strong bias to humor, to jest, to satire, which 
 in their ancestral Megara gave birth to the Grecian comedy, 
 and which lurked even beneath the pithy aphorisms and 
 rude merry-makings of the severe Spartan. 
 
 Such were the people with whom of late Pausanias had 
 familiarly mixed, and with whose manners he contrasted, far 
 too favorably for his honor and his peace, the habits of his 
 countrymen. 
 
 It was in one of the villas we have described, the favorite 
 abode of the rich Diagoras, and in an apartment connected 
 with those more private recesses of the house appropriated 
 to the females, that two persons were seated by a window 
 which commanded a wide view of the glittering sea below. 
 One of these was an old man in a long robe that reached to 
 his feet, with a bald head, and a beard in which some dark 
 hairs yet withstood the encroachments of the gray. In his 
 well-cut features and large eyes were remains of the beauty 
 that characterized his race ; but the mouth was full and wide, 
 the forehead low though broad, the cheeks swollen, the chin 
 double, and the whole form corpulent and unwieldly. Still 
 there was a jolly, sleek good-humor about the aspect of the 
 man that prepossessed you in his favor. This personage, 
 who was no less than Diagoras himself, was reclining lazily 
 upon a kind of narrow sofa cunningly inlaid with ivory, and 
 studying new combinations in that scientific game which 
 Palamedes is said to have invented at the siege of Troy. 
 
 Bis companion was of a very different appearance. She 
 was a girl who to the eye of a Northern stranger migh* have 
 seemed about eighteen, though she was probably much young- 
 er, of a countenance so remarkable for intelligence that it 
 was easy to see that her mind had outgrown her years. 
 Beautiful she certainly was, yet scarcely of that beauty fiom
 
 4a PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN; 
 
 which the Greek sculptor would have drawn his models. 
 'J'he features were not strictly regular, and yet so harmo- 
 niously did each blend with each, that to have amended one 
 would have spoiled the whole. There was in the fulness 
 and depth of the large but genial eye, with its sweeping 
 fringe, and straight, slightly chiselled brow, more of Asia than 
 of Greece. The lips, of the freshest red, were somewhat full 
 and pouting, and dimples without number lay scattered round 
 them — lurking-places for the loves. Her complexion was 
 clear, though dark ; and the purest and most virgin bloom 
 mantled, now paler, now richer, through the soft surface. 
 At the time we speak of she was leaning against the open 
 door with her arms crossed on her bosom, and her face 
 turned toward the Byzantine. Her robe, of a deep yellow, 
 so trying to the fair women of the North, became well the 
 glowing colors of her beauty — the damask cheek, the purple 
 hair. Like those of the lonians, the sleeves of the robe, long 
 and loose, descended to her hands, which were marvellously 
 small and delicate. Long earrings, which terminated in a 
 kind of berry, studded with precious stones, then common 
 only with the women of the East ; a broad collar, or neck- 
 lace, of the smaragdus, or emerald ; and large clasps, me- 
 dallion-like, where the swanlike throat joined the graceful 
 shoulder, gave to her dress an appearance of opulence and 
 splendor that betokened how much the ladies of Byzantine 
 had borrowed from the fashions of the Oriental world. Noth- 
 ing could exceed the lightness of her form, rounded, it is 
 true, but slight and girlish ; and the high instep, with the 
 slender foot so well set off by the embroidered sandal, would 
 have suited such dances as those in which the huntress 
 nymphs of Delos moved around Diana. The natural ex- 
 pression of her face, if countenance so mobile and change- 
 ful had one expression more predominant than another, ap- 
 peared to be irresistibly arch and joyous, as of one full of 
 youth and conscious of her beauty ; yet, if a cloud came 
 over the face, nothing could equal the thoughtful and deep 
 sadness of the dark abstracted eyes, as if some touch of 
 higher and more animated emotion — such as belongs to 
 pride, or courage, or intellect — vibrated on the heart. The 
 color rose, the form dilated, the lip quivered, the eye flashed 
 light, and the mirthful expression heightened almost into 
 the sublime. Yet lovely as Cleonice was deemed at Byzan- 
 tium, lovelier still as she would have appeared in modern 
 eyes, she failed in what the Greeks generally, but especia ly
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN: 43 
 
 the Spartans, deemed an essential of beauty — in height ot 
 stature. Accustomed to look upon the virgin but as the 
 future mother of a race of warriors, the Spartans saw beauty 
 only in those proportions which promised a robust and 
 stately progeny ; and the reader may remember the well- 
 known story of the opprobrious reproaches, even, it is said, 
 accompanied with stripes, which the P^.phors addressed to a 
 Spartan king for presuming to make choice of a wife below 
 the ordinary stature. Cleonice was small and delicate, rather 
 like the Peri of the Persian than the sturdy Grace of the 
 the Dorian. But her beauty was her least charm. She had 
 all that feminine fascination of manner, wayward, varying, 
 inexpressible, yet irresistible, which seizes hold of the im- 
 agination as well as the senses, and which has so often made 
 willing slaves of the proud rulers of the world. In fact 
 Cleonice, the daughter of Diagoras, had enjoyed those ad 
 vantages of womanly education wholly unknown at that 
 time to the free-born ladies of Greece proper, but which 
 gave to the women of some of the Isles and Ionian cities 
 their celebrity in ancient story. Her mother was of Miletus, 
 famed for the intellectual cultivation of the sex no less than 
 for their beauty — of Miletus, the birthplace of Aspasia — of 
 Miletus, from which those remarkable women who, under 
 the name of Hetcerae, exercised afterwards so signal an in- 
 tiuence over the mind and manners of Athens, chiefly de- 
 rived their origin, and who seem to have inspired an affec 
 tion, which in depth, constancy, and fervor approached tc- 
 the more chivalrous passion of the North. Such an educa 
 tion consisted not only in the feminine and household arts 
 honored universally throughout Greece, but in a kind oi 
 spontaneous and luxuriant cultivation of all that captivates 
 the fancy and enlivens the leisure. If there were something 
 pedantic in their affectation of philosophy, it was so graced 
 and vivified by a brilliancy of conversation, a charm of 
 manner carried almost to a science, a womanly facility of 
 softening all that comes Avithin their circle, of suiting yet re- 
 fi ling each complexity and discord of character admitted to 
 their intercourse, that it had at least nothing masculine oi 
 harsh. Wisdom, taken lightly or easily, seemed but another 
 shape of poetry. The matrons of Athens, who could often 
 neither read nor write — ignorant, vain, tawdry, and not 
 always faithful, if we may trust to such scandal as has 
 reached the modern time — must have seemed insipid beside 
 these brilliant strangers ; and while certainly wanting theii
 
 ^^ PAUSANIAS, THE START AN: 
 
 power to retain love, must have had but a doubtful superi- 
 ority in the qualifications that ensure esteem. But we are 
 not to suppose that the Het^eras (that mysterious and im- 
 portant class peculiar to a certain state of society, and whose 
 appellation we cannot render by any proper word in modern 
 language) monopolized all the graces of their countrywomen. 
 In the same cities were many of unblemished virtue and re- 
 pute who possessed equal cultivation and attraction, but 
 uhom a more decorous life has concealed from the equivo 
 cal admiration of posterity ; though the numerous female 
 disciples of Pythagoras throw some light on their capacity 
 and intellect. Among such as these had been the mother 
 of Cleonice, not long since dead, and her daughter in- 
 herited and equalled her accomplishments, while her virgin 
 youth, her inborn playfulness of manner, her pure guileless- 
 ness, which the secluded habits of the unmarried women at 
 Byzantium preserved from all contagion, gave to qualities and 
 gifts so little published abroad the effect, as it were, of a happy 
 and wondrous inspiration rather than of elaborate culture. 
 
 Such was the fair creature whom Diagoras, looking up 
 from his pastime, thus addressed : — 
 
 " And so, perverse one, thou canst not love this great 
 hero, a proper person truly, and a mighty warrior, who will 
 eat you an army of Persians at a meal. These Spartan 
 fighting-cocks want no garlic, I warrant you.* And yet 
 you can't love him, you little rogue." 
 
 " Why, my father," said Cleonice, with an arch smile 
 and a slight blush, " even if I did look kindly on Pausanias, 
 would it not be to my own sorrow .-' What Spartan — above 
 all, what royal Spartan — may marry with a foreigner, and a 
 Byzantine ? " 
 
 " I did not precisely talk of marriage — a very happy state, 
 doubtless, to those who dislike too quiet a life, and a very 
 honorable one, for war is honor itself ; but I did not speak 
 of that, Cleonice. I would only say that this man of might 
 loves thee — that he is rich, rich, rich. Pretty pickings at 
 I'lataea ; and we have known losses, my child, sad losses. 
 And if you do not love him, why, you can but smile and 
 talk as if you did, and when the Spartan goes home, you will 
 lose a tormentor and gain a dowry." 
 
 * Fighting-cocks were fed with garh'c, to make them more fierce. The 
 learned reader will remember how Theorus advised Dica;opolis to keep 
 clear of the 'I'hracians with garlic in their mouths. — See the Acliarnizns 
 ef Aristophanes.
 
 PAUSANTAS, THE SPARTAN. 4j 
 
 " My father, for shame ! " 
 
 " Who talks of shame ? You women are always so sharp 
 at finding oracles in oak-leaves, that one doesn't wondei 
 Apollo makes choice of your sex for his priests. But lister 
 to me, girl, seriously," and here Diagoras with a great effon 
 raised himself on his elbow, and, lowering his voice, spoke 
 with evident earnestness. " Pausanias has life and death, 
 and, what is worse, wealth or poverty, in his hands ; he can 
 raise or ruin us with a nod of his head, this blackcurled 
 Jupiter They tell me that he is fierce, irascible, haughty; 
 and what slighted lover is not revengeful ? For my sake, 
 Cleonice, for your poor father's sake, show no scorn, no re- 
 pugnance ; be gentle, play with him, draw not down the 
 thunder-bolt, even if you turn from the golden shower." 
 
 While Diagoras spoke, the girl listened with downcast 
 eyes and flushed cheeks, and there was an expression of 
 such shame and sadness on her countenance, that even the 
 Byzantine, pausing and looking up for a reply, was startled 
 by it. 
 
 " My child," said he, hesitatingly and absorbed, " do not 
 misconceive me. Cursed be the hour when the Spartan saw 
 thee ; but since the Fates have so served us, let us not make 
 bad worse. I love thee, Cleonice, more dearly than the 
 apple of my eye ; it is for thee I fear, for thee I speak. Alas ! 
 it is not dishonor I recommend ; it is force I would shun." 
 
 " Force I " said the girl, drawing up her form with sudden 
 animation. " Fear not that. It is not Pausanias I dread ; it 
 is—" 
 
 " What then ? " 
 
 " No matter ; talk of this no more. Shall I sing to thee ? " 
 
 " But Pausanias will visit us this very night." 
 
 " I know it. Hark ! " and, with her finger to her lip, her 
 ear bent downward, her cheek varying from pale to red, from 
 red to pale, the maiden stole beyond the window to a kind of 
 platform or terrace that overhung the sea. There, the faint 
 breeze stirring her long hair, and the moonlight full upon her 
 face, she stood, as stood that immortal priestess who looked 
 along the starry Hellespont for the young Leander ; and her 
 ear had not deceived her. The oars were dashing in the waves 
 below, and dark and rapid the boat bounded on towards the 
 rocky shore. She gazed long and steadfastly on the dim and 
 shadowy forms which that slender raft contained, and her eye 
 detected among the three the loftier form of her haughty wooer. 
 Presently the thick foliage that clothed the descent shut the
 
 -5 PA USA NIA S, THE SPA R TA IV. 
 
 boat, Hearing the strand, from her view ; but she now heard 
 below, mellowed and softened in the still and fragrant air, the 
 sound of the cithara and the melodious song of the Mothon, 
 thus imperfectly rendered from the language of immortal 
 melody : — 
 
 SONG. 
 
 Carry a sword in tlie myrtle bough, 
 Ye who would honor the tyrant-slayei 
 I, in the leaves of the myrtle bough, 
 Carry a tyrant to slay myself. 
 
 I pluck'd the branch with a hasty hana, 
 But love was lurking amidst the leaves ; 
 His bow is bent and his shaft is poised, 
 And I must perish or pass the bough. 
 
 Maiden, I come with a gift to thee ; 
 Maiden, I come with a myrtle wreath ; 
 Over thy forehead, or round thy breast, 
 Bind, I implore thee, my myrtle wreath, * 
 
 From hand to hand by the banquet lights 
 On with the myrtle bough passes song ; 
 From hand to hand by the silent stars 
 What with the myrtle' wreath passes? Love. 
 
 I bear the god in a myrtle wreath , 
 Under the stars let him pass to thee : 
 Empty his quiver and bind his wings, 
 Then pass the myrtle wreath back to me. 
 
 Cleonice listened breathlessly to the words, and sighed 
 heavily as they ceased. Then, as the foliage rustled below, 
 she turned quickly into the chamber and seated herself at a 
 little distance from Diagoras ; to all appearance calm, in- 
 different, and composed. Was it nature, or the arts of Mi- 
 letus, that taught the young beauty the hereditary artifices of 
 the sex ? 
 
 " So it is he, then ? " said Diagoras, with a fidgety and 
 nervous trepidation. " Well, he chooses strange hours to visit 
 us. But he is right ; his visits cannot be too private. Cleonice, 
 you look provokingly at your ease." 
 
 Cleonice made no reply, but shifted her position so that 
 the light from the lamp did not fall upon her face, while her 
 
 * Garlands were twined round the neck, or placed upon the bosom 
 ( ). See the quotations from Alcaeus, Sappho, and Anacreon 
 
 in Athemeus, book xiii., c. 17.
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 47 
 
 father, hurnnng to the threshold of his hall to receive his 
 illustrious visitor, soon re-appeared with the Spartan Regent, 
 talking as he entered with the volubility of one of the parasites 
 of Alciphron and Athenreus. 
 
 " This is most kind, most affable. Cleonice said you would 
 come, Pausanias, though I began to distrust you. The hours 
 seem long to those who "expect pleasure." 
 
 " And, Cleonice, you knew that I should come," said Pair 
 sanias, appioaching the fair Byzantine; but his step was 
 timid, and there was no pride now in his anxious eye and 
 bended brow. 
 
 " You said you would come to-night," said Cleonice, 
 calmly, " and Spartans, according to proverbs, speak the 
 truth." 
 
 " When it is to their advantage, yes," * said Pausanias, 
 with a slight curl of his lips ; and, as if the girl's compliment 
 to his countrjnnen had roused his spleen and changed his 
 thoughts, he seated himself moodily by Cleonice, and re- 
 mained silent. 
 
 The Byzantine stole an arch glance at the Spartan, as he 
 thus sat, from the corner of her eyes, and said after a pause : — 
 
 " You Spartans ought to speak the truth more than other 
 people, for you say much less. We too have our proverb at 
 Byzantium, and one which implies that it requires some wit 
 to tell fibs." 
 
 " Child, child ! " exclaimed Diagoras, holding up his hand 
 reprovingly, and directing a terrified look at the Spartan. To 
 his great relief, Pausanias smiled, and replied, — 
 
 " Fair maiden, we Dorians are said to have a wit peculiar 
 to ourselves, but I confess that it is of a nature that is but 
 little attractive to your sex. The Athenians are blander 
 wooers." 
 
 " Do you ever attempt to woo in Lacedaemon then ? Ah, 
 but the maidens there, perhaps, are not difficult to please." 
 
 " The girl puts me in a cold sweat ! " muttered Diagoras, 
 wiping his brow. And this time Pausanias did not smile ; he 
 colored, and answered, gravely : — 
 
 " And is it, then, a vain hope for a Spartan to please a 
 Byzantine .'' " 
 
 * So said Thuc3'dides of the Spartans, many, years afterwards. 
 " They give evidence of honor among themselves ; but with respect to 
 others, they consider honorable whatever pleases them, and just what 
 ever is to their advantage.'' — See Thiicyd,, lib. v.
 
 48 PA us A NT AS, THE SPARTA AT. 
 
 "You puzzle me. That is an enigma; put it to the 
 oracle." 
 
 The Spartan raised his eyes toward Cleonice, and, as she 
 saw the inquiring, perplexed look that his features assumed, 
 the ruby lips broke into so wicked a smile, and the eyes that 
 met his had so much laughter in them, that Pausanias was 
 fairly bewitched out of his own displeasure. 
 
 " Ah cruel one ! " said he, lowering his voice, " I am not 
 so proud of being Spartan that the thought should console me 
 for thy mocker}'. " 
 
 " Not proud of being Spartan ! say not so, " exclaimed 
 Cleonice. " Who ever speaks of Greece and places not Sparta 
 at her head ? Who ever speaks of freedom and forgets 
 ThermopylfE ? Who ever burns for glory, and sighs not for 
 the fame of Pausanias and Plataea 1 Ah, yes, even in jest 
 say not that you are not proud to be a Spartan ! " 
 
 " The little fool ! " cried Diagoras, chuckling, and might- 
 ily delighted ; " she is quite mad about Sparta— no wonder !" 
 
 Pausanias, surprised and moved by the burst of the fair 
 Byzantine, gazed at her admiringly, and thought within him- 
 self how harshly the same sentiment would have sounded on 
 the lips of a tall Spartan virgin ; but when Cleonice heard the 
 approving interlocution of Diagoras, her enthusiasm vanished 
 from her face, and, putting out her lips poutingly, she said, 
 " Nay, father, I repeat only what others say of the Spartans. 
 I'hey are admirable heroes ; but from the little I have seen, 
 they are — " 
 
 " What ? " said Pausanias, eagerly, and leaning nearer to 
 Cleonice. 
 
 " Proud, dictatorial, and stern as companions. " 
 
 Pausanias once more drew back. 
 
 _" There it is again ! " groaned Diagoras. " I feel exactly 
 as if I were playing at odd and even with a lion ; she does 
 :t to vex me. I shall retaliate, and creep away." 
 
 " Cleonice, " said Pausanias, with suppressed emotiori 
 " you trifle with me, and I bear it." 
 
 " You are condescending. How would you aveng-e your- 
 self ? " 
 
 " How ! " 
 
 " You would not beat me ; you would not make me bea» 
 an anchor on the shoulders, as they say you do your soldiers. 
 Shame on you ! You bear with me ! True, what help for 
 you ? " 
 
 " Maiden, " said the Spartan, rising in great anger, " foi
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 4g 
 
 him who loves and is slighted there is a revenge you have 
 not mentioned. " 
 
 " For him who loves ! No, Spartan ; for him who shuns 
 disgrace and courts the fame dear to gods and men, there is 
 no revenge upon women. Blush for your threat. " 
 
 " You madden, but subdue me, " said the Spartan, as he 
 turned away. He then first perceived that Diagoras had 
 gone — that they were alone. His contempt for the father 
 awoke suspicion of the daughter. Again he approached, and 
 said : " Cleonice, I know but little of the fables of poets, yet 
 is it an old maxim often sung and ever belied, that love 
 scorned becomes hate. There are moments when I think I 
 hate thee. " 
 
 " And yet thou hast never loved me, " said Cleonice ; and 
 there was something soft and tender in the tone of her voice, 
 and the rough Spartan was again subdued. 
 
 " I never loved thee ! What, then, is love ? Is not thine 
 image always before me ? — amidst schemes, amidst perils of 
 which thy very dreams have never presented equal perplex- 
 ity or phantoms so uncertain, I am occupied but with thee. 
 Surely, as upon the hyacinth is written the exclamation of 
 woe, so on this heart is graven thy name. Cleonice, you who 
 know not what it is to love, you affect to deny or to question 
 mine. " 
 
 " And what," said Cleonice, blushing deepl}', and with 
 tears in her eyes, "what result can come from such a love ? 
 You may not wed with the stranger. And yet, Pausanias, 
 yet you know that all other love dishonors the virgin even 
 of Byzantium. You are silent ; you turn away. Ah, do 
 not let them wrong you. My father fears your power. If 
 you love me, you are powerless ; your power has passed to 
 me. Is it not so ? I, a weak girl, can rule, command, irri- 
 tate, mock you, if I will. You may fly me, but not con- 
 trol." 
 
 " Do not tempt me too far, Cleonice," said the Spartan, 
 with a faint smile. 
 
 " Nay, I will be merciful henceforth ; and you, Pausanias, 
 tome here no more. Awake to the true sense of what is due 
 to your divine ancestry — your great name. Is it not told of 
 you that, after the fall of Mardonius, you nobly dismissed to 
 her country, unscathed and honored, the captive Coan 
 lady?* Will you reverse at Byzantium the fame acquijca 
 
 * Ilerod., ix.
 
 JO PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN: 
 
 at Plataea ? Pausanias, spare us ; appeal not to my father' 
 fear, still less to his love of gold." 
 
 " I cannot, I cannot fly thee," said the Spartan, with 
 great emotion. " You know not how stormy, how inexora- 
 ble are the passions which burst forth after a whole youth of 
 restraint. When nature breaks the barriers, she rushes 
 headlong on her course. I am no gentle wooer ; where in 
 Sparta should 1 learn the art ? But, if I love thee not as 
 these mincing lonians, who come with offerings of flowers 
 and song, I do love thee with all that fervor of which the old 
 Dorian legends tell. I could brave, like the Thracian, the ■ 
 dark gates of Hades, were thy embrace my reward. Com- 
 mand me as thou wilt — make me thy slave in all things, 
 even as Hercules was to Omphale ; but tell me only that I 
 may win thy love at last. Fear not. Why fear me ? In my 
 wildest moments a look from thee can control me. I ask 
 but love for love. Without thy love thy beauty were value- 
 less. Bid me not despair." 
 
 Cleonice turned pale, and the large tears that had gath- 
 ered in her eyes fell slowly down her cheeks ; but she did 
 not withdraw her hand from his clasp, or avert her counte- 
 nance from his eyes. 
 
 " I do not fear thee," said she, in a very low voice. " I 
 told my father so ; but — but — " (and here she drew back 
 her hand and averted her face), " I fear myself." 
 
 "Ah, no, no," cried the delighted Spartan, detaining her, 
 " do not fear to trust to thine own heart. Talk not of dis- 
 honor. There are " (and here the Spartan drew himself up, 
 and his voice took a deeper swell) — " there are those on 
 earth who hold themselves above the miserable judgments 
 of the vulgar herd — who can emancipate themselves from 
 those galling chains of custom and of country which helotize 
 affection, genius, Nature herself. What is dishonor here 
 may be glory elsewhere ; and this hand, outstretched toward 
 a mightier sceptre than Greek ever wielded yet, may dis- 
 pense, not shame and sorrow, but glory and golden affluence 
 to those I love." 
 
 "You amaze me, Pausanias. Nozu I fear you. What 
 mean these mysterious boasts ? Have you the dark ambi- 
 tion to restore in your own person that race of tyrants whom 
 your country hath helped to sweep away ? Can you hope to 
 change the laws of Sparta, and reign there, your will the 
 state ? " 
 
 " Cleonice, we touch upon matters that should not dis
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN, 
 
 s« 
 
 turb the ears of women. Forgive me if J have been roused 
 from myself." 
 
 " At Miletus — so ha^-e I heard my mother say — there 
 , were women worthy to be the confidants of men." 
 
 " But they were women who loved. Cleonice, I should 
 rejoice in an hour when I might pour every thought into thy 
 bosom." 
 
 At this moment there was heard on the strand below a 
 single note from the Mothon's instrument, low, but pro- 
 longed ; it ceased, and was again renewed. The royal con- 
 spirator started and breathed hard. 
 
 " It is the signal," he muttered ; " they wait me. Cleo- 
 nice," he said aloud, and with much earnestness in his voice, 
 " I had hoped, ere we parted, to have drawn from your lips 
 those assurances which would give me energy for the pres- 
 ent and hope in the future. Ah, turn not from me because 
 my speech is plain and my manner rugged. What, Cleonice, 
 what if I could defy the laws of Sparta; what if, instead of 
 that gloomy soil, I could bear thee to lands where heaven 
 and man alike smile benignant on love .'' Might I not hope 
 then ? " 
 
 " Do nothing to sully your fame." 
 
 " Is it, then, dear to thee ? " 
 
 " It is a part of thee," said Cleonice, falteringly ; and as 
 if she had said too much, she covered her face with her 
 hands. 
 
 Emboldened by this emotion, the Spartan gave way to 
 his passion and his joy. He clasped her in his arms — his 
 first embrace — and kissed, with wild fervor, the crimsoned 
 forehead, the veiling hands. Then, as he tore himself away, 
 he cast his right arm aloft. 
 
 "O Hercules ! " he cried, in solemn and kindling adjura- 
 tion, " my ancestor and my divine guardian, it w-as not by 
 confining thy labors to one spot of earth that thou wert 
 borne from thy throne of fire to the seats of the gods. 
 Like thee I will spread the influence of my arms to nations 
 whose glory shall be my name ; and as thy sons, my fathers, 
 expelled from Sparta, returned thither with sword and spear 
 to defeat usurpers and to found the long dynasty of the 
 Heracleids, even so may it be mine to visit that dread abode 
 of torturers and spies, and to build up in the halls of the 
 Atridae a power worthier of the lineage of the demi-god. 
 Again the signal ! Fear not, Cleonice, I will not tarnish my
 
 ^2 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN: 
 
 fame, but I will exchange the envy of abhorring rivals fot 
 tlie obedience of a world. One kiss more ! Farewell ! " 
 
 Ere Cleonice recovered herself, Pausanias was gone, his 
 wild and uncomprehended boasts still ringing in her ear. She. 
 sighed heavily, and turned towards the opening that admitted 
 to the terraces. There she stood watching for the parting 
 of her lover's boat. It was midnight ; the air, laden with ^he 
 perfumes of a thousand fragrant shrubs and flowers that bloom 
 along that coast in the rich luxuriance of nature, was hushed 
 and breathless. In its stillness every sound was audible, the 
 rustling of a leaf, the ripple of a wave. She heard the mur- 
 mur of whispered voices below, and in a few moments she 
 recognized, emerging from the foliage, the form of Pausanias ; 
 but he was not alone. Who were his companions ? In the deep 
 lustre of that shining and splendid atmosphere she could see 
 sufficient of the outline of their figures to observe that they were 
 not dressed in the Grecian garb ; their long robes betrayed 
 (he Persian. 
 
 They seemed conversing familiarly and eagerly as they 
 passed along the smooth sands, till a curve in the wooded 
 shore hid them from her view. 
 
 " Why do I love him so," said the girl, mechanically, " and 
 yet wrestle against that love ? Dark forebodings tell me 
 that Aphrodite smiles not on our vows. Woe is me ! What 
 will be the end ? " 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 On quitting Cleonice, Pausanias hastily traversed the long 
 ftassage that communicated with a square peristyle or colon- 
 nade, which again led, on the one hand, to the more public 
 parts of the villa, and, on the other, though a small door left 
 ajar, conducted by a back entrance, to the garden and the 
 sea-shore. Pursuing the latter path, the Spartan bounded 
 down the descent and came upon an opening in the foliage, 
 n which Lysander was seated beside the boat that had been 
 drawn partially on the strand. 
 
 " Alone ? Where is Alciian ? "
 
 PA us AMI AS, THE SPARTAN: 53 
 
 •* Yonder : you heard his signal ? " 
 
 " I heard it." 
 
 *' Pausanias, they who seek you are Persians. Beware ! " 
 
 " Of what ? murder .'' I am warned." 
 
 " Murder to your good nanie. There are no arms against 
 appearances." 
 
 " But I may trust thee ?" said the Regent, quickly ; " and 
 of Alcman's faith I am convinced." 
 
 " Why trust to any man what it were wisdom to reveal to 
 the whole Grecian Council ? I'o parley secretly with the foe 
 is half a treason to our friends." 
 
 " Lysander," replied Pausanias, coldly, " you have much 
 to learn before you can be wholly Spartan. Tarry here yet 
 awhile." 
 
 " What shall I do with this boy ? " muttered the conspir- 
 ator as he strode on. " I know that he will not betray me, 
 yet can I hope for his aid .'' I love him so well that I would 
 fain he shared my fortunes. Perhaps by little and little I may 
 lead him on. Meanwhile, his race and his name are so well 
 accredited in Sparta, his father himself an Ephor, that his 
 presence allays suspicion. Well, here are ray Persians." 
 
 A little apart from the Molhon, who, resting his cithara 
 on a fragment of rock, appeared to be absorbed in reflection, 
 stood the men of the East. There were two of them ; one 
 of tall stature and noble presence, in the prime of life ; the 
 other more advanced in years, of a coarser make, a yet dark- 
 er complexion, and of a sullen and gloomy countenance. 
 They were not dressed alike ; the taller, a Persian of pure 
 blood, wore a short tunic that reached only to the knees ; and 
 the dress fitted to his shape without a single fold. On his 
 round cap or bonnet glittered a string of those rare pearls, 
 especially and immemorial ly prized in the East, which form- 
 ed the favorite and characteristic ornament of the illustrious 
 tribe of the Pasargadae. The other, who was a Mede, differ- 
 ed scarcely in his dress from Pausanias himself, except that 
 he was profusely covered with ornaments ; his arms were 
 decorated with bracelets, he wore earrings, and a broad collar 
 of unpolished stones in a kind of filigree was suspended from 
 his throat. Behind the Orientals stood Gongylus, leaning 
 both hands on his staff, and watching the approach of 
 Pausanias with the same icy smile and glittering eye with 
 which he listened to the passionate invectives or flattered the 
 dark ambition of the Spartan. The Orientals saluted Pausanias 
 with a lofty gravity, and Gongylus, drawing near, said : " Son
 
 54 
 
 PAUSANIAS THE SPARTAN. 
 
 of Cleombrotus, the illustrious Ariamanes, kinsman to Xer« 
 xes,and of the house of the Ach^emenids, is so far versed in the 
 Grecian tongue that I need not proffer my offices as interpreter. 
 In Datis the Mede, brother to the most renowned of the 
 Magi, you behold a warrior worthy to assist the arms even of 
 Pausanias." 
 
 " I greet ye in our Spartan phrase, " The beautiful to the 
 good,' " said Pausanias, regarding the Barbarians with an 
 earnest gaze. " And I requested Gongylus to lead ye hither 
 in order that I might confer with ye more at ease, than in the 
 confinement to which I regret ye are still sentenced. Not in 
 prisons should be held the conversations of brave men." 
 
 " I know," said Ariamanes (the statelier of the Barbari- 
 ans), in the Greek tongue, which he spoke intelligibly indeed, 
 but with slowness and hesitation, " I know that I am with 
 that hero who refused to dishonor the corpse of Mardonius ; 
 and even though a captive, I converse without shame with my 
 victor." 
 
 " Rested it with me alone, your captivity should cease," 
 replied Pausanias. " War, that has made me acquainted 
 with the valor of the Persians, has also enlightened me as to 
 their character. Your king has ever been humane to such 
 of the Greeks as have sought a refuge near his throne. I 
 would but imitate his clemency." 
 
 " Had the great Darius less esteemed the Greeks, he 
 would never have invaded Greece. From the wanderers 
 whom misfortune drove to his realms, he learned to wonder 
 at the arts, the genius, the energies of the people of Hellas. 
 He desired less to win their territories than to gain such sub- 
 jects. Too vast, alas ! was the work he bequeathed to 
 Xerxes." 
 
 He should not have trusted to force alone," returned Pau- 
 sanias. " Greece may be won, but by the arts of her son, not 
 by the arms of the stranger. A Greek only can subdue 
 Greece. By such profound knowledge of the factions, the in- 
 terests, the envies, and the jealousies of each state as a Greek 
 alone can possess, the mistaken chain that binds them might 
 be easily severed ; some bought, some intimidated, and the 
 few that hold out subdued amidst the apathy of the rest." 
 
 " You speak wisely, right hand of Hellas," answered the 
 Persian, who had listened to these remarks with deep atten- 
 tion. " Yet had we in our armies your countryman, the brave 
 Demaratus." 
 
 " But, if I have heard rightly, ye too often disdained his
 
 FA USA NI AS, THE SPARTAN. 55 
 
 counsel. Had he been listened to, there had been neither a 
 Salamis nor a Plataea.* Yet Demaratus himself had been 
 too long a stranger to Greece, and he knew little of any state 
 save that of Sparta. Lives he still ? " 
 
 " Surely yes, in honor and renown ; little less than the 
 son of Darius himself." 
 
 " And what reward would Xerxes bestow on one of greater 
 'nfluence than Demaratus ; on one who has hitherto conquered 
 every foe, and now beholds before him the conquest of Greece 
 herself .? " 
 
 "If such a man were found," answered the Persian, "let 
 his thoughts run loose, let his imagination rove, let him seek 
 only how to find a fitting estimate of the gratitude of the 
 king and the vastness of the service." 
 
 Pausanias shaded his brow wfth his hand, and mused a 
 few moments ; then lifting his eyes to the Persian's watchful 
 but composed countenance, he said with a slight smile : — 
 
 " Hard is it, O Persian, when the choice is actually before 
 him, for a man to renounce his country. There have been 
 hours within this very day when my desires swept afar from 
 Spart i, from all Hellas, and rested on the tranquil pomp of 
 Oriental satrapies. But now, rude and stern parent though 
 Sparta be to me, I feel still that I am her son ; and, while we 
 speak, a throne in stormy Hellas seems the fitting object of 
 a Greek's ambition. In a word, then, I would rise, and yet 
 raise my country. I would have at my will a force that may 
 suffice to overthrow in Sparta its grim and unnatural laws, to 
 found amidst its rocks that single throne which the son of a 
 demi-god should ascend. From that throne I would spread 
 my empire over the whole of Greece, Corinth and Athens 
 being my tributaries. So that, though men now, and poster- 
 ity herefifter, may say, ' Pausanias overthrew the Spartan 
 governpient,' they shall add, ' but Pausanius annexed to the 
 Spartan sceptre the realm of Greece. Pausanius was a tyrant, 
 
 t> 
 
 * After the action at Thermopylae, Demaratus advised Xerxes to send 
 tliree hundred vessels to the Laconian coast, and seize the island of Cyth- 
 era, v/hich commanded Sparta. "The jjrofound experience of Demara- 
 tus in the selfish and exclusive policy of his countrymen made him argue 
 that if this were done the fear of Sparta for herself would prevent her 
 joining the forces of the rest of Greece, and leave the latter a more easy 
 prey to the invader." — Athens: its Rise and Fall. This advice was over- 
 ruled by Achasmenes. So again, had the advice of Artemisia, the Cariaii 
 princess, been taken — to delay the naval engagement of Salamis, and 
 rather to sail to the Peloponnesus — the Greeks, failing of provisions and 
 divided among themselves, would probably have dispersed.
 
 56 PAUSAiVIAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 but not a traitor.' How, O Persian, can these designs ao 
 cord with the policy of the Persian king ? " 
 
 " Not without the authority of my master can I answer 
 thee." replied Ariamanes, " so that my answer may be as 
 the king's signet to his decree. But so much at least I say • 
 that it is not the custom of the Persians to interfere with the 
 institutions of those states with which they are connected. 
 Thou desirest to make a monarchy of Greece, with Sparta for 
 its head. Be it so ; the king my master will aid thee so to 
 scheme and so to reign, provided thou dost but concede to 
 him a vase of the water from thy fountains, a fragment of 
 earth from thy gardens." 
 
 " In other words," said Pausanias, thoughtfully, but with 
 a slight color on his brow, " if I hold my'dominions tribu- 
 tary to the king t " 
 
 " The dominions that by the king's aid thou wilt have 
 conquered. Is that a hard law .? " 
 
 " To a Greek and a Spartan the very mimicry of allegiance 
 to the foreigner is hard." 
 
 The Persian smiled. " Yet, if I understand thee aright, 
 
 Chief, even kings in Sparta are but subjects to their peo- 
 ple. Slave to a crowd at home, or tributary to a throne 
 abroad ; slave every hour, or tributary for earth and water 
 once a year, which is the freer lot ? " 
 
 " Thou canst not understand our Grecian notions," replied 
 Pausanias, " nor have I leisure to explain them. But though 
 
 1 may subdue Sparta to myself as to its native sovereign, I 
 will not, even by a type, subdue the land of the Heracleid to 
 the Barbarian." 
 
 Ariamanes looked grave ; the difficulty raised was serious. 
 And here the craft of Gongiius interposed. 
 
 "This may be adjusted, Ariamanes, as befits both parties. 
 Let Pausanias rule in Sparta as he lists, and Sparta stand 
 free of tribute. But for all other states and cities that Pau- 
 sanias, aided by the great king, shall conquer, let the vase 
 be filled, and the earth be (Grecian. Let him but render 
 tribute for those lands which the Persians submit to his scep- 
 tre. So shall the pride of the Spartan be appeased, and tlie 
 claims of the king be satisfied." 
 
 " Shall it be so.? " said Pausanias. 
 
 " Instruct me so to propose to my master, and I will do 
 my best to content him with the exception to the wonted 
 rights of the Persian diadem. And then," continued Aria- 
 manes, "then, Pausanias, Conqueror of Mardonius, Cap-
 
 FAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 57 
 
 tain at Platcea, thou art indeed a man with whom the 
 lord of Asia may treat as an equal. Greeks before thee 
 have offered to render Greece to the king my master ; 
 but they were exiles and fugitives, they had nothing to risk or 
 lose; thou hast fame, and command, and power, and riches, 
 and all—" 
 
 " But for a throne," interrupted Gongylus. 
 
 " It does not matter what may be my motives," returned 
 the Spartan, gloomily, " and were I to tell them, you might 
 not comprehend. But so much by way of explanation. You 
 too have held command ? " 
 
 *' I have." 
 
 " If you knew that, when power became to you so sweet 
 that it was as necessar)^ to life itself as food and drink, it 
 would then be snatched from you for ever, and you would 
 serv^e as a soldier in the very ranks you had commanded as 
 a leader ; if you knew that, no matter what your services, 
 your superiority, your desires, this shameful fall was inex- 
 orably doomed, might you not see humiliation in power itself, 
 obscurity in renown, gloom in the present, despair in the 
 future ? And would it not seem to you nobler even to de- 
 sert the camp than to sink into a subaltern ? " 
 
 " Such a prospect has in our country made out of good 
 subjects fierce rebels," observed the Persian. 
 
 " Ay, ay, I doubt it not," said Pausanias, laughing bit- 
 terly. " Well, then, such will be my lot, if I pluck not out 
 a fairer one from the Fatal Urn. As Regent of Sparta, 
 while my nephew is beardless, I am general of her armies, 
 and I have the sway and functions of her king. When he 
 arrives at the customary age, I am a subject, a citizen, a 
 nothing, a miserable fool of memories gnawing my heart 
 away amidst joyless customs and stem austerities, with the 
 recollection of the glories of Platasa and the delights of 
 Byzantium. Persian, I am filled from the crown to the sole 
 with the desire of power, with the tastes of pleasure. I 
 have that within me which before my time has made heroes 
 and traitors, raised demi-gods to heaven, or chained the 
 lofty Titans to the rocks of Hades. Something I may yet 
 be ; I know not what. But as the man never returns to the 
 boy, so never, never, never once more, can I be again the 
 Spartan subject. Enough ; such as I am, I can fulfil what 
 I have said to thee. Will thy king accept me as his ally, 
 and ratify the terms I have proposed ? " 
 
 " I feel wellnigh assured of it," answered the Persian ;
 
 58 PA USA NI AS, THE SPARTA AT. 
 
 " for since thou has spoken thus boldly, I will answer thee 
 in the same strain. Know, then, that we of the pure race 
 of Persia, we the sons of those who overthrew the Mede, 
 and extended the race of the mountain tribe, from the 
 Scythian to the Arab, from Egypt to Ind, we at least feel 
 that no sacrifice were too great to redeem the disgrace we 
 have suffered at the hands of thy countrymen ; and the 
 world itself were too small an empire, too confined a breath- 
 ing place, for the son of Darius, if this nook of earth were 
 still left without the pale of his dominion." 
 
 " This nook of earth ? Ah, but Sparta itself must own 
 no lord but me." 
 
 " It is agreed.'"' 
 
 " If I release thee, wilt thou bear these offers to the king, 
 travelling day and night till thou restest at the foot of his 
 throne 1 " 
 
 " I should carry tidings too grateful to suffer me to loiter 
 by the road." 
 
 " And Datis, he comprehends us not ; but his eyes glitter 
 fiercely on me. It is easy to see that thy comrade loves not 
 the Greek." 
 
 " For that reason he will aid us well. Though but a 
 Mede, and not admitted to the privileges of the Pasargadae, 
 his relationship to the most powerful and learned of our 
 Magi, and his own services in war, have won him such in- 
 fluence with both priests and soldiers that I would fain have 
 him as my companion. I will answer for his fidelity to our 
 joint object." 
 
 " Enough ; ye are both free. Gongylus, you will now 
 conduct our friends to the place where the steeds await 
 them. You will then privately return to the citadel, and 
 give to their pretended escape the probable appearances we 
 devised. Be quick, while it is yet night. One word more. 
 Persian, our success depends upon thy speed. It is while 
 the Greeks are yet at Byzantium, while I yet am in com 
 mand, that we should strike the blow. *If the king consent, 
 through Gongylus thou wilt have means to advise me. A 
 Persian army must march at once to the Phrygian confines, 
 instructed to yield command to me when the hour comes to 
 assume it. Delay not that aid by such vast and profitless 
 recruits as swelled the pomp, but embarrassed the arms, of 
 Xerxes. Armies too large rot by their own unwieldiness into 
 decay. A band of fifty thousand, composed solely of the 
 Medes and Persians, will more than suffice. With such an
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN: 5^ 
 
 army, if my command be undisputed, I will win a second 
 Plataea, but against the Greek." 
 
 " Your suggestions shall be law. May Ormuzd favor the 
 bold } " 
 
 " Away, Gongylus ! You know the rest." 
 
 Pausanias followed with thoughtful eyes the receding 
 forms of Gongylus and the Barbarians. " I have passed for- 
 ever," he muttered, "the pillars of Hercules. I must go on 
 or perish. If I fall, I die execrated and abhorred ; if I suc- 
 ceed, the sound of the choral flutes will drown the hootings. 
 Be it as it may, I do not and will not repent. If the wolf gnaw 
 my entrails, none shall hear me groan." He turned and met 
 the eyes of Alcman, fixed on him so intently, so exultingly, 
 that, wondering at their strange expression, he drew back 
 and said, haughtily, " You imitate Medusa, but I am stone 
 already." 
 
 "Nay," said the Mothon, in a voice of great humility, 
 " if you are of stone, it is like the divine one which, when 
 borne before armies, secures their victory. Blame me not 
 that I gazed on you with triumph and hope. " For, while 
 you conferred with the Persian, methought the munnurs that 
 reached my ear sounded thus : ' When Pausanias shall arise, 
 Sparta shall bend low, and the Helot shall break his chains.' " 
 
 " They do not hate me, these Helots .'' " 
 
 *' You are the only Spartan they love." 
 
 " Were my life in danger from the Ephors — " 
 
 " The Helots would rise to a man." 
 
 " Did I plant my standard on Taygetus, though all Sparta 
 encamped against it — " 
 
 " All the slaves would cut their way to thy side. O Pau- 
 sanias, think how much nobler it were to reign over tens of 
 thousands who become freemen at thy word, than to be but 
 the equal of ten thousand tyrants." v 
 
 "The Helots fight well, when well led," said Pausanias, 
 as if to himself. " Launch the boat." 
 
 " Pardon me, Pausanias, but is it prudent any longer to 
 trust Lysander 1 He is the pattern of the Spartan youth, 
 and Sparta is his mistress. He loves her too well not to blab 
 to her every secret." 
 
 " O Sparta, Sparta ! wilt thou not leave me one friend."*' 
 exclaimed Pausanias. " No, Alcman, I will not separate my- 
 self from Lysander till I despair of his alliance. To your 
 oars ! Be quick ! " 
 
 At the sound of the Mothon's tread upon the pebbles
 
 6o PA US AN/AS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 Lysander, who had hitherto remained motionless, reclining 
 by the boat, rose and advanced toward Pausanias. There 
 was in his countenance, as the moon shining on it cast over 
 his statue-like features a pale and marble hue, so much ol 
 anxiety, of affection, of fear, so much of the evident, unmis- 
 takable solicitude of friendship, that Pausanias, who, like 
 most men envied and unloved, was susceptible even of the 
 semblance of attachment, muttered to himself, " No, thou 
 wilt not desert me, nor I thee." 
 
 " My friend, my Pausanias," said Lysander, as he ap- 
 proached, " I have had fears — I have seen omens. Under- 
 take nothing, I beseech thee, which thou hast meditated this 
 night." 
 
 " And what hast thou seen ? " said Pausanias, with a 
 slight change of countenance. 
 
 " I was praying the gods for thee and Sparta, when a 
 star shot suddenly from the heavens. Pausanias, this is the 
 eighth year, the year in which on moonless nights the Ephors 
 watch the heavens." 
 
 " And if a star fall, they judge their kings," interrupted 
 Pausanias (with a curl of his haughty lip, " to have offended 
 the gods, and suspend them from their office till acquitted by 
 an oracle at Delphi, or a priest at Olympia. A wise supersti- 
 tion. But, Lysander, the night is not moonless, and the 
 omen is therefore naught." 
 
 Lysander shook his head mournfully, and followed his 
 chieftain to the boat, in gloomy silence.
 
 fAUSANJAS, THE SPARTAN. 6x 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 At noon the next day, not only the vessels in the harbor 
 presented the same appearance of inactivity and desertion 
 which had characterized the preceding evening, but the camp 
 itself seemed forsaken. Pausanias had quit his ship for the 
 citadel, in which he took up his lodgment when on shore ; 
 and most of the officers and sailors of the squadron were 
 dispersed among the taverns and wine-shops, for which, even 
 at that day, Byzantium was celebrated. 
 
 It was in one of the lowest and most popular of these 
 latter resorts, and in a large and rude chamber, or rather 
 outhouse, separated from the rest of the building, that a 
 number of the Laconian Helots were assembled. Some of 
 these were employed as sailors, others were the military at- 
 tendants on the Regent and the Spartans who accompanied 
 him. 
 
 At the time we speak of, these unhappy beings were in the 
 full excitement of that wild and melancholy gayety which is 
 almost peculiar to slaves in their hours of recreation, and in 
 which reaction of wretchedness modern writers have dis- 
 covered the indulgence of a native humor. Some of them 
 were drinking deep, wrangling, jesting, laughing in loud dis- 
 cord over their cups. At another table rose the deep voice 
 of a singer, chanting one of those antique airs known but to 
 these degraded sons of the Homeric Achaean, and probably 
 in its origin going beyond the date of the Tale of Troy ; a 
 song of gross and rustic buffoonery, but ever and anon 
 charged with some image or thought worthy of that language 
 of the universal Muses. His companions listened with a 
 rude delight to the rough voice and homely sounds, and now 
 and then interrupted the wassailers at the other tables by cries 
 for silence, which none regarded. Here and there, with in- 
 tense and fierce anxiety on their faces, small groups were
 
 52 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAIf. 
 
 playing at dice ; for gambling is the passion of slaves. And 
 many of these men, to whom wealth could bring no comfort, 
 had secretly amassed large hoards at the plunder of Plataa, 
 from which they had sold to the traders of ^gina gold at 
 the price of brass. The appearance of the rioters was start- 
 ling and melancholy. They were mostly stunted and under- 
 sized, as are generally the progeny of the sons of woe ; lean 
 and gaunt with early hardship, the spine of the back curved 
 and bowed by habitual degradation ; but with the hard-knit 
 sinews and prominent muscles which are produced by labor 
 and the mountain air ; and under shaggy and lowering brows 
 sparkled many a fierce, perfidious, and malignant eye ; while 
 as mirth, or gaming, or song, aroused smiles in the various 
 groups, the rude features spoke of passions easily released 
 from the sullen bondage of servitude, and revealed the nature 
 of the animals which thralldom had failed to tame. Here 
 and there, however, were to be seen forms, unlike the rest, of 
 stately stature, of fair proportions, wearing the divine linea- 
 ments of Grecian beauty. From some of these a higher na- 
 ture spoke out, not in mirth, that last mockery of supreme 
 woe, but in an expression of stern, grave, and disdainful 
 melancholy ; others, on the contrary, surpassed the rest in 
 vehemence, clamor, and exuberant extravagance of emotion, 
 as if their nobler physical development only served to entitle 
 them to that base superiority. For health and vigor can 
 make; an aristocracy even among Helots. The garments of 
 these merry-makers increased the peculiar effect of their 
 general appearance. The Helots in military excursions 
 naturally relinquished the rough sheepskin dress that char- 
 acterized their countrymen at home, the serfs of the soil. 
 The sailors had thrown oft", for coolness, the leathern jerkins 
 they habitually wore, and, with their bare arms and breasts, 
 looked as if of a race that yet shivered, primitive and unre- 
 deemed, on the outskirts of civilization. 
 
 Strangely contrasted with their rougher comrades were 
 those who, placed occasionally about the person of the Re- 
 gent, were indulged with the loose and clean robes of gay 
 colors worn by the Asiatic slaves ; and these ever and anon 
 glanced at their finery with an air of conscious triumph. Al- 
 together, it was a sight that might well have appalled, by its 
 solemn lessons of human change, the poet who would have be- 
 held in that imbruted fiock the descendants of the race over 
 whom Pelops, and Atreus, and Menelaus, and Agamemnon, 
 the king of men, had held their antique sway, and might still
 
 PAUSAN/AS, THE SPARTAN: 6.^ 
 
 more have saddened the philosopher who believed, as Mei> 
 ander has nobly written, " that Nature knows no slaves." 
 
 Suddenly, in the midst of the confused and uproarious 
 hubbub, the door opened, and Alcman the Mothon entered 
 the chamber. At this sight the clamor ceased in an instant. 
 The party rose, as by a general impulse, and crowded round 
 the new-comer. 
 
 " My friends," said he, regarding them with the same 
 calm and frigid indifference which usually characterized his 
 demeanor, " you do well to make merry while you may, for 
 something tells me it will not last long. We shall return to 
 Lacedaemon. You look black. So, then, is there no delight 
 in the thought of home .-' " 
 
 '■'■Home!" muttered one of the Helots, and the word, 
 sounding drearily on his lips, was echoed by many, so that il 
 circled like a groan. 
 
 " Yet ye have your children as much as if ye were free," 
 said Alcman. 
 
 " And for that reason it pains us to see them play, un- 
 aware of the future," said a Helot of better mien than his 
 comrades. 
 
 " But do you know," returned the Mothon, gazing on the 
 last speaker steadily, " that for your children there may not 
 be a future fairer than that which your fathers knew ? " 
 
 " Tush ! " exclaimed one of the unhappy men, old 
 before his time, and of an aspect singularly sullen and 
 ferocious. " Such have been your half hints and mystic 
 prophecies for years. What good comes of them ? Was 
 there ever an oracle for Helots ? " 
 
 " There was no repute in the oracles even of Apollo," re 
 turned Alcman, " till the Apollo-serving Dorians became con 
 querors. Oracles are the children of victories." 
 
 " But there are no victories for us," said the first speaker, 
 mournfully. 
 
 " Never, if ye despair," said the Mothon, loftily 
 What ! " he added, after a pause, looking round at the 
 crowd, " what ! do ye not see that hope dawned upon us 
 from the hour when thirty-five thousand of us were admitted 
 as soldiers, ay, and as conquerors, at Plataea ? From that 
 moment we knew our strength. Listen to me. At Samos 
 once a thousand slaves — mark me, but a thousand — escaped 
 the yoke, seized on arms, fled to the mountains (we have 
 mountains even in Laconia), descended from time to time to 
 devastate the fields and to harass their ancient lords. By
 
 6^ PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN". 
 
 habit they learned war, by desperation they grew indomitable. 
 What became of these slaves ? Were they cut off ? Did 
 they perish by hunger, by the sword, in the dungeon or field ? 
 No ; those brave men were the founders of Ephesus."* 
 
 " But the Samians were not Spartans," mumbled the old 
 Helot. 
 
 " As ye will, as ye will," said Alcman, relapsing into his 
 usual coldness. " I wish you never to strike unless ye are 
 prepared to die or conquer." 
 
 " Some of us are," said the younger Helot. 
 
 " Sacrifice a cock to the Fates, then." 
 
 " But why, think you," asked one of the Helots, " that we 
 shall be so soon summoned back to Laconia .-' " 
 
 " Because while ye are drinking and idling here — drones 
 that ye are — there is commotion in the Athenian beehive 
 yonder. Know that Ariamanes the Persian, and Datis the 
 Mede, have escaped. The allies, especially the Athenians, 
 are excited and angry : and many of them are already come 
 in a body to Pausanias, whom they accuse of abetting the 
 escape of the fugitives." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Well, and if Pausanias does not give honey in his words 
 — and few flowers grow on his lips — the bees will sting, that 
 is all. A trireme will be despatched to Sparta with com- 
 plaints. Pausanias will be recalled — perhaps his life endan- 
 gered." 
 
 " Endangered ! " echoed several voices. 
 
 " Yes. What is that to you — what care you for his dan- 
 ger ? He is a Spartan." 
 
 " Ay," cried one ; " but he has been kind to the Helots." 
 
 "And we have fought by his side," said another. 
 
 " And he dressed my wound with his own hand," mur- 
 mured a third. 
 
 " And we have got money under him," growled a fourth. 
 
 "And, more than all," said Alcman, in a loud voice, " if 
 he lives, he will break down the Spartan government. Ye will 
 not let this man die ? " 
 
 " Never ! " exclaimed the whole assembly. Alcman gazed 
 with a kind of calm and strange contempt on the flashing eyes 
 the fiery gestures, of the throng, and then said, coldl}^— 
 
 ** So, then, ye would fight for one man ? " 
 
 " Ay, ay, that would we." 
 
 * Malacus ap. Athen., 6.
 
 PAUSANlASy THE SPARTAN: 65 
 
 " But not for your own liberties, and those of your chil- 
 dren unborn ? " 
 
 There was a dead silence ; but the taunt was felt, and its 
 logic was already at work in many of these rugged breasts. 
 
 At this moment, the door was suddenly thrown open; 
 and a Helot, in the dress worn by the attendants of the Ke- 
 gent, entered, breathless and panting. 
 
 " Alcman ! the gods be praised, you are here. Pausanias 
 commands your presence. Lose not a moment. And you 
 too, comrades, by Demeter! do you mean to spend the whole 
 days at your cups ? Come to the citadel ; ye may be 
 wanted." 
 
 This was spoken to such of the Helots as belonged to the 
 train of Pausanias. 
 
 " Wanted — what for ? " said one. " Pausanias gives us a 
 holiday while he employs the sleek Egyptians." 
 
 " Who that serves Pausanias ever asks that question, or 
 can forsee from one hour to another what he maybe required 
 to do ? " returned the self-important messenger, with great 
 contempt. Meanwhile the Mothon, all whose movements 
 were peculiarly silent and rapid, was already on his way to 
 the citadel. The distance was not inconsiderable, but Alc- 
 man was swift of foot. Tightening the girdle round his 
 waist, he swung himself, as it were, into a kind of run, which, 
 though not seemingly rapid, cleared the ground with a speed 
 almost rivalling that of the ostrich, from the length of the 
 stride and the extreme regularity of the pace. Such was at 
 that day the method by which messages were despatched 
 from state to state, especially in mountainous countries; and 
 the length of way which was performed, without stopping, by 
 the foot-couriers might startle the best trained pedestrians in 
 our times. So swiftly, indeed, did the Mothon pursue his 
 course, that just by the citadel he came up with the Grecian 
 captains who, before he joined the Helots, had set off for 
 their audience with Pausanias. There were some fourteen 
 or fifteen of them, and they so filled up the path, which, just 
 there, was not broad, that Alcman was obliged to pause as 
 he came upon their rear. 
 
 "And whither so fast, fellow?" said Uliadesthe Samian, 
 turning round as he heard the strides of the Mothon. 
 
 " Please you, master, I am bound to the General." 
 
 •' Oh, his slave ! Is he going to free you .-' " 
 
 ** I am already as free as a man who has no city can be.*
 
 66 FA USA X/ AS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 " Pithy. The Spartan slaves have the dryness of their 
 masters. How, sirrah ! do you jostle me ? " 
 
 " I crave pardon. I only seek to pass." 
 
 "Never ! to take precedence of a Samian. Keep back." 
 
 " I dare not." 
 
 " Nay, nay, let him pass," said the young Chian, Antago* 
 ras ; "he will get scourged if he is too late. Perhaps, like 
 the Persians, Pausanias wears false hair, and wishes the 
 slave to dress it in honor of us." 
 
 " Hush ! " whispered an Athenian. " Are these taunts 
 prudent .'' " 
 
 Here there suddenly broke forth a loud oath from Uli- 
 ades, who, lingering a little behind the rest, had laid rough 
 hands on the Mothon, as the latter once more attempted to 
 pass him. With a dextrous and abrupt agility, Alcman had 
 extricated himself from the Samian's grasp, but with a force 
 that swung the captain on his knee. Taking advantage of 
 the position of the foe, the Mothon darted onward, and, 
 threading the rest of the party, disappeared through the 
 neighboring gates of the citadel. 
 
 " You saw the insult ! " said Uliades, between his ground 
 teeth, as he recovered himself. " The master shall answer 
 for the slave ; and to me, too, who have forty slaves of my 
 own at home ! " 
 
 " Pooh ! think no more of it," said Antagoras, gayly ; 
 " the poor fellow meant only to save his own hide." 
 
 " As if that were of any consequence ! My slaves are 
 brought up from the cradle not to know if they have hides 
 or not. You may pinch them by the hour together, and they 
 don't feel you. My little ones do it, in rainy weather, to 
 strengthen their fingers. The gods keep them ! " 
 
 " An excellent gymnastic invention. But we are now 
 within the citadel. Courage ! The Spartan grayhound has 
 long teeth." 
 
 Pausanius was striding with hasty steps up and down a 
 long and narrow peristyle or colonnade that surrounded the 
 apartments appropriated to his private use, when Alcman 
 joined him. 
 
 " Well, well," cried he, eagerly, as he saw the Mothon, 
 "you have mingled with the common gangs of these wor- 
 shipful seamen, these new men, these lonians. Think you 
 they have so far overcome their awe of the Spartan that they 
 would obey the mutinous commands of their officers?** 
 
 " Pausanias, the truth must be spoken — ^yes 1 "
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 67 
 
 "Ye gods? one would think each of these wranglers im- 
 agined he had a whole Persian army in his boat. Why, 1 
 have seen the day when, if in any assembly of Greeks a 
 Spartan entered, the sight of his very hat and walking-staff 
 cast a terror through the whole conclave." 
 
 " True, Pausanias ; but they suspect that Sparta herself 
 wil! disown her General." 
 
 " Ah ! say they so ! "' 
 
 " With one voice." 
 
 Pausanias paused a moment in deep and perturbed 
 thought, 
 
 " Have they dared yet, think you, to send to Sparta .-' " 
 
 " I hear not ; but a trireme is in readiness to sail after 
 your conference with the captains." 
 
 " So, Alcman, it were ruin to my schemes to be recalled 
 — until — until — " 
 
 "The hour to join the Persians on the frontier — yes." 
 
 "One word more. Have you had occasion to sound the 
 Helots ? " 
 
 " But half an hour since. They will be true to you. 
 Lift your right hand, and the ground where you stand will 
 bristle with men who fear death even less than the Spar- 
 tans." 
 
 " Their aid were useless here against the whole Grecian 
 fleet ; but in the defiles of Laconia, otherwise. I am pre- 
 pared, then, for the worst, even recall." 
 
 Here a slave crossed from a kind of passage that led from 
 the outer chambers into the peristyle. 
 
 " The Grecian captains have arrived to demand audience.' 
 
 " Bid them wait," cried Pausanias, passionately. 
 
 " Hist ! Pausanias," whispered the Mothon. " Is it not 
 best to soothe them — to play with them — to cover the lion 
 with the fox's hide ? " 
 
 The Regent turned with a frown to his foster-brother, as 
 if surprised and irritated by his presumption in advising ; and 
 indeed of late, since Pausanias had admitted the son of 
 the Helot into his guilty intrigues, Alcman had assumed a 
 bearing and tone of equality which Pausanias, wrapped in 
 his dark schemes, did not always notice, but at which from 
 time to time he chafed angrily, yet again permitted it, and 
 the custom gained ground ; for in guilt conventional distinc- 
 tions rapidly vanish, and mind speaks freely out to mind. 
 The presence of the slave, however, restrained him, and aftei 
 a momentary silence his natural acuteness, great when undis
 
 68 PAU6AAJAS, THE SPARTAN: 
 
 turbed by passion or pride, made him sensible of the wisdom 
 of Alcman's counsel. 
 
 " Hold ! " he said to the slave. " Announce to the Gre- 
 cian Chiefs that Pausanias will await them forthwith. Be- 
 gone ! Now, Alcman, I will talk over these gentle monitors. 
 Not in vain have I been educated in Sparta ; yet if by chance 
 I fail, hold thyself ready to haste to Sparta at a minute's warn- 
 ing. I must forestall the foe. I have gold, gold ; and he 
 who employs most of the yellow orators will prevail most with 
 the Ephors. Give me my staff ; and tarry in yon chamber to 
 the left." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 In a large hall, with a marble fountain in the middle of it, 
 the Greek Captains awaited the coming of Pausanias. A low 
 and muttered conversation was carried on among them, in 
 small knots and groups, amidst which the voice of Uliades 
 was heard the loudest. Suddenly the hum was hushed, for 
 footsteps was heard without. The thick curtains that at one 
 extreme screened the doorway was drawn aside, and, attended 
 by three of the Spartan knights, among whom was Lysander, 
 and by two soothsayers, who was seldom absent, in war or 
 warlike council, from the side of the royal Heracleid, Pau- 
 sanias slowly entered the hall. So majestic, grave, and self- 
 collected were the bearing and aspect of the Spartan General, 
 that the hereditary awe inspired by his race was once more 
 awakened, and the angry crowd saluted him, silent and half 
 abashed. Although the strong passions and the daring arro- 
 gance of Pausanias did not allow him the exercise of that en- 
 during, systematic, unsleeping hypocrisy which, in relations 
 with the foreigner, often characterized his countrymen, and 
 which, from its outward dignity and profound craft, exalted 
 the vice into genius ; yet, trained from earliest childhood in 
 the arts that hide design, that control the countenance, and 
 convey in the fewest words the most ambiguous meanings, 
 the Spartan General could, for a brief period, or for a criti- 
 cal purpose, command all the wiles for which the Greek was 
 nationally famous, and in which Thucydides believed that, of 
 all Greeks, the Spartan was the most skilful adept. And
 
 PA USA NI AS, THE SPARTAN. 69 
 
 now, as, uniting the courtesy of the host with the dignity of 
 the chief, he returned the salute of the officers, and smiled 
 his gracious welcome, the unwonted affability of his manner 
 took the discontented by surprise, and half propitiated the 
 most indignant in his favor. 
 
 " I need not ask you, O Greeks," said he, " why ye have 
 sought me. Ye have learned the escape of Araimanes and 
 Datis — a strange and unaccountable mischance." 
 
 The captains looked round at each other in silence, till 
 at last every eye rested upon Cimon, whose illustrious birth, 
 as well as his known respect for Sparta, combined with his 
 equally well-known dislike of her chief, seemed to mark him 
 despite his youth, as the fittest person to be speaker for the 
 rest. Cimon, who understood the mute appeal, and whose 
 courage never failed his ambition, raised his head, and after 
 a moment's hesitation, replied to the Spartan : — 
 
 " Pausanias, you guess rightly the cause which leads us to 
 your presence. These prisoners were our noblest ; their 
 capture the reward of our common valor ; they were generals, 
 moreover, of high skill and repute. They had become expe- 
 rienced in our Grecian warfare, even by their defeats. Those 
 two men, should Xerxes again invade Greece, are worth more 
 to his service than half the nations whese myriads crossed 
 the Hellespont. But this is not all. The arms of the Bar- 
 barians we can encounter undismayed. It is treason at home 
 which can alone appall us." 
 
 There was a low murmur among the lonians at these 
 words. Pausanias, with well-dissembled surprise on his coun- 
 tenance, turned his eyes from Cimon to the murmurers, and 
 from them again to Cimon, and repeated : — 
 
 " Treason ! son of Miltiades ; and from whom .? " 
 
 " Such is the question that we would put to thee, Pausa- 
 nias — to thee, whose eyes, as leader of our armies, are doubt- 
 less vigilant daily and nightly over the interests of Greece." 
 
 " I am not blind," returned Pausanias, appearing uncon- 
 scious of the irony ; " but I am not Argus. If thou hast 
 discovered aught that is hidden from me, speak boldly." 
 
 " Thou hast made Gongylus the Eretrian governor of Byzan- 
 tium ; for what great services we know not. But he has lived 
 much in Persia." 
 
 " For that reason, on this the frontier of her domains, he 
 is better enabled to penetrate her designs and counteract her 
 ambition." 
 
 *' This Gongylus," continued Cimon, " is well known to
 
 70 
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN: 
 
 have much frequented the Persian captives in their confine- 
 ment." 
 
 " In order to learn from them what may yet be the strength 
 of the king. In this he had my commands." 
 
 " I question it not. But, Pausanias," continued Cimon, 
 raising his voice, and with energy, " had he also thy com- 
 mands to leave thy galley last night, and to return to th« 
 citadel ?" 
 
 " He had. What then ? " 
 
 " And on his return the Persians disappear — a singulai 
 chance, truly. But that is not all. Last night, before he re- 
 turned to the citadel, Gongylus was perceived, alone, in a. 
 retired spot on the outskirts of the city." 
 
 " Alone ? " echoed Pausanias. 
 
 " Alone. If he had companions, they were not discerned. 
 This spot was out of the path he should have taken. By 
 this spot, on the soft soil, are the marks of hoofs, and in the 
 thicket close by were found these witnesses ; " and Cimon 
 drew from his vest a handful of the pearls only worn by the 
 Eastern captives. 
 
 " There is something in this," said Xanthippus, "which 
 requires at least examination. May it please you, Pausanias, 
 to summon Gongylus hither ? " 
 
 A momentary shade passed over the brow of the conspira- 
 tor, but the eyes of the Greeks were on him, and to refuse 
 were as dangerous as to comply. He turned to one of his 
 Spartans, and ordered him to summon the Eretrian. 
 
 " You have spoken well, Xanthippus. This matter must 
 be sifted." 
 
 With that, motioning the captains to the seats that were 
 ranged round the walls and before a long table, he cast him- 
 self into a large chair at the head of the table, and waited in 
 silent anxiety the entrance of the Eretrian. His whole trust 
 now was in the craft and penetration of his friend. If the 
 courage or the cunning of Gongylus failed him — if but a 
 word betrayed him — Pausanias was lost. He was girt by 
 men who hated him ; and he read in the dark, fierce eyes of 
 the lonians — whose pride he had so often galled, whose 
 revenge he had so carelessly provoked — the certainty of ruin. 
 One hand hidden within the folds of his robe convulsively 
 clenched the flesh, in the stern agony of his suspense. His 
 calm and composed face nevertheless exhibited to the cap 
 tains no trace of fear.
 
 PAUSANTAS, THE SPARTAN: yi 
 
 The draperies were again drawn aside, and Gongylus 
 slowly entered. 
 
 Habituated to peril of every kind from his earliest youth, 
 the Eretrian was quick to detect its presence. The sight of 
 the silent Greeks, formally seated round the hall, and watch- 
 ing his steps and countenance with eyes whose jealous and 
 vindictive meaning it required no G^^dipus to read ; the grave 
 and half-averted brow of Pausanias ; and the angry excite- 
 ment that had prevailed amidst the host at the news of the 
 escape of the Persians — all sufficed to apprise him of the 
 nature of the council to which he had been summoned. 
 
 Supporting himself on his staff, and dragging his limbs 
 tardily along, he had leisure "^o examine, though with ap- 
 parent indifference, the whole group ; and when, with a calm 
 salutation, he arrested his steps at the foot of the table im- 
 mediately facing Pausanias, he darted one glance at the 
 Spartan, so fearless, so bright, so cheering, that Pausanias 
 breathed hard, as if a load were thrown from his breast, and, 
 turning easily toward Cimon, said, — 
 
 " Behold your witness. Which of us shall be questioner, 
 and which judge ? " 
 
 " That matters but little," returned Cimon. " Before 
 this audience justice must force its way." 
 
 " It rests with you, Pausanias," said Xanthippus, " to ac- 
 quaint the Governor of Byzantium with the suspicions he has 
 excited." 
 
 " Gongylus," said Pausanias, " the captive Barbarians, 
 Ariamanes and Datis, were placed by me especially under 
 thy vigilance and guard. Thou knowest that, while (for 
 humanity becomes the victor) I ordered thee to vex them by 
 no undue restraints, I nevertheless commanded thee to con- 
 sider thy life itself answerable for their durance. They have 
 escaped. The Captains of Greece demand of thee, as I de- 
 manded — by what means — by what connivance ? Speak the 
 truth, and deem that in falsehood, as well as in treacher}^, 
 detection is easy, and death certain." 
 
 The tone of Pausanias, and his severe look, pleased and 
 re-assured all the Greeks, except the wiser Cimon, who, 
 though his suspicions were a little shaken, continued to fix 
 his eyes rather on Pausanias than on the Eretrian. 
 
 " Pausanias," replied Gongylus, drawing up his lean frame, 
 as with the dignity of conscious innocence, " that suspicion 
 could fall upon me, I find it difficult to suppose. Raised by 
 thy favor to the command of Byzantium, what have I to gain
 
 12 PAUSAN.^AS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 by treason or neglect ? These Persians — I knew them well. 
 I had known them in Susa — known them when I served 
 ])arius, being then an exile from Eretria. Ye know, my 
 countrymen, that when Darius invaded Greece I left his 
 court and armies, and sought my native land, to fall or to 
 conquer in its cause. Well, then, I knew these Barbarians. 
 J sought them frequently ; partly, it may be, to return to 
 them in their adversity the courtesies shown me in mine. Ye 
 are Greeks : ye will not condemn me for humanity and 
 gratitude. Partly with another motive. I knew that Aria- 
 manes had the greatest influence over Xerxes. I knew that 
 the great king would at any cost seek to regain the liberty of 
 his friend. I urged upon Ariamanes the wisdom of a peace 
 with the Greeks even on their own terms. I told him that 
 when Xerxes sent to offer the ransom, conditions of peace 
 would avail more than sacks of gold. He listened and ap- 
 proved. Did I wrong in this, Pausanias "i No ; for thou, 
 whose deep sagacity has made thee condescend even to ap- 
 pear half Persian, because thou art all Greek — thou thyself 
 didst sanction my efforts on behalf of Greece." 
 
 Pausanias looked with a silent triumph round the con- 
 clave, and Xanthippus nodded approval. 
 
 " In order to conciliate them, and with too great conti- 
 dence in their faith, I relaxed by degrees the rigor of their 
 confinement ; that was a fault, I own it. Their apartments 
 communicated with a court in which I suffered them to walk 
 at will. But I placed there two sentinels in whom I deemed 
 I could repose all trust — not my own countrymen — not 
 Eretrians — not thy Spartans or Laconians, Pausanias. No ; 
 I deemed that if ever the jealousy (a laudable jealousy) of the 
 Greeks should demand an account of my faith and vigilance, 
 my witnesses should be the countrymen of those who have 
 ever the most suspected me. Those sentinels were, the one 
 a Samian, the other a Plataean. These men have betrayed 
 me and Greece. Last night, on returning hither from the 
 vessel, I visited the Persians. They were about to retire to 
 rest, and I quit them soon, suspecting nothing. This morn- 
 ing they had fled, and with them their abettors, the sentinels. 
 I hastened, first, to send soldiers in search of them ; and, 
 secondly, to inform Pausanias in his galley. If I have erred, 
 I submit me to your punishment. Punish my error, but ac- 
 quit my honesty." 
 
 " And what," said Cimon, abruptly, " led thee far from 
 thy path, between the Heracleid's galley and the citadel, to th«
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 73 
 
 fields near the temple of Aphrodite, between the citadel, and 
 the bay ? Thy color changes. Mark him, Greeks. Quick ; 
 thine answer." 
 
 The countenance of Gongylus had indeed lost its color 
 and hardihood. The loud tone of Cimon — the effect his con- 
 fusion produced on the Greeks, some of whom, the lonians, 
 less self-possessed and dignified than the rest, half rose, with 
 fierce gestures and muttered exclamations — served still moT-e 
 to embarrass and intimidate him. He cast a hasty look on 
 Pausanias, who averted his eyes. There was a pause. The 
 Spartan gave himself up for lost ; but how much more was his 
 fear increased when Gongylus, casting an imploring gaze upon 
 the Greeks, said hesitatingly, — 
 
 " Question me no further. I dare not speak : " and as 
 he spoke he pointed to Pausanias. 
 
 " It was the dread of thy resentment, Pausanias." said 
 Cimon, coldly, " that withheld his confession. Vouchsafe 
 to re-assure him." 
 
 " Eretrian," said Pausanias, striking his clenched hand 
 on the table, " I know not what tale trembles on thy lips ; 
 but, be it what it may, give it voice, I command thee." 
 
 *' Thou thyself, thou wert the cause that led me toward 
 the temple of Aphrodite," said Gongylus, in a low voice. 
 
 At these words there went forth a general dee[>breathed 
 murmur. With one accord every Greek rose to his feet. The 
 Spartan attendants in the rear of Pausanias drew closer to his 
 person ; but there was nothing in their faces — yet more dark 
 and vindictive than those of the other Greeks — that promised 
 protection. Pausanias alone remained seated and unmoved. 
 His imminent danger gave him back all his valor, all his 
 pride, all his passionate and profound disdain. With un- 
 bleached cheek, with haughty eyes, he met the gaze of the 
 assembly : and then waving his hand as if that gesture sufficed 
 to restrain and awe them, he said, — 
 
 " In the name of all Greece, whose chief I yet am, whose 
 protector I have once been, I command ye to resume your 
 seats, and listen to the Eretrain. Spartans, fall back. Gov- 
 ernor of Byzantium, pursue your tale." 
 
 " Yes, Pausanias," resumed Gongylus, " you alone were 
 the cause that drew me from my rest. I would fain be silent, 
 but—" 
 
 " Say on ! " cried Pausanias, fiercely, and measuring the 
 space between himselt and Gongylus, in doubt whether the 
 Eretrian's head were within reach of his cimeter ; so at least
 
 74 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAl^. 
 
 Gongylus interpreted that freezing look of despair andven 
 geance, and he drew back some paces. " I place myself O 
 Greeks, under your protection ; it is dangerous to reveal the 
 errors of the great. Know that, as Governor of Byzantium, 
 many things ye wot not of reach my ears. Hence, I guard 
 against dangers while ye sleep, Learn, then, that Pasuanias 
 is not without the weakness of his ancestor, Alcides ; he loves 
 a maiden — a Byzantine — Cleonice, the daughter of Diagoras." 
 
 This unexpected announcement, made in so grave a tone, 
 provoked a smile among the gay lonians ; but an exclamation 
 of jealous anger broke from Antagoras, and a blush, partly of 
 wounded pride, partly of warlike shame, crimsoned the swarthy 
 cheek of Pausanias. Cimon, who was by no means free from 
 the joyous infirmities of youth, relaxed his severe brow, 
 and said, after a short pause, — 
 
 " Is it, then, among the grave duties of the Governor of 
 Byzantium to watch over the fair Cleonice, or to aid the suit 
 of her illustrious lover ? " 
 
 " Not so, " answered Gongylns ; " but the life of the 
 Grecian General is dear, at least, to the grateful Governor 
 of Byzantium. Greeks, ye know that among you Pausanias 
 has many foes. Returning last night from his presence, and 
 passing through the thicket, I overheard voices at hand. 1 
 caught the name of Pausanias. " The Spartan, " said one voice, 
 " nightly visits the house of Diagoras. He goes usually 
 alone. From the height near the temple we can watch well, 
 for the night is clear; if he goes alone, we can intercept his 
 way on his return. " " To the height ! " cried the other. I 
 thought to distinguish the voices, but the trees hid the 
 speakers. I followed the footsteps toward the temple, for it 
 behooved me to learn who thus menaced the chief of Greece. 
 But ye know that the wood reaches even to the sacred build- 
 ing, and the steps gained the temple before I could recognize 
 the men. I concealed myself, as I thought, to watch ; but it 
 seems that I was perceived, for he who saw me, and now ac- 
 cuses, was doubtless one of the assassins Happy I, if the 
 sight of a witness scared him from the crime. Either fear- 
 ing detection, or aware that their intent that night was frus- 
 trated — for Pansanias, visiting Cleonice earlier than his wont, 
 had already resought his galley — the men retreated as they 
 came, unseen not heard. I caught their receding stf^ps 
 through the brushwood. Greeks, I have said. Who is my 
 accuser ? in him behold the v/ould-be murderer of Pausanias ! " 
 
 " Liar ! " cried an indignant and loud voice among the 
 captains, and Antagoras stood forth from the circle.
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 75 
 
 " It is I who saw thee. Barest thou accuse Antagoras of 
 Chios ? " 
 
 " What at that hour brought Antagoras of Chios to the 
 Temple of Aphrodite ? " retorted Gongyhis. 
 
 The eyes of the Greeks turned toward the young captain, 
 and there was confusion on his face. But, recovering him- 
 self quickly, the Chian answered, " Why should I blush to 
 own it ? Aphrodite is no dishonorable deity to the men of 
 the Ionian Isles, I sought the temple at that hour, as is our 
 wont, to make my offering and record my prayer." 
 
 "Certainly," said Cimon. "We must own that Aphro- 
 dite is powerful at Byzantium. Who can acquit Pausanias 
 and blame Antagoras ! " 
 
 " Pardon me — one question," said Gonyplus. " Is not 
 the female heart which Antagoras would beseech the god- 
 dess to soften toward him that of the Cleonice of whom we 
 spoke ? See, he denies it not. Greeks, the Chins are warm 
 lovers, and warm lovers are revengeful rivals." 
 
 This artful speech had its instantaneous effect among the 
 younger and more unthinking loiterers. Those who at once 
 would have disbelieved the imputed guilt of Antagoras upon 
 motives merely political, inclined to a suggestion that as- 
 cribed it to the jealousy oiE a lover. And his character, ardent 
 and fiery, rendered the suspicion yet more plausible. Mean- 
 while the minds of the audience had been craftily drawn from 
 the grave and main object of the meeting — the flight of the 
 Persians — and a lighler and livelier curiosity had supplanted 
 the eager and dark resentment which had hitherto animated 
 the circle. Pausanias, with the subtle genius that belonged to 
 him, hastened to seize advantage of the momentary diversion 
 in his favor, and before the Chian could recover from his 
 consternation, both at the charge and the evident effect it had 
 produced upon a part of the assembly, the Spartan stretched 
 his hand, and spake, — 
 
 " Greeks, Pausanias listens to no tale of danger to him- 
 self. Willingly he believes that Gongylus either misinter- 
 preted the intent of some jealous and heated threats, or thnt 
 the words he overheard were not uttered by Antagoras. Pos- 
 sible is it, too, that others may have sought the temple with 
 less gentle desires than our Chian ally. Let this pass. Un- 
 worthy such matters of the councils of bearded men : too much 
 reference has been made to those follies which our idleness 
 has given birth to. Let no fair Briseis renew strife among 
 chiefs and soldiers. Excuse not thyself, Antagoras ; we dis- 
 miss all charge against thee. On the other hand, Gongylus
 
 ^6 FAUSANIAS, THE SPARTA AT. 
 
 will doubtless seem to you to have accounted for his a[:pear- 
 ance near the precincts of the temple. And it is but a coin- 
 cidence, natural enough, that the Persian prisoners should 
 have chosen, later in the night, the same spot for the steeds 
 to await them. The thickness of the wood round the temple, 
 and the direction of the place towards the east, points out the 
 neighborhood as the very one in which the fugitives would ap- 
 point the horses. Waste no further time, but provide at once 
 for the pursuit. To you, Cimon, be this case confided. Al- 
 ready have I despatched fifty light-armed men on fleet Thes- 
 salian steeds. You, Cimon, increase the number of the pur- 
 suers. The prisoners may be yet recaptured. Doth aught 
 else remain worthy of our ears ? If so, speak ; if not de- 
 part." 
 
 " Pausanias," said Antagoras, firmly, " let Gongylus re- 
 tract, or not, his charge against me, 1 retain mine against 
 Gongylus. Wholly false is it that in word or deed I plotted 
 violence against thee, though of much — not as Cleonice's lover, 
 but as Grecian Captain — I have good reason to complain. 
 Wholly false is it that I had a comrade. I was alone. And 
 coming out from the temple, where I had hung my chaplet, I 
 perceived Gongylus clearly under the starlit skies. He stood 
 in listening attitude close by the sacred myrtle grove. I 
 hastened toward him, but methinks he saw me not ; he turned 
 slowly, penetrated the wood, and vanished. I gained the spot 
 on the soft sward which the dropping boughs make ever humid. 
 I saw the print of hoofs. Within the thicket I found the pearls 
 that Cimon has displayed to you. Clear, then, is it that this 
 man lies — clear that the Persians must have fled already — al- 
 though Gongylus declares that on his return to the citadel he 
 visited them in their prison. Explain this, Eretrian ! " 
 
 " He who would speak false witness," answered Gongylus, 
 with a firmness equal to the Chian's, " can find pearls at 
 whatsoever hour he pleases. Greeks, this man presses me to 
 renew the charge which Pausanias generously sought to 
 stifle. I have said. And I, Governor of Byzantium, call on 
 the council of the Grecian Leaders to maintain my authority, 
 and protect their own Chief." 
 
 Then arose a vexed and perturbed murmur, most of the 
 lonians siding with Antagoras, such of the allies as yet chmg 
 to the Dorian ascendency grouping around Gongylus. 
 
 The persistence of Antagoras had made the dilemma of 
 no slight embarrassment to Pausanias. Something lofty in 
 his original nature urged him to shrink from supporting
 
 PAUSANTAS, THE SPARTA IV. p 
 
 Gon<n'lus in an accusation which he believed untrue. On 
 the other hand, he could not abandon his accomphce in an 
 effort, as dangerous as it was crafty, to conceal their com- 
 mon guilt. 
 
 " Son of Miltiades," he said, after a brief pause, in which 
 his dextrous resolution was formed, " I invoke your aid to 
 ajDpease a contest in which I foresee no result but that of 
 schism among ourselves. Antagoras has no witness to sup- 
 port his tale, Gongylus none to support his own. Who shall 
 decide between conflicting testimonies which rest but on the 
 lips of accuser and accused ? Hereafter, if the matter be 
 deemed sufficiently grave, let us refer the decision to the 
 oracle that never errs. Time and chance meanwhile may 
 favor us in clearing up the darkness we cannot now penetrate. 
 For you, Governor of Byzantium, it behooves me to say that 
 the escape of prisoners intrusted to your charge justifies 
 vigilance, if not suspicion. We shall consult at our leisure 
 whether or not that course suffices to remove you from the 
 government of Byzantium. Heralds, advance ; our council 
 is dissolved." 
 
 With these words Pausanias rose, and the majesty of his 
 bearing, with the unwonted temper and conciliation of his 
 language, so came in aid of his high office, that no man ven- 
 tured a dissentient murmur. 
 
 The conclave broke up, and not till its memebers had gain- 
 ed the outer air did any signs of suspicion or dissatisfaction 
 evince themselves ; but then, gathering in groups, the loni- 
 ans with especial jealousy discussed what had passed, and 
 with their native shrewdness ascribed the moderation of 
 Pausanias to his desire to screen Gong)'lus and avoid further 
 inquisition into the flight of the prisoners. The discontented 
 looked round for Cimon, but the young Athenian had hastily 
 retired from the throng, and, after issuing orders to pursue 
 the fugitives, sought Aristides in the house near the quay in 
 which he lodged. 
 
 Cimon related to his friend what had passed at the meet- 
 ing, and, terminating his recital, said, — 
 
 " Thou shouldst have been with us. With thee we might 
 have ventured more." 
 
 " And if so," returned the wise Athenian, with a smile, 
 " ye would have prospered less. Precisely because I would 
 not commit our country to the suspicion of fomenting in- 
 trigues and mutiny to her own advantage, did I abstain from 
 the assembly, well aware that Pausanias would bring his 
 minion harmless from the unsupported accusation of Antago
 
 78 
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 ras. Thou hast acted with cool judgment, Cimon. The 
 Spartan is weaving the webs of the Parcae for his own 
 feet. Leave him to weave on, undisturbed. The hour in 
 which Athens shall assume the sovereignty of the seas is 
 drawing near. Let it come, like Jove's thunder, in a calm 
 sky." 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 
 Pausanias did not that night quit the city. After the 
 meeting, he held a private conference with the Spartan 
 Equals, whom custom and the government assigned, in ap- 
 pearance as his attendants, in reality as witnesses, if not 
 spies, of his conduct. Though every pure Spartan, as com- 
 pared with the subject Laconian population, was noble, the 
 republic acknowledged two main distinctions in class — the 
 higher, entitled Equals, a word which we might not maptly 
 and more intelligibly render Peers ; the lower. Inferiors. 
 These distinctions, through hereditary, were not immutable. 
 The peer could be degraded, the inferior could become a 
 peer. To the royal person in war three peers were alotted. 
 Those assigned to Pausanias, of the tribe called the Hylleans, 
 were naturally of a rank and influence that constrained him to 
 treat them with a certain deference, which perpetually chafed 
 his pride and confirmed his discontent ; for these three men 
 were precisely of the mould which at heart he most despised. 
 Polydorous, the first in rank — for, like Pausanias, he boasted 
 his descent from Hercules — was the personification of the 
 rudeness and bigotry of a Spartan who had never before stirred 
 from his rocky home, and who disdained all that he could not 
 comprehend. Gelon, the second, passed for a very wise 
 man, for he seldom spoke but in monosyllables ; yet, prob- 
 ably, his words were as numerous as his ideas. Cleomenes, 
 the third, was as distasteful to the Regent from his merits as 
 the others from their deficiencies. He had risen from the 
 grade of the Inferiors by his valor : blunt, homely, frank, 
 sincere, he never disguised his displeasure at the manner of 
 Pausanias ; though a true Spartan in discipline he never 
 transgressed the respect which his chief commanded in time 
 of war. 
 
 Pausanias knew that these ofiicers were in correspondence 
 with Sparta, and he now exerted all his powers to remove 
 from their minds any suspicion which the disappearance of 
 the prisoners might have left in them.
 
 PA USA Nr AS, THE SPARTAN. jg 
 
 In this interview he displayed all those great natural 
 powers which, rightly trained and guided, might have made 
 him not less great in council than in war. With masterly 
 precision he enlarged on the growing ambition of Athens, 
 on the disposition in her favor evinced by all the Ionian 
 confederates. " Hitherto," he said truh^, " Sparta has uni- 
 formly held rank as the first state of Greece ; the leader- 
 shi]) of the Greeks belongs to us by birth and renown. But 
 see you not that the war is now shifting from land to sea } 
 Sea is not our element ; it is that of Athens, of all the Io- 
 nian race. If this continue, we lose our ascendency, and 
 Athens becomes the sovereign of Hellas. Beneath the calm 
 of Aristides I detect his deep design. In vain Cimon affects 
 the manner of the Spartan ; at heart he is Athenian. This 
 charge ag^ainst Gonsrv'lus is aimed at me. Grant that the 
 plot which it conceals succeed ; grant that Sparta share the 
 affected suspicions of the lonians, and recall me from By- 
 zantium ; deem you that there lives one Spartan who could 
 delay for a day the supremacy of Athens ? Naught save 
 the respect the Dorian Greeks at least attach to the General 
 at PIat;^a could restrain the secret ambition of the city 
 of the demagogues. Deem not that I hav'e been as rash 
 and vain as some hold me for the stern visage I have shown 
 to the lonians. Trust me that it was necessary to awe 
 them, with a view to maintain our majesty. For Sparta to 
 preserve her ascendency two things are needful : first, to 
 continue the war by land ; secondly, to disgust the lonians 
 with their sojourn here, send them with their ships to their 
 own havens, and so leave Hellas under the sole guardian- 
 ship of ourselves and our Peloponnesian allies. Therefore 
 I say, bear with me in this double design ; chide me not 
 if my haughty manner disperse these subtle lonians. If I 
 bore with them to-day, it was less from respect than, shall 
 I say it, my fear lest you should misinterpret me. Beware 
 how you detail to Sparta whatever might rouse the jealousy 
 of her government. Trust to me, and I will extend the do- 
 minion of Sparta till it grasp the whole of Greece. We 
 will depose everj^vhere the revolutionar)- Demos, and estab- 
 lish our own oligarchies in every Grecian state. We will 
 Laconize all Hellas." 
 
 Much of what Pausanias said was wise and profound. 
 Such statesmanship, narrow and congenial, but vigorous 
 and crafty, Sparta taught in later years to her alert politi- 
 cians. And we have already seen that, despite the dazzling 
 prospects of Oriental dominion, he as yet had separated him-
 
 8o PA us AN! AS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 self rather from the laws than the interests of Sparta, and 
 still incorporated his own ambition with the extension of the 
 sovereignity of his country over the rest of Greece. 
 
 But the Peers heard him in dull and gloomy silence ; and 
 not till he had paused and thrice asked for a reply did Poly- 
 dorus speak. 
 
 " You would increase the dominion of Sparta, Pausanias. 
 Increase of dominion is waste of life and treasure. We 
 have few men, little gold ; Sparta is content to hold her 
 own." 
 
 " Good," said Gelon, with impassive countenance. " What 
 care we who leads the Greeks into blows .-' The fewer 
 blows the better. Brave men fight if they must ; wise men 
 never fight if they can help it." 
 
 " And such is your counsel, Cleomenes ? " asked Pausani- 
 as, with a quivering lip. 
 
 " Not from the same reasons," answered the nobler and 
 more generous Spartan. " I presume not to question your 
 motives, Pausanias. I leave you to explain them to the 
 Ephors and the Gerusia. But since you press me, this I 
 say. First, all the Greeks, Ionian as well as Dorian, fought 
 equally against the Mede, and from the commander of the 
 Greeks all should receive fellowship and courtesy. Sec- 
 ondly, I say if Athens is better fitted than Sparta for the 
 maritime ascendency, let Athens rule, so that Hellas be 
 saved from the Mede. Thirdly, O Pausanias, I pray that 
 Sparta may rest satisfied with her own institutions, and not 
 disturb the peace of Greece by forcing them upon other 
 states, and thereby enslaving Hellas. What more could the 
 Persian do ? Finally, my advice is to suspend Gongylus 
 from his office, to conciliate the lonians, to remain as a 
 Grecian armament firm and united, and so procure, on better 
 terms, peace with Persia. And then let each state retire 
 within itself, and none aspire to rule the other. A thousard 
 free cities are better guard against the Barbarian than a 
 single state made up of republics overthrown and resting its 
 strength upon hearts enslaved." 
 
 " Do you too," said Pausanias, gnawing his nether lip, 
 " do you too, Polydorus ; you too, Gelon, agree with Cle- 
 omenes, that, if Athens is better fitted than Sparta for the 
 sovereignty of the seas, we should yield to that restless pval 
 so perilous a power ? " 
 
 " Ships cost gold," said Polydorus ; " Spartans have none
 
 /'AOSAA^/A.S, TirE SPARTAN'. 8l 
 
 to spare. Mariners require skilful captains ; Spartans know 
 nothing of the sea." 
 
 *' Moreover,'' quoth Gelon, " the ocean is a terrible ele- 
 ment. What can valor do against a storm ? We may lose 
 more men by adverse weather than a centurv' can repair. 
 Let who will have the seas. Sparta has her rocks and de- 
 files. 
 
 " Men and Peers," said Pausanias, ill repressing his scorn, 
 " ye little dream what anns ye place in the hands of the 
 Athenians. I have done. Take only this prophecy : You 
 are now the head of Greece. You surrender your sceptre to 
 Athens, and become a second-rate power." 
 
 " Never second-rate when Greece shall demand armed 
 men," said Cleomenes, proudly. 
 
 " Armed men, armed men ! " cried the more profound 
 Pausanias. " Do you suppose that commerce — that trade 
 — that maritime energy — that fleets which ransack the shores 
 of the world, will not obtain a power greater than mere brute- 
 like valor ? But as ye will, as ye will." 
 
 " As we speak, our forefathers thought," said Gelon. 
 
 " And, Pausanias," said Cleomenes, gravely, " as we 
 speak, so think the Ephors." 
 
 Pausanias fixed his dark eye on Cleomenes, and, after a 
 brief pause, saluted the Equals and withdrew. " Sparta," he 
 muttered, as he regained his chamber, " Sparta thou refuscst 
 to be great ; but greatness is necessary to thy son. Ah, their 
 iron laws wo^ild constrain my soul ! but it shall wear them as 
 a warrior wears his annor and adapts it to his body. Thou 
 shalt be queen of all Hellas, despite thyself, thine Ephors, 
 and thy laws. Then only will I forgive thee." 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 DiAGORAS was sitting outside his door and giving various 
 instructions to the slaves employed on his farm, when, through 
 an arcade thickly covered with the vine, the light form of 
 Antagoras came slowly in sight. 
 
 "Hail to thee, Diagoras ! " said the Chian ; "thou art 
 the only wise man I meet with. Thou art tranquil while all 
 else are disturbed ; and, worshipping the great Mother, thou 
 carest naught, methinks, for the Persian who invades or the 
 Spartan who professes to defend."
 
 8a PAUSAMTAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 "Tut!" said Diagoras, in a whisper; "thou knowest 
 the contrary : thou knowest that if the Persian comes, I am 
 ruined ; and, by the gods, I am on a bed of thorns as long 
 as the Spartan sljays." 
 
 " Dismiss thy slaves," exclaimed Antagoras, in the same 
 undertone ; " I would speak with thee on grave matters that 
 concern us both." 
 
 After hastily finishing his instructions and dismissing his 
 slaves, Diagoras turned to the impatient Chian, and said, — 
 
 " Now, young warrior, I am all ears for thy speech." 
 
 " Truly," said Antagoras, " if thou wert aware of what I 
 am about to utter, thou wouldst not have postponed con- 
 sideration for thy daughter to thy care for a few jars of 
 beggarly olives." 
 
 " Hem ! " said Diagoras, peevishly. " Olives are not to 
 be despised : oil to the limbs makes them supple ; to the 
 stomach it gives gladness. Oil, moreover, bringeth money, 
 when. sold. But a daughter is the plague of a man's life. 
 First, one has to keep away lovers ; and, next, to find a 
 husband ; aiid when all is done, one has to put one's hand in 
 one's chest and pay a tall fellow like thee for robbing one of 
 one's own child. That custom of dowries is abominable. In 
 the good old times a bridegroom, as was meet and proper, 
 paid for his bride ; now we poor fathers pay him for taking 
 her. Well, well, never bite thy forefinger, and curl up thy 
 brows. What thou hast to say, say." 
 
 " Diagoras, I know that thy heart is better than thy 
 speech, and that, much as thou covetest money, thou lovest 
 thy child more. Know, then, that Pausanias — a curse light 
 on hini ! — brings shame upon Cleonice. Know that already 
 her name hath grown the talk of the camp. Know that his 
 visit to her the night before last was proclaimed in the 
 Council of the Captains ^s a theme for jest and rude 
 laughter. By the head of Zeus, how thinkest thou to profit 
 by the stealthy wooings of this black-browed Spartan ? 
 Knowest thou not that his laws forbid him to marrv Cleonice ? 
 Wouldest thou have him dishonor her ? Speak out to him 
 as thou speakest to men, and tell him that the maidens of 
 Byzantium are not in the control of the General of the 
 Greeks." 
 
 "Youth, youth," cried Diagoras, greatly agitated, 
 ** wouldst thou bring my gray hairs to a bloody grave ? 
 Wouldst thou see my daughter reft from me by force, and — " 
 
 "How darest thou speak thus, old man.?" interrupted
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 8^ 
 
 the indignant Chian. " If Pausanias wronged a virgin, all 
 Hellas would rise against him." 
 
 " Yes, but not till the ill were done, till my throat w^ere 
 cut, and my child dishonored. Listen. At first, indeed, 
 when, as ill-luck would have it, Pausanias, lodging a few 
 days under my roof, saw and admired Cleonice, I did ven- 
 ture to remonstate ; and how think you he took it ? ' Never,' 
 quoth he, with his stern, quivering lip, ' never did conquest 
 forego its best right to the smiles of beauty. The legends 
 of Hercules, my ancestor, tell thee that to him who labors 
 for men, the gods grant the love of women. Fear not that 
 I should wrong thy daughter; to woo her is not to wrong. 
 But close thy door on me ; immure Cleonice from my sight ; 
 and nor armed slaves, nor bolts, nor bars shall keep love 
 from the loved one.' Therewith he turned on his heel and 
 left me. But the next day came a Lydian in his train, with 
 a goodly pannier of rich stuffs and a short Spartan sword. 
 On the pannier was written ' Frkndship ; ' on the sword, 
 ' Wrath ; ' and Alcman gave me a scrap of parchment, where- 
 on, with the cursed brief wit of a Spartan, was inscribed 
 * Choose ! ' Who could doubt which to take .'' who, by the 
 gods, would prefer three inches of Spartan iron in his stomach 
 to a basketful of rich stuffs for his shoulders ? Wherefore, 
 from that hour, Pausanias comes as he lists. But Cleonice 
 humors him not, let tongues wag as they may. Easier to 
 take three cities than that child's heart." 
 
 " Is it so, indeed ? " exclaimed the Chian, joyfully. " Cleo- 
 nice loves him not ? " 
 
 " Laughs at him to his beard ; that is, would laugh if he 
 wore one." 
 
 " O Diagoras ! " cried Antagoras, " hear me, hear me. I 
 need not remind thee that our families are united by the 
 hospitable ties ; that among thy treasures thou wilt find 
 the gifts of my ancestors for five generations ; that when, a 
 year since, my affairs brought me to Byzantium, I came to 
 thee with the symbols of my right to claim thy hospitable 
 cares. On leaving thee, we broke the sacred die. I have 
 one half, thou the other. In that visit I saw and loved 
 Cleonice. Fain would I have told my love, but then my 
 father lived, and I feared lest he should oppose my suit ; 
 therefore as became me, I was silent. On my return home, 
 my fears were confirmed ; my father desired that I, a 
 Chian, should wed a Chian. Since I have been with the 
 fleetj news has reached me that the urn holds my father's
 
 84 PA USA NI AS, THE SPARTA.V. 
 
 ashes." Here the young Chian paused. " Alas ! alas ! " he 
 murmured, smiting his breast, " and I was not at hand to 
 fix over thy doors the sacred branch, to give thee the part- 
 mg kiss, and receive into my lips thy latest breath ! May 
 Hermes, O father, have led thee to pleasant groves ! " 
 
 Diagoras, who had listened attentively to the young 
 Chian, was touched by his grief, and said, pityingly, — 
 
 " I know thou art a good son, and thy father was a 
 worthy man, though harsh. It is a comfort to think that 
 all does not die with the dead. His money at least survives 
 him." 
 
 " But," resumed Antagoras, not heeding this consolation 
 — " but now I am free ; and ere this, so soon as my mourn- 
 ing garment had been laid aside, I had asked thee to bless 
 me with Cleonice, but that I feared her love was gone — ■ 
 gone to the haughty Spartan. Thou re-assurest me ; and, 
 in so doing, thou confirmest the fair omens with which 
 Aphrodite has received my offerings. Therefore, I speak 
 out. No dowry ask I with Cleonice, save such, more in 
 name than amount, as may distinguish the wife from the 
 concubine, and assure her an honored place among my kins- 
 men. Thou knowest I am rich ; thou knowest that my 
 birth dates from the oldest citizens of Chios. Give me thy 
 child, and deliver her thyself at once from the Spartan's 
 power. Once mine, all the fleets of Hellas are her protec- 
 tion, and our marriage-torches are the swords of a Grecian 
 army. O Diagoras, I clasp thy knees ; put thy right hand 
 in mine. Give me thy child as wife ! " 
 
 The Byzantine was strongly affected. The suitor was 
 one who, in birth and possessions, was all that he could 
 desire for his daughter ; and at Byzantiura there did not 
 exist that feeling against intermarriages with the foreigner 
 which prevailed in towns more purely Greek, though in 
 many of them, too, that antique prejudice had worn away. 
 On the other hand, by transferring to Antagoras his anxious 
 charge, he felt that he should take the best course to pre- 
 serve it untarnished from the fierce love of Pausanias, and 
 there was truth in the Chian's suggestion. The daughter 
 of a Byzantine might be unprotected ; the wife of an Ionian 
 captain was safe, even from the power of Pausanias. As 
 these reflections occurred to him, he placed his right hand 
 in the Chian's, and said, — 
 
 " Be it as thou wilt ; I consent to betroth thee to Cleo 
 nice. Follovi me ; thou art free to woo her."
 
 PA USA A'/ AS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 85 
 
 So saying, he rose, and, as if in fear of his own second 
 thoughts, he traversed the hall with hasty strides to the in- 
 terior of the mansion. He ascended a flight of steps, and, 
 drawing aside a curtain suspended between two columns, An- 
 tagoras, who followed timidly behind, beheld Cleonice. 
 
 As was the wont in the domestic life of all Grecian 
 states, her handmaids were around the noble virgin. Two 
 were engaged on embroider}^, one in spinning, a fourth was 
 reading aloud to Cleonice, and that at least was a rare di- 
 version to women, for few had the education of the fair 
 Byzantine. Cleonice herself was half reclined upon a bench 
 inlaid with ivory and covered with cushions ; before her 
 stood a small tripod table on which she leaned the arm the 
 hand of which supported her cheek, and she seemed listen- 
 mg to the lecture of the slave with earnest and absorbed 
 attention, so earnest, so absorbed, that she did not for some 
 moments perceive the entrance of Diagoras and the Chian. 
 
 " Child," said the former — and Cleonice started to her 
 feet, and stood modestly before her father, her eyes down- 
 cast, her arms crossed upon her bosom — " child, I bid thee 
 welcome my guest-friend, Antagoras of Chois. Slaves, ye 
 may withdraw," 
 
 Cleonice bowed her head ; and an unquiet, anxious 
 change came over her countenance. 
 
 As soon as the slaves were gone, Diagoras resumed, — 
 " Daughter, I present to thee a suitor for thy hand. 
 Receive him as I have done, and he shall have mv leave 
 to carve thy name on every tree in the garden, with the 
 lover's epithet of ' Beautiful ' attached to it. Antagoras, 
 look up, then, and speak for thyself." 
 
 But Antagoras was silent ; and a fear unknown to his 
 frank, hardy nature came over him. With an arch smile, 
 Diagoras, deeming his presence no longer necessary or ex- 
 pedient, lifted the curtain, and lover and maid were left 
 alone. 
 
 Then, with an effort, and still with hesitating accents, the 
 Chian spoke, — 
 
 " Fair virgin, not in the groves of Byzantium will thy 
 name be first written by the hand of Antagoras^ In my 
 native Chios the myrtle-trees are already eloquent of thee. 
 Since I first saw thee, I loved. Maiden, wilt thou be my 
 wife ? " 
 
 Thrice moved the lips of Cleonice, and thrice her voice 
 seemed to fail her. At length she said, " Chian, thou art a
 
 86 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTA iV. 
 
 Stranger, and the laws of the Grecian cities dishonor the 
 stranger whom the free citizen stoops to marry." 
 
 " Nay," cried Antagoras, " such cruel laws are obsolete in 
 Chios. Nature and custom, and love's almighty goddess, 
 long since have set them aside. Fear not, the haughtiest 
 matron of my native state will not be more honored than 
 the Byzantium bride of Antagoras." 
 
 " Is it in Sparta only that such laws exist .-• " said Cleo 
 nice, half unconsciously, and to the sigh with which she spoke 
 a deep blush succeeded. 
 
 " Sparta ! " exclaimed Antagoras, with a fierce and jealous 
 pang — " ah, are thy thoughts, then, upon the son of Sparta } 
 Were Pausanias a Chian, wouldst thou turn from him scorn- 
 fully as thou now dost from me ? " 
 
 " Not scornfully, Antagoras," answered Cleonice (who 
 had indeed averted her face at his reproachful question ; but 
 now turned it full upon him, with an expression of sad and 
 pathetic sweetness), " not scornfully do I turn from thee, 
 though with pain ; for what worthier homage canst thou ren- 
 der to woman than honorable love ? Gratefully do I hearken 
 to the suit that comes from thee ; but gratitude is not the 
 return thou wouldst ask, Antagoras. My hand is my father's ; 
 my heart, alas ! is mine. Thou mayst claim from him the 
 one ; the other, neither he can give, nor thou receive." 
 
 " Say not so, Cleonice," cried the Chian ; " say not that 
 thou canst not love me, if so I am to interpret thy words. 
 Love brings love with the young. How canst thou yet know 
 thine own heart .'' Tarry till thou hast listened to mine. As 
 the fire on the altar spreads from offering to offering, so 
 sj^reads love ; its flame envelops all that are near to it. Thy 
 heart will catch the heavenly spark from mine." 
 
 " Chian," said Cleonice, gently withdrawing the hand 
 that he sought to clasp, " when as my father's guest-friend 
 thou wert a sojourner within these walls, oft have I heard 
 thee speak, and all thy words spoke the thoughts of a noble 
 soul. Were it otherwise, not thus would I now address thee. 
 Didst thou love gold, and woed in me but the child of the 
 rich Diagoras, or wert thou one of those who vould treat for 
 a wife, as a trader for a slave, invoking Here, but disdaining 
 Aphrodite, I should bow my head to my doom. But thou, 
 Antagoras, askest love for love ; this I cannot give thee. 
 Spare me, O generous Chian. Let not my father enforce his 
 right to my obedience," 
 
 " Answer me but one question," interrupted Antagoras in
 
 PAVSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 87 
 
 a low voice, though with compressed lips, " dost thou, then, 
 love another ? " 
 
 The blood mounted to the virgin's cheeks ; it suffused her 
 brow, her neck, with burning blushes, and then, receding, 
 left her face colorless as a statue. Then with tones low and 
 constrained as his own, she pressed her hand on her heart, 
 and replied, " Thou sayest it ; I love another." 
 
 " And that other is Pausanias .-' Alas ! thy silence, thy 
 trembling, answer me." 
 
 Antagoras groaned aloud, and covered his face with his 
 hands ; but after a short pause he exclaimed, with great emo- 
 tion, " No, no — say not that thou lovest Pausanias ; say not 
 that Aphrodite hath so accursed thee ; for to love Pausanias 
 is to love dishonor." 
 
 " Hold, Chian ! Not so ; for my love has no hope. Our 
 hearts are not our own, but our actions are." 
 
 Antagoras gazed on her with suspense and awe ; for as 
 she spoke her slight form dilated, her lip curled, her cheek 
 glowed again, but with the blush less of love than of pride. 
 In her countenance, her attitude, there was something divine 
 and holy, such as would have beseemed a priestess of Diana. 
 
 " Yes," she resimied, raising her eyes, and with a still and 
 mournful sweetness in her upraised features. " What I love 
 is not Pausanias, it is the glory of which he is the symbol, it 
 is the Greece of which he has been the saviour. Let him 
 depart, as soon he must — let these eyes behold him no more ; 
 still there exists for me all that exists now — a name, a re- 
 nown, a dream. Never for me may the nuptial hymn re- 
 sound, or the marriage-torch be illumined. O goddess of the 
 silver bow, O chaste and venerable Artemis, receive, protect 
 thy sei-vant ! and ye, O funereal gods, lead me soon, lead the 
 virgin unreluctant to the shades ! " 
 
 A superstitious fear, a dread as il his earthly love would 
 violate something sacred, chilled the ardor of the young 
 Chian ; and for several moments both were silent. 
 
 At length, Antagoras, kissing the hem of her robe, said : 
 
 '■' Maiden of Byzantium, like thee, then, I will love, though 
 without hope. I will not, I dare not, profane thy presence 
 by prayers which pain thee, and seem to me, having heard 
 thee, almost guilty, as if proffered to some nymph circling in 
 choral dance the moonlit mountain-tops of Delos, But ere I 
 depart, and tell thy father that my suit is over, oh, place at 
 least thy right hand in mine, and swear to me, not the bride's 
 vow of faith and troth, but that vow which a virgin sister niaj
 
 88 PAUSAA'/AS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 pledge to a brother, mindful to protect and to avenge her. 
 Swear to me, that if this haughty Spartan, contemning alike 
 men, laws, and the household gods, should seek to constrain 
 thy purity to his will ; if thou shouldst have cause to tremble 
 at power and force ; and fierce desire should command what 
 gentle love would but reverently implore — then, Cleonice, 
 seeing how little thy father can defend thee, wilt thou re- 
 member Antagoras, and through him summon around thee all 
 the majesty of Hellas ? Grant me but this prayer, and I 
 leave thee, if in sorrow, yet not with terror," 
 
 " Generous and noble Chian," returned Cleonice, as her 
 tears fell upon the hand he extended to her, " why, why do I 
 so ill repay thee ? Thy love is indeed that which ennobles 
 the heart that yields it, and her who shall one day recom- 
 pense thee for the loss of me. Fear not the power of Pau- 
 sanias : dream not that I shall need a defender, while above 
 us reign the gods, and below us lies the grave. Yet, to ap- 
 pease thee, take my right hand, and hear my oath : If the 
 hour comes when I have need of man's honor against man's 
 wrong, I will call on Antagoras as a brother." 
 
 Their hands closed in each other ; and, not trusting him- 
 self to speech, Antagoras turned away his face and left the 
 room. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 For some days, an appearance, at least, of harmony 
 was restored to the contending factions in the Byzantine 
 camp. 
 
 Pausanias did not dismiss Gongylus from the government 
 of the city ; but he sent, one, by one, for the more important 
 of the Ionian complainants, listened to their grievances 
 and promised redress. He adopted a more popular and 
 gracious demeanor, and seemed, with a noble grace, to sul> 
 mit to the policy of conciliating the allies. 
 
 But discontent arose from causes beyond his power, had 
 lie genuinely exerted it, to remove. For it was a discon- 
 tent that lay in the hostility of race to race. Though the 
 Spartan Equals had preached courtesy to the lonians, the 
 ordinary manner of the Spartan warriors was invariably
 
 PAUSAXTAS, THE SPARTAX. 89 
 
 offeiisive to the vain and susceptible confederates of a more 
 polished race. A Spartan, wherever he might be placed, 
 unconsciously assumed superiority. The levity of an Ionian 
 was ever displeasing to him. Out of the actual battle-field, 
 tbey could have no topics in common, none which did not 
 provoke irritation and dispute. On the other hand, most 
 of the lonians could ill conceal their disaffection, mnigled 
 with something of just contempt at the notorious and con- 
 fessed incapacity of the Spartans for maritime affairs, while 
 a Spartan was yet the commander of the fleet. And many 
 of them, wearied with inaction and anxious to return home, 
 were willing to seize any reasonable pretext for desertion. 
 In this last motive lay the real strength and safety of Pau- 
 sanias. And to this end his previous policy of arrogance 
 was not so idle as it had seemed to the Greeks, and appears 
 still in the page of history. For a Spartan really anxious 
 to preserve the pre-eminence of his country, and to prevent 
 the sceptre of the seas passing to Athens, could have de- 
 vised no plan of action more sagacious and profound than 
 one which would disperse the lonians, and the Athenians them- 
 selves, and reduce the operations of the Grecian force to 
 that land warfare in which the Spartan pre-eminence was 
 equally indisputable and undisputed. And still Pausanias, 
 even in his change of manner, plotted and intrigued and hoped 
 for this end. Could he once sever from the encampment the 
 Athenians and the Ionian allies, and yet remain with his own 
 force at Byzantium until the Persian army could collect on the 
 Phr)'gian frontier, the way seemed clear to his ambition. Un- 
 der ordinary circumstances, in this object he might easily have 
 succeeded. But it chanced that all his schemes were met with 
 invincible mistrust by those in whose interest they were con- 
 ceived, and on whose co-operation they depended for suc- 
 cess. The means adopted by Pausanias in pursuit of his 
 policy were too distasteful to the national prejudices of the 
 Spartan govenment, to enable him to elicit from the national 
 ambition of that government sufftcient sympathy with the ob- 
 ject of it. The more he felt himself uncomprehended and mis- 
 trusted by his countrymen, the more personal became the 
 character, and the more unscrupulous the course, of his ambi- 
 tion. Unhappily for Pausanias, moreover, the circumstances 
 which chafed his pride also thwarted the satisfaction of his 
 affections ; and his criminal ambition was stimulated by that 
 less guilty passion which shared with it the mastery of a 
 singularly turbulent and impetuous soul. Not his the love
 
 90 
 
 PAUSAiXIAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 of sleek, gallant, and wanton youth : it was the love of man 
 in his mature years, but of man to whom love till then had 
 been unknown. In that large and dark and stormy nature, 
 all passions, once admitted, took the growth of Titans. He 
 loved as those long lonely at heart alone can love ; he loved 
 as love the unhappy when the unfamiliar bliss of the sweet 
 human emotion descends like dew upon the desert. To him 
 Cleonice was a creature wholly out of the range of expe- 
 rience. Differing in every shade of her versatile humor from 
 the only women he had known — the simple, sturdy, unedu- 
 cated maids and matrons of Sparta — her softness enthralled 
 him, her anger awed. In his dreams of future power, of an 
 absolute throne and unlimited dominion, Pausanias beheld 
 the fair Byzantine crowned, by his side. Fiercely as he loved, 
 and little as the sentiment of love mingled with his passion, he 
 yet thought not to dishonor a victim, but to elevate a bride. 
 What though the laws of Sparta were against such nuptials, 
 was not the hour approaching when these laws should be 
 trampled under his armed heel ? Since the contract with 
 the Persians, which Gonglylus assured him Xerxes would 
 joyously and promptly fulfil, Pausanias already felt, in a soul 
 whose arrogance arose from jhe consciousness of powers that 
 had not yet found their field, as if he were not the subject 
 of Sparta, but her lord and king. In his interviews with 
 Cleonice, his language took a tone of promise and of hope 
 that at times lulled her fears, and communicated its sanguine 
 colorings of the future to her own dreams. With the elas- 
 ticity of youth her spirits rose from the solemn despondency 
 with which she had replied to the reproaches of Antagoras. 
 For though Pausanias spoke not openly of his schemes, 
 though his words were mysterious, and his replies to her 
 questions ambiguous and equivocal, still it seemed to her, 
 seeing in him the hero of all Hellas, so natural that he could 
 make the laws of Sparta yield to the weight of his authority, 
 or relax in homage to his renown, that she indulged the be- 
 lief that his influence would set aside the iron customs of his 
 country. Was it too extravagant a reward to the conqueror 
 of the Mede to suffer him to select at least the partner of his 
 hearth ? No, Hope was not dead in that young breast. Still 
 might she be the bride of him whose glory had dazzled her 
 noble and sensitive nature, till the faults that darkened it 
 were lost in the blaze. Thus, insensibly to herself, her tones 
 became softer to her stern lover, and her heart betrayed it- 
 self more in her gentle looks. Yet again were there times
 
 PA USA NIAS, THE SPA RTAN. 91 
 
 when doubt and alarm returned with more than their ear- 
 lier force — times when, wrapped in his lurid and absorbing 
 ambition, Pausanias escaped from his usual suppressed re- 
 serve — times when she recalled that night in which she had 
 witnessed his interview with the strangers of the East, and 
 had trembled lest the altar should be kindled upon the ruins 
 of his fame. For Cleonice was wholly, ardently, sublimely 
 Greek, filled in each crevice of her soul with its lovely poet-, 
 ry, its beautiful superstition, its heroic freedom. As Greek, 
 she had loved Pausanias, seeing in him the lofty incarna- 
 tion of Greece itself. The descendant of the demi-god, the 
 champion of Plataea, the saviour of Hellas — theme for song till 
 song should be no more — these attributes were what she beheld 
 and loved ; and not to have reigned by his side over a world 
 would she have welcomed one object of that evil ambition 
 which renounced the loyalty of a Greek for the supremacy of 
 a king. 
 
 Meanwhile, though Antagoras had, with no mean degree 
 of generosity, relinquished his suit to Cleonice, he detected 
 with a jealous vigilance the continued visits of Pausanias, 
 and burned with increasing hatred against his favored and 
 powerful rival. Though, in common with all the Greeks out 
 of the Peloponnesus, he was very imperfectly acquainted with 
 the Spartan constitution, he could not be blinded, like Cleo- 
 nice, into the belief that a law so fundamental in Sparta, and 
 so general in all the primitive states of Greece, as that which 
 forbade intermarriage with a foreigner, could be cancelled for 
 the Regent of Sparta, and in favor of an obscure maiden of 
 Byzantium. Every visit Pausanius paid to Cleonice buc 
 served, in his eyes, as a prelude to her ultimate dishonor 
 He lent himself, therefore, with all the zeal of his vivacioui 
 and ardent character, to the design of removing Pausanias 
 himself from Byzantium. He plotted with the implacable 
 Uliades and the other Ionian captains to send to Sparta a for- 
 mal mission, stating their grievances against the Regent and 
 urging his recall. But the altered manner of Pausanius de- 
 prived them of their just pretext ; and the lonians, more and 
 more under the influence of the Athenian chief, were disin- 
 clined to so extreme a measure without the consent of Aristides 
 and Cimon. These two chiefs were not passive spectators of af- 
 fairs so critical to their ambition for Athens — they penetrated 
 into the motives of Pausanias in the novel courtesy of de- 
 meanor that he adopted, and they foresaw that if he could 
 succeed in wearing away the patience of the allies and disr
 
 92 
 
 PAUSANTAS, THE SPARTAN: 
 
 persing the fleet, yet without giving occasion for his own re 
 call, the golden opportunity of securing to Athens the niari 
 time ascendency would be lost. They resolved, therefore, to 
 make the occasion which the wiles of the Regent had delayed ; 
 and toward this object Antagoras, moved by his own jealous 
 hate against Pausanias, worked incessantly. Fearless and 
 vigilant, he was ever on the watch for some new charge 
 against the Spartan chief, ever relentless in stimulating sus- 
 picion, aggravating discontent, inflaming the fierce, and argu- 
 ing with the timid. His less exalted station allowed him to 
 mix more familiarly with the ^^arious Ionian officers than 
 would have become the high-born Cimon, and the dignified 
 repute of Aristides. Seeking to distract his mind from the 
 haunting thought of Cleonice, he flung himself with the ardor 
 of his Greek temperament into the social pleasures, which 
 took a zest from the design that he carried into them all. In 
 the banquets, in the sports, he was ever seeking to increase 
 the enemies of his rival ; and where he charmed a gay com- 
 panion, there he often enlisted a bold conspirator. 
 
 Pausanias, the unconscious or the careless object of the 
 Ionian's jealous hate, could not resist the fatal charm of Cleo- 
 nice's presence ; and if it sometimes exasperated the more 
 evil elements of his nature, at other times it so lulled them 
 to rest, that had the Fates given him the rightful claim to 
 that single treasure, not one guilty thought might have dis- 
 turbed the majesty of a soul which, though undisciplined and 
 uncultured, owed half its turbulence and half its rebellious 
 pride to its baffled yearnings for human affection and natu- 
 ral joy. And Cleonice, unable to shun the visits which her 
 weak and covetous father, despite his promised favor to the 
 suit of Antagoras, still encouraged ; and feeling her honor, at 
 least, if not her peace, was secured by that ascendency which, 
 with each successive interview between them, her character 
 more and more asserted over the Spartan's higher nature 
 relinquished the tormenting levity of tone whereby she had 
 once sought to elude his earnestness, or conceal her own sen- 
 timents. An interest in a fate so solemn, an interest far 
 deeper than mere human love, stole into her heart and eleva- 
 ted its instincts. She recognized the immense compassion 
 which was due to the man so desolate at the head of arma- 
 ments, so dark in the midst ofglor\'. Centuries roll, customs 
 change, but, ever since the time of the earliest mother, 
 woman yearns to be the soother.
 
 PA DSAAVAS, THE SPA R TAN. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 93 
 
 It was the hour of the day when between the two princi* 
 pal meals of the Greeks, men surrendered themselves to idle- 
 ness or pleasure ; when groups formed in the market-place, 
 or crowded the barbers' shops, to gossip and talk of news \ 
 when the tale-teller or ballad-singer collected round him on 
 the quays his credulous audience ; when on playgrounds that 
 stretched behind the taverns or without the walls the more 
 active youths assembled, and the quoit was hurled, or mimic 
 battles waged with weapons of wood ; or the Dorians weaved 
 their simple, the lonians their more intricate or less decorous 
 dances. At that hour Lysander, wandering from the circles 
 of his countrymen, walked musingly by the sea-shore. 
 
 "And why," said the voice of a person who had aj> 
 preached him unperceived, " and why, O Lysander, art thou 
 absent from thy comrades, thou model and theme of the 
 youths of Sparta, foremost in their manly sports, as in their 
 martial labors ? " 
 
 Lysander turned and bowed low his graceful head, for he 
 who accosted him was scarcely more honored by the Atheni- 
 ans, whom his birth, his wealth, and his popular demeanor 
 dazzled, than by the plain sons of Sparta, who, in his simple 
 garb, his blunt and hasty manner, his professed admiration 
 for all things Spartan, beheld one Athenian at least congenial 
 to their tastes. 
 
 " The child that misses its mother," answered Lysander, 
 " has small joy with its playmates. And I, a Spartan, pine 
 for Sparta." 
 
 " Truly," returned Cimon, " there must be charms in thy 
 noble country of which we other Greeks know but little, if 
 amidst all the luxuries and delights of Byzantium thou canst 
 pine for her rugged hills. And although, as thou knowest 
 well, I was once a sojourner in thy city as embassador from 
 my own, yet to foreigners so little of the inner Spartan life 
 is revealed, that I pray thee to satisfy my curiosity and ex- 
 plain to me the charm that reconciles thee and thine to in- 
 stitutions which seem to the lonians at war with the pleasures 
 and the graces of social life."* 
 
 * Alexander, King of Macedon, had visited the Athenians with over- 
 tures of peace and alliance from Xerxes and Mardonius. These over
 
 g4 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 " 111 can the native of one land explain to the son of an- 
 other why he loves it," returned Lysander. " That which 
 the Ionian calls pleasure is to me but tedious vanity ; that 
 which he calls grace is to me but ener\ate le\ity. Me it 
 pleases to find the day, from sunrise to night, full of occupa- 
 tions that leave no languor, that employ, but not excite. Foi 
 the morning, our gymnasia, our military games, the chase — 
 diversions that brace the limbs and leave us in peace fit for 
 war — diversions which, unlike the brawls of the wordy Agora, 
 bless us with the calm mind and clear spirit resulting from 
 vigorous habits, and insuring jocund health. Noon brings 
 our simple feast, shared in public, enlivened by jest ; late at 
 eve we collect in our Lesch^e, and the winter nights seem 
 short, listening to old men's talk of our sires and heroes. 
 To us life is one serene yet active holiday. No Spar- 
 tan condescends to labor, yet no Spartan can womanize 
 himself by ease. For us, too, differing from you Ionian 
 Greeks, for us women are companions, not slaves. Man's 
 youth is passed under the eyes and in the presence of 
 those from whom he may select, as his heart inclines, the 
 future mother of his children. Not for us your feverish and 
 miserable ambitions, the intrigues of demagogues, the drudge- 
 ry of the mart, the babble of the populace ; we alone know 
 the quiet repose of heart. That which I see everywhere else, 
 the gnawing strife of passion, visits not the stately calm of 
 the Spartan life. We have the leisure, not of the body alone, 
 but of the soul. Equality with us is the all in all, and we 
 know not that jealous anguish — the desire to rise one above 
 the other. We busy ourselves not in making wealth, in rul- 
 ing mobs, in ostentatious rivalries of state, and gaud, and 
 power — struggles without an object. When we struggle, it is 
 for an end. Nothing moves us from our calm but danger to 
 Sparta, or woe to Hellas. Harmony, peace, and order — 
 these are the graces of our social life. Pity us, O Athenian ! " 
 
 tures were confined to the Athenians alone, and the Spartans were fear- 
 ful lest they should be accepted. The Athenians, however, generously 
 refused them. Gold, said thev, hath no amount, earth no territory, how 
 beautiful soever that could tempt the Athenians to accept conditions from 
 the Mede for the servitude of Greece. On this the Persians invaded 
 Attica, and the Athenians, after waiting in vain for promised aid from 
 Sparta, took refuge at .Salamis. Meanwhile, they had sent messengers 
 or embassadors to Sparta, to remonstrate on the violation of their agree- 
 ment in delaying succor. This chanced at the very time when, by the 
 death of his father, Cleombrotus, Pausanias became Regent. Slowly, 
 and after much hesitation, the Spartans sent them aid under Pausanias. 
 Two of the embassadors were Aristides and Cimon
 
 PA USA NI AS, THE SPARTAN. 95 
 
 Cimon had listened with profound attention to a speech 
 unusually prolix and descriptive for a Spartan ; and he sighed 
 deeply as it closed. For that young Athenian, destined to so 
 renowned a place in the history of his countr}^, was, despite 
 his popular manners, no fai'orer of the popular passions. 
 Lofty and calm, and essentially an aristocrat by nature and 
 opinion, this picture of a life unruffled by the restless changes 
 of democracy, safe and aloof from the shifting humors of the 
 nmltitude, charmed and allured him. He forgot for the mo- 
 ment those counter-propensities which made him still Athenian 
 — the taste for magnificence, the love of women, and the 
 desire of rule. His busy schemes slept within him, and he 
 answered, — 
 
 " Happy is the Spartan who thinks with you. Yet," he 
 added, after a pause, " yet own that there are among you 
 many to whom the life you describe has ceased to proffer 
 the charms that inthrall you,and who envy the more diversified 
 and exciting existence of surrounding states. Lysander's 
 eulogiums shame his chief, Pausanias." 
 
 " It is not for me, nor for thee, whose years scarce exceed 
 my own, to judge of our elders in renown," said Lysander, 
 with a slight shade over his calm brow. " Pausanias will 
 surely be found still a Spartan, when Sparta needs him ; and 
 the heart of the Heracleid beats under the robe of the Mede." 
 
 " Be frank with me, Lysander ; thou knowest that my own 
 countrymen often jealously accuse me of loving Sparta too 
 well. I imitate, say they, the manners and dress of the 
 Spartan, as Pausanias those of the Mede. Trust me, then, 
 and bear with me, when I say that Pausanias ruins the cause 
 of Sparta. If he tarry here longer in the command, he will 
 render all the allies enemies to thy country. Already he has 
 imjDaired his fame and dimmed his laurels ; already, despite 
 his pretexts and excuses, we percewe that his whole nature is 
 corrupted. Recall him to Sparta while it is yet time — time 
 to reconcile the Greeks with Sparta, time to save the hero of 
 Plateea from the contaminations of the East. Preserve his 
 own glory, dearer to thee as his special friend than to all men, 
 yet dear to me, though an Athenian, from the memory of the 
 deeds which delivered Hellas." 
 
 Cimon spoke with the blunt and candid eloquence natural 
 to him, and to which his manly countenance and earnest tone 
 and character for truth gave singular effect. 
 
 Lysander remained long silent. At length he said : " I
 
 go FA USA N! AS. THE SPARTA/^. 
 
 neither deny nor assent to thine arguments, son of Miltiades. 
 The Ephors alone can judge of their wisdom." 
 
 " But if we address them, by message, to the Ephois, thou 
 and the nobler Spartans will not resent our remonstrances ? " 
 
 " All that injures Pausanias, Lysander will resent. Little 
 know I of the fables of poets, but Homer is at least as faniil- 
 iar to the Dorian, as to the Ionian, and I think with him that 
 between friends there is but one love and one anger." 
 
 " Then are the frailties of Pausanias dearer to thee than 
 his fame, or Pausanias himself dearer to thee than Sparta — 
 the erring brother than the venerable mother." 
 
 Lysander's voice died on his lips ; the reproof struck 
 home to him. He turned away his face, and, with a slow 
 wave of his hand, seemed to implore forbearance. Cimon 
 was touched by the action and the generous embarrassment 
 of the Spartan ; he saw, too, that he had left in the mind he 
 had addressed thoughts that might work as he had designed ; 
 and he judged by the effect produced on Lysander what in- 
 fluence the same arguments might effect addressed to others 
 less under the control of personal friendship. Therefore, 
 with a few gentle words, he turned aside, continued his way, 
 and left Lvsander alone. 
 
 Entering the town, the Athenian threaded his path through 
 some of the narrow lanes and alleys that wound from the 
 quays toward the citadel, avoiding the broader and more fre- 
 quented streets. The course he took was such as rendered 
 it little probable that he should encounter any of the higher 
 classes, and especially the Spartans, who from their consti- 
 tutional pride shunned the resort of the populace. But as 
 he came nearer the citadel, stray Helots were seen at times 
 emerging from the inns and drinking-houses, and these 
 stopped short and inclined low if they caught sight of him at 
 a distance ; for his hat and staff, his majestic stature and 
 composed step, made them take him for a Spartan. 
 
 One of these slaves, however, emerging suddenly from a 
 house close by which Cimon passed, recognized him, and, re- 
 treating within abruptly, entered a room in which a man sat 
 alone, and seemingly in profound thought ; his cheek rested 
 on- one hand, with the other he leaned upon a small lyre ; his 
 eyes were bent on the ground, and he started,as a man does 
 dream-like from a reverie, when the Helot touched him, and 
 said abruptly, and in a tone of surprise and inquiry, — 
 
 " Cimon the Athenian is ascending the hill toward the 
 Spartan quarter." _ .^ _
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPAKTA.W 97 
 
 " 'I'he Spartan quarter ! Cimon ! " exclaimed Alcman, foi 
 it was he. " Give me tliy cap and hide." 
 
 Hastily enduing himself in these rough garaients, and 
 drawing the cap o\er his face, the Mothon hurried to the 
 threshold, and, seeing the Athenian in the distance, followed 
 his footsteps, though, with the skill of a man used to ambush, 
 he kept himself unseen — now under the projecting roofs of 
 the houses, now^ skirting the wall, which, heavy with but- 
 rcsses, led toward the outworks of the citadel. And with such 
 success did he pursue his track, that when Cimon paused at 
 last at the place of his destination, and gave one vigilant and 
 searching glance around him, he detected no living form. 
 
 He had then reached a small space of table-land on which 
 stood a few trees of great age — all that time and the encroach- 
 ments of tli£ citadel and the town had spared of the sacred 
 grove which formerly surrounded a rude and primitive temple, 
 the gray columns of which gleamed through the heavy foliage. 
 Passing, with a slow and cautious step, under the thick 
 shadow of these trees, Cimon now arrived before the open 
 door of the temple, placed at the east so as to admit 
 the first beams of the rising sun. Through the threshold, in 
 the middle of the fane, the eye rested on the statue of Apollo, 
 raised upon a lofty pedestal and surrounded by a rail — a 
 statue not such as the later genius of the Athenian repre- 
 sented the god of light, and youth, and beauty ; not wrought 
 from Parian marble, or smoothest iv'ory, and in the divinest 
 proportions of the human form, but rude, formal, and rough- 
 ly hewn from the wood of the yew-tree — some early effigy of 
 the god, made by the simple piety of the first Dorian coloni- 
 zers of Byzantium. Three forms stood mute by an altar 
 equally homely and ancient, and adorned with horns, placed 
 a little apart, and considerably below the statue. 
 
 As the shadow of the Athenian, who halted at the thresh- 
 hold, fell long and dark along the floor, the figures turned 
 slowly, and advanced toward him. With an inclination of 
 his head, Cimon retreated from the temple, and, looking 
 round, saw abutting from the rear of the building a small cell 
 or chamber, which doubtless in former times had served some 
 priestly purpose, but now, doorless, empty, desolate, showed 
 the utter neglect into which the ancient shrine of the Dorian 
 god had fallen amidst the gay and dissolute Byzantians. To 
 this cell Cimon directed his steps ; the men he had seen in the 
 temple followed him ; and all four, with brief and formal
 
 o8 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 greeting, seated themselves, Cimon on a fragment of some 
 broken column, the others on a bench that stretched along 
 the wall. 
 
 " Peers of Sparta," said the Athenian, " ye have doubtless 
 ere this revolved sufficiently the grave matter which I opened 
 to you in a former conference, and in which, to hear your de- 
 cision, I seek at your appointment these sacred precincts." 
 
 " Son of Miltiades," answered the blunt Polydorus, " you 
 inform us that it is the intention of the Athenians to despatch 
 a messenger to Sparta demanding the instant recall of Pau- 
 sanias. You ask us to second that request. But without our 
 aid the Athenians are masters to do as they will. Why 
 should we abet your quarrel against the Regent ? " 
 
 " Friend," replied Cimon, " we, the Athenians confess to 
 no quarrel with Pausanias ; what we demand is to avoid all 
 quarrel with him or yourselves. You seem to have overlooked 
 my main argnments. Permit me to re-urge them briefly. If 
 Pausanias remains, the allies have resolved openly to revolt ; 
 if you, the Spartans, assist your chief, as methinks you needs 
 must do, you are at once at war with the rest of the Greeks. 
 If you desert him, you leave Hellas without a chief, and we 
 will choose one of our own. Meanwhile, in thie midst of our 
 dissensions, the towns and states well affected to Persia will 
 return to her sway ; and Persia herself falls upon us as no 
 longer a united enemy, but an easy prey. For the sake, there- 
 fore, of Sparta and of Greece, we entreat you to co-operate 
 with us ; or, rather, to let the recall of Pausanias be effected 
 more by the wise precaution of the Spartans than by the 
 fierce resolve of the other Greeks. So you save best the dig- 
 nity of your state, and so, in reality, you best serve your chief. 
 For less shameful to him is it to be recalled by you than to 
 be deposed by us." 
 
 " I know not," said Gelon, surlily, " what Sparta has to 
 do at all with this foreign expedition. We are safe in our 
 own defiles." 
 
 " Pardon me, if I remind you that you were scarcely safe 
 at Thermopylae, and that had the advice Demaratus prof- 
 fered to Xerxes been taken, and that island of Cythera, which 
 commands Sparta itself, been occupied by Persian troops, as 
 in a future time, if Sparta desert Greece, it may be, you were 
 undone. And, wisely or not, Sparta is now in command at 
 Byzantium, and it behooves her to maintain, with the dignity 
 she assumes, the interests she represents. Grant that Pau-
 
 PAUSANIAS. THE SPARTAJ^. 
 
 10 
 
 sanias be recalled, another Spartan can succeed him. Whom 
 
 of your countrymen would you prefer to that high post, if you, 
 
 O Peers, aid us in the dismissal of Pausanias ? " * 
 
 ****** * 
 
 * This chapter was left unfinished by the author ; probably with the 
 intention of recasting it. Such an intention, at least, is indicated by the 
 marginal marks upon the MS. — L.
 
 ,jO PAUSANIAS, THE SPAA/ Al^. 
 
 BOOK THIRD. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The fountain sparkled to the noonday, the sward around 
 it was sheltered from the sun by vines formed into shadowy 
 arcades, with interlaced leaves for roof. Afar through the 
 vistas thus formed gleamed the blue of a sleeping sea. 
 
 Under the hills, or close by the margin of the fountain, 
 Cleonice was seated upon a grassy knoll, covered with wild 
 flowers. Behind her, at a little distance, grouped her hand- 
 maids, engaged in their womanly work, and occasionally con- 
 versing in whispers. At her feet reposed the grand form of 
 Pausanias. Alcman stood not far behind him, his hand 
 resting on his lyre, his gaze fixed upon the upward jet of the 
 fountain. 
 
 " Behold," said Cleonice, " how the water soars up to the 
 level of its source ! " 
 
 " As my soul would soar to thy love," said the Spartan, 
 amorously, 
 
 " As thy soul should soar to the stars. O son of Hercu- 
 les, when I hear thee burst into thy wild flights of ambition, 
 I see not thy way to the stars." 
 
 " Wliy dost thou ever thus chide the ambition which may 
 give me thee ? " 
 
 " No, for thou mightest then be as much below me as 
 thou art now above. Too humble to mate with the Hera- 
 cleid, I am too proud to stoop to the Tributary of the 
 Mede." 
 
 " Tributary for a sprinkling of water and a handful of 
 earth. Well, my pride may revolt, too, from the tribute. 
 But, alas ! what is the tribute Sparta exacts from me now? 
 — personal libert}^ — freedom of soul itself. The Mede's
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN: lOi 
 
 Tributary may be a king over millions ; the Spartan Regent 
 is a slave to the few." 
 
 " Cease — cease — cease. I will not hear thee," cried Cleo- 
 nice, placing her hands on her ears. 
 
 Pausanias gently drew them away ; and holding them 
 both captive in the large clasp of his own right hand, gazed 
 eagerly into her pure, unshrinking eyes. 
 
 " Tell me," he said, " for in much thou art wiser than I 
 am, unjust though thou art. Tell me this. Look onward to 
 the future with a gaze as steadfast as now meets mine, and 
 say if thou canst discover any path, except that which it 
 pleases thee to condemn, which may lead thee and me to the 
 marriage altar ! " 
 
 Down sunk those candid eyes, and the virgin's cheek 
 grew first rosy red, and then pale, as if every drop of blood 
 had receded to the heart. 
 
 " Speak ! " insisted Pausanias, softening his haughty voice 
 to its meekest tone. 
 
 " I cannot see the path to the altar," murmured Cleonice, 
 and the tears rolled down her cheeks. 
 
 " And if thou seest it not," returned Pausanias, " art thou 
 brave enough to say, ' Be we lost to each other for life .'' ' I, 
 though man and Spartan, am not brave enough to say that." 
 
 He released her hands as he spoke, and clasped his own 
 over his face. Both were long silent. 
 
 Alcman had for some moments watched the lovers with 
 deep interest, and had caught into his listening ears the pur- 
 port of their words. He now raised his lyre, and swept his 
 hand over the chords. The touch was that of a master, and 
 the musical sounds produced their effect on all. The hand- 
 maids paused from their work. Cleonice turned her eyes 
 wistfully toward the Mothon. Pausanias drew his hands 
 from his face, and cried joyously : " I accept the omen. 
 Foster-brother, 1 have heard that measure to a hymejieal 
 song. Sing us the words that go with the melody." 
 
 " Nay," said Alcman, gently, " the words are not those 
 which are sung before youth and maiden when they walk 
 over perishing Bowers to bridal altars. They are the words 
 which embody a legend of the land in which the heroes of 
 old dwell, removed from earth, yet preserved from Hades." 
 
 " Ah," said Cleonice — and a strange expression, calmly 
 mournful, settled on her features — '' then the words may 
 haply utter my own thoughts. Sing them to us, I pray thee." 
 The Mothon bowed his head, and thus began :
 
 lOS PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAI^. 
 
 THE ISLE OF SPIRITS. 
 
 Many wonders on the ocean 
 
 Bj' the moonlight may be seen; 
 
 Under moonlight on the Euxine 
 Rose the blessed silver isle, 
 
 As Leostratus of Croton, 
 At the Pythian god's behest, 
 
 Steer'd along the troubled waters 
 To the tranquil spirit-land. 
 
 In the earthquake of the battle, 
 When the Locrians reel'd before 
 
 Croton's shock of marching iron, 
 Strode a Phantom to their van : 
 
 Strode the shade of Locrian Ajax, 
 Guarding still the native soil, 
 
 And Leostratus, confronting. 
 Wounded fell before the spear. 
 
 Leech and herb the wound could heal nat{ 
 Said the Pythian god, " Depart, 
 
 Voyage o'er the troubled Euxine 
 To the tranquil spirit-land. 
 
 *' There abides the Locrian Ajax, 
 
 He who gave the wound shall heal} 
 Godlike souls are in their mercy 
 Stronger yet than in their wrath." 
 
 While at ease on lullM waters 
 Rose the blessed silver isle, 
 
 Purple vines in lengthening vistas 
 Knit the hill-top to the beach. 
 
 And the beach had sparry caverns, 
 And a floor of golden sands, 
 
 And wherever soat'd the cypress, 
 Underneath it bloom'd the rose. 
 
 Glimmer'd there amid the vine-trees, 
 Thoro' cavern, over beach. 
 
 Life-like shadows of a beauty 
 
 Which the living know no more ; 
 
 Towering statures of great heroes, 
 
 They who fought at Thebes and Troy| 
 
 And with looks that poets dream of 
 Beam'd the women heroes loved. 
 
 Kingly, forth before their comrades. 
 As the vessel touch'd the shore,
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPAKTAA. foJ 
 
 Came the stateliest Two by Hymen 
 Ever hallow'd into One. 
 
 As He strode, the forests trembled 
 
 To the awe that crown'd his brow ; 
 As She stepp'd, the ocean dimpled 
 
 To the ray that left her smile. 
 
 " Welcome hither, fearless warrior I " 
 
 Said A voice in which there slept 
 Thunder-sounds to scatter armies, 
 
 As a north wind scatters leaves. 
 
 " Welcome hither, wounded sufferer," 
 
 Said a voice of music low 
 As the coo of doves that nestle 
 
 Under summer boughs at noon. 
 
 " Who are ye, O shapes of glory?" 
 
 Ask'd the wondering living man : 
 Quoth the Man-ghost, " This is Helen, 
 
 And the Fair is for the Brave. 
 
 " Fairest prize to bravest victor ; 
 
 Whom doth Greece her bravest deeai?* 
 Said Leostratus, "Achilles: " 
 
 " Bride and bridegroom then are we." 
 
 "Low I kneel to thee, Pelides, 
 
 But, O marvel, she thy bride, 
 She whose guilt unpeopled Hellas, 
 
 She whose marriage lights fired Troy I • 
 
 Frown'd the large front of Achilles, 
 
 Overshadowing sea and sky, 
 Even as when between Olympus 
 
 And Oceanus hangs storm. 
 
 " Know, thou dullard," said Pelides, 
 
 " That on the funereal pyre 
 Earthly sins are purged from glory, 
 
 And the Soul is as the Name. 
 
 "If to her in life— a Paris, 
 
 If to me in life — a slave, 
 Helen's mate is here Achilles, 
 
 Mine — the sister of the stars. 
 
 " Naught of her survives but beauty. 
 
 Naught of me survives but fame; 
 Here the Beautiful and Famous 
 
 Intermingle evermore." 
 
 Then throughout the Blessed Island 
 Sung aloud the Race of Light,
 
 J04 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 ' Know, the Beautiful and Famous 
 Marry here for evermore ! " 
 
 " Thy song bears a meaning deeper than its words," said 
 Pausanias ; " but if that meaning be consolation, I compre 
 hend it not." 
 
 " I do," said Cleonice. " Singer, I pray thee draw near 
 Let us talk of what my lost mother said was the favorite 
 theme of the grander sages of Miletus. Let us talk of 
 what lies afar and undiscovered amidst waters more troubled 
 than the Euxine. Let us speak of the Land of Souls." 
 
 " Who ever returned from that land to tell us of it ? " said 
 Pausanias. " Voyagers that never voyaged thither save in 
 song." 
 
 " Son of Cleombrotus," said Alcman, " hast thou not 
 heard that in one of the cities founded by thine ancestor, 
 Hercules, and named after his own name, there yet dwells a 
 Priesthood that can summon to living eyes the Phantoms 
 of the Dead ? " 
 
 "No," answered Pausanias, with the credulous wonder 
 common to eager natures which philosophy has not with- 
 drawn from the realm of superstition. 
 
 "But," asked Cleonice, " does it need the Necromancer 
 to convince us that the soul does not perish when the 
 breath leaves the lips ? If I judge the burden of thy song 
 aright, thou art not, O singer, uninitiated in the divine and 
 consoling doctrines which, emanating, it is said, from the 
 schools of Miletus, establish the immortality of the soul, 
 not for demi-gods and heroes only, but for us all ; which 
 imply the soul's purification from earthly sins, in some re- 
 gions less chilling and stationary than the sunless and mel- 
 ancholy Hades." 
 
 Alcman looked at the girl surprised. 
 
 " Art thou not, maiden," said he, " one of the many fe- 
 male disciples whom the successors of Pythagoras the Saniian 
 have enrolled ? " 
 
 " Nay," said Cleonice, modestly ; " but my mother had 
 listened to great teachers of wisdom, and I speak imperfect- 
 ly the thoughts I have heard her utter when she told me she 
 had no terror of the grave." 
 
 " Fair Byzantine," returned the Mothon, while Pausanias, 
 leaning his upraised face on his hand, listened mutely to 
 themes new to his mind and foreign to his Spartan culture 
 — " fair Byzantine, we in Lacedaemon, whether free or en-
 
 PAUSANIA.S, THE SPARTAN 105 
 
 slaved, are not educated to the subtle learning which dis- 
 tinguishes the intellect of Ionian Sages. But I, born and 
 licensed to be a poet, converse eagerly with all who swell 
 the stores which enrich the treasure-house of song. And 
 thus, since we have left the land of Sparta, and more espe- 
 cially in yon city, the centre of many tribes and of many 
 minds, I have picked up, as it were, desultory and scattered 
 notions, which, for want of a fitting teacher, I bind and 
 arrange for myself as well as I may. And since the ideas 
 that now float through the atmosphere of Hellas are not 
 confined to the great, nay, perhaps are less visible to them 
 than to those whose eyes are not rivetted on the absorbing 
 substances of ambition and power, so I have learned some- 
 thing, I know not how, save that I have listened and re- 
 flected. And here, where I have heard what sages conjec- 
 ture of a world which seems so far off, but to which we are 
 so near that we may reach it in a moment, my interest 
 might indeed be intense. For what is this world to him who 
 came into it a slave ? " 
 
 " Alcman," exclaimed Pausanias, " the foster-brother of 
 the Heracleid is no more a slave." 
 
 The Mothon bowed his head gratefully, but the expres 
 sion on his face retained the same calm and sombre resigna- 
 tion. « 
 
 " Alas ! " said Cleonice, with the delicacy of female con- 
 solation, " who in this life is really free ? Have citizens no 
 thralldoni in custom and law ? Are we not all slaves ? " 
 
 " True. All slaves ! " murmured the royal victor. " Envy 
 none, O Alcman. Yet," he continued, gloomily, " what is 
 the life beyond the grave which sacred tradition and an- 
 cient song holds out to us ? Not thy silver island, vain 
 singer, unless it be only for an early race more immediately 
 akin to the gods. Shadows in the shade are the dead, at the 
 best reviving only their habits when on earth, in phantom-like 
 delusions ; aiming spectral darts, like Orion, at spectral lions ; 
 things bloodless and pulseless ; existences followed to no 
 purpose through eternity, as dreams are through a night. 
 Who cares so to live again ? Not I." 
 
 " The sages that now rise around, and speak oracles dif 
 ferent from those heard at Delphi," said Alcman, " treat not 
 thus the soul's immortality. They begin by inquiring how 
 cre-ation rose ; they seek to find the primitive element ; 
 what that may be they dispute ; some say the fiery, some 
 the airy, some the etherial element. Their language here
 
 lo6 PA us AN/AS, THE SPARTAN 
 
 is obscure. But it is a something which forms, harmo- 
 nizes, works, and lives on forever. And of that somethmg 
 is the soul ; creative, harmonious, active, an element in it- 
 self. Out of its development here, that soul comes on to 
 a new development elsewhere. If here the beginning lead 
 to that new development in what we call virtue, it moves 
 to light and joy ; if it can only roll on through the grooves 
 it has here made for itself, in what we call vice and crime, 
 its path is darkness and wretchedness." 
 
 " In what we call virtue — what we call vice and crime ? 
 Ah," said Pausanias, with a stern sneer, " Spartan virtue, O 
 Alcman, is what a Helot may call crime. And if ever the 
 Helot rose and shouted freedom, would he not say, This is 
 virtue ? Would the Spartan call it virtue, too, my foster- 
 brother ? " 
 
 " Son of Cleombrotus," answered Alcman, " it is not for 
 me to vindicate the acts of th^ master ; nor to blame the 
 slave who is of my race. Yet the sage definers of virtue 
 distinguish between the Conscience of a Polity and that of 
 the Individual Man. Self-preservation is the instinct of 
 every community, and all the ordinances ascribed to Lycurgus 
 are designed to preserve the Spartan existence. For what 
 are the pure Spartan race ? a handful of men established as 
 lords in the midst of a hostile population. Close by the 
 eyrie thine eagle fathers built in the rocks, hung the silent 
 Amyclae, a city of foes that cost the Spartans many genera- 
 tions to subdue. Hence thy state was a camp, its citi- 
 zens sentinels ; its children were brought up from the cradle 
 to support the stern life to which necessity devoted the 
 men. Hardship and privation were second nature. Not 
 enough to be brave ; vigilance was equally essential. Every 
 Spartan life was precious ; therefore came the cunning 
 which characterizes the Spartan ; therefore the boy is per- 
 mitted to steal, but punished if detected ; therefore the 
 whole Commonwealth strives to keep aloof from the wars 
 of Greece unless itself be threatened. A single battle in a 
 common cause might suffice to depopulate the Spartan race, 
 and leave it at the mercy of the thousands that so reluctantly 
 own its dominion. Hence the ruthless determination to 
 crush the spirit, to degrade the class of the enslaved Helots ; 
 hence its dread lest the slumbering brute force of the Ser- 
 vile find in its own masses a head to teach the consciousness, 
 and a hand to guide the movements, of its power. These 
 are the necessities of the Polity ; its vices are the outgrowth
 
 PA USA NI AS, THE SPARTAN: 107 
 
 of its necessities ; and the life that so galls thee, and which 
 has sometimes rendered mad those who return to it from hav- 
 ing known another, and the danger that evermore surrounds 
 the lords of a sullen multitude, are the punishments of these 
 vices. Comprehendest thou ? " 
 
 " I comprehend. " 
 
 " But individuals have a conscience apart from that of the 
 Community. Every community has its errors in its laws. 
 No human laws, how skilfully soever framed, but give to a 
 national character defects as well as merits, merits as well as 
 defects. Craft, selfishness, cruelty to the subdued, inhospi- 
 table frigidity to neighbors, make the defects of the Spartan 
 character. But " added Alcman, with a kind of reluctant an- 
 guish in his voice, " the character has its grand virtues, too, 
 or would the Helots not be the masters ? Valor indomitable ; 
 grand scorn of death ; passionate ardor for the state, which 
 is so severe a mother to them ; antique faith in the sacred 
 altars; sublime devotion to what is held to be duty. Are thees 
 not found in the Spartan beyond all the Greeks, as thou seest 
 them in thy friend Lysander — in that soul, stately, pure, com- 
 pact in its own firm substance as a statue within a temple is 
 in its Parian stone ? But what the gods ask from man is virtue 
 in himself, according as he comprehends it. And, therefore, 
 here all societies are equal ; for the gods pardon in the man 
 the faults he shares with his Community, and ask from him 
 but the good and the beautiful, such as the nature of his 
 Community will permit him to conceive and to accomplish. 
 Thou knowest that there are many kinds of music — for in- 
 stance, the Doric, the ^olian, the Ionian — in Hellas. The 
 Lydians have their music, the Phrygians theirs, too. The 
 Scyth and the Mede doubtless have their own. Each race 
 prefers the music it cultivates, and finds fault with the music 
 of other races. And yet a man who has learned melody and 
 measure will recognize a music in them all. So it is with 
 virtue, the music of the human soul. It differs in differing races. 
 But he who has learned to know what virtue is can recognize 
 its harmonies, wherever they be heard. And thus the soul that 
 fulfils its own notions of music, and carries them up to its ide-i 
 of excellence, is the master soul ; and in the regions to which 
 it goes, when the breath leaves the lips, it pursues the same 
 art set free from the trammels that confined and the false 
 judgments that marred it here. For then the soul is no 
 longer Spartan, or Ionian, Lydian, Median, or Scythian. 
 Escaped into the upper air, it is the citizen of universal treedoia
 
 lo8 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 and universal light. And hence it does not live as a ghost in 
 gloomy shades, being merely a pale memory of tilings that 
 have passed away ; but in its primitive being as an emanation 
 from the one divine principle which penetrates everywhere, 
 vivifies all things, and enjoys in all. This is what I weave 
 together from the doctrines of varying schools ; schools that 
 collect from the fields of thought flowers of different kinds 
 which conceal, by adorning it, the ligament that unites them 
 all : this, I say, O Pausanias, is my conception of the soul. " 
 
 Cleonice rose softly, and, taking from her bosom a rose, 
 kissed it fervently, and laid it at the feet of the singer. 
 
 " Were this my soul, " cried she, " I would ask thee to 
 bind it in the wreath. " 
 
 Vague and troubled thoughts passed meanwhile through 
 the mind of the Heracleid : old ideas being disturbed and dis- 
 lodged, the new ones did not find easy settlement in a 
 brain occupied with ambitious schemes and a heart agitated 
 by stormy passions. In much superstitious, in much scep- 
 tical, as education had made him the one, and experience 
 but of worldly things was calculated to make him the other, 
 he followed not the wing of the philosophy which passed 
 through heights not occupied by Olympus, and dived into 
 depths where no Tartarus echoed to the wail of Cocytus. 
 
 After a pause he said, in his perplexity, — 
 
 " Well mayst thou own that no Delphian oracle tells thee 
 all this. And when thou speakest of the Divine Principle as 
 one, dost thou not, oh presumptuous man, depopulate the 
 Hall of Ida ? Nay, is it not Zeus himself whom thou dethronest? 
 is not thy Divine Principle the Fate which Zeus himself must 
 obey ? " 
 
 " There is a young man of Clazomenae," answered the 
 singer, " named Anaxagoras, who, avoiding all active life, 
 though of birth the noblest, gives, himself up to contempla- 
 tion, and whom I have listened to in the city as he passed 
 through it, on his way into Eg}'pt. And I heard him say, 
 ' Fate is an empty name. ' * Fate is blind, the Divine is All- 
 seeing. " 
 
 " How ! " cried Cleonice. " An empty name — she ! Ne- 
 cessity, the All-compelling. " 
 
 The musician drew from the harp one of the most artful 
 of Sappho's exquisite melodies. 
 
 * Anaxagoras was then between twenty and thirty years of age.— 
 See Ritter vol. ii., for the sentiment here ascribed to him, and a general 
 view of his tenets.
 
 FAUSANFAS, THF SPARTA IV. 
 
 109 
 
 " What drew forth that music ? " he asked, smiUng. " My 
 hand and my will, from a genius not present, not v'.sible. 
 Was that genius a blind fate ? No it was a grand intelligence. 
 Nature is to the Deity what my hand and will are to the un- 
 seen genius of the musician. They obey an intelligence and 
 they form a music. If creation proceed from an intelligence, 
 what we call fate is but the consequence of its laws. And 
 Nature operates not in the external world alone, but in the 
 core of all life ; therefore in the mind of man obeying only 
 what some supreme intelligence has placed there ; therefore 
 in man's mind producing music or discord, according as he 
 has learned the principles of harmony, that is, of good. And 
 there be sages who declare that Intelligence and Love are 
 the same. Yet," added the Mothon, with an aspect solemnly 
 compassionate, " not the love thou mockest by the name of 
 Aphrodite. No mortal eye hath ever seen that love within 
 the known sphere, yet all insensibly feel its reign. What 
 keeps the world together but affection ? What makes the 
 earth bring forth its fruits but the kindness which 
 beams in the sunlight and descends in the dews ? What 
 makes the lioness watch over her cubs, and the bird, with all 
 air for its wanderings, come back to the fledglings in its nest ? 
 Strike love, the conjoiner, from creation, and creation returns 
 to a void. Destroy love, the parental, and life is born but to 
 perish. Where stop the influence of love, or how limit multi- 
 form degree .-' Love guards the fatherland ; crowns with turrets 
 the walls of the freeman. What but love binds the citizens 
 of states together, and frames and heeds the laws that sub- 
 mit individual liberty to the rule of the common good ? Love 
 creates, love cements, love enters and harmonizes all things. 
 And as like attracts like, so love attracts in the hereafter the 
 loving souls that conceived it here. From the region where 
 it summons them, its opposites are excluded. There ceases 
 war ; there ceases pain. There, indeed, intermingle the 
 beautiful and glorious, but beauty purified from earthly sin, 
 the glorious resting from earthly toil. Ask ye how to know on 
 earthwhere love is really presiding ? Not in Paphos, not in Ama- 
 thus. Wherever thou seest beauty and good ; wherever thou 
 seest life, and that life pervaded with faculties of joy, there 
 thou seest love ; there thou shouldst recognize the r3i\ !nity ? " 
 
 " And where I see misery and hate," said the Spartan 
 " what should I recognize there ? " 
 
 " Master," returned the singer, " can the good come with
 
 no PAUSANIAS, TriF. SPARTAN. 
 
 out a Struggle ? Is the beautiful accomplished without strife ? 
 Recall the tales of primeval chaos, when, as sung the As- 
 craean singer, love first darted into the midst ; imagine the 
 heave and throe of joining elements ; conjure up the first 
 living shapes, born of the fluctuating slime and vapor. Sure- 
 ly they were things incomplete, deformed ghastly fragments 
 of being, as are the dreams of a maniac. Had creative Love 
 stopped there, and thou, standing on the height of some fair 
 completed world, had viewed the warring portents, wouldst 
 thou not have said, But these are the works of Evil and Hate ? 
 Love did not stop there, it worked on ; and out of the chaos 
 once ensouled, this glorious world swung itself into ether, 
 the completed sister of the stars. Again, O my listeners, 
 contemplate the sculptor, when the block from the granite 
 shaft first stands, rude and shapeless, before him. See him 
 in his earlier strife with the obstinate matter — how uncouth 
 the first outline of limb and feature ; unlovelier often in the 
 rugged commencements of shape than when the dumb mass 
 stood shapeless. If the sculptor had stopped there, the 
 thing might serve as an image for the savage of an abomin- 
 able creed, engaged in the sacrifice of human fiesh. But he 
 pauses not,he works on. Stroke by stroke comes from the stone 
 shape of more beauty than man himself is endowed with, and 
 in a human temple stands a celestial image, 
 
 " Thus is it with a soul in the mundane sphere ; it works 
 its way on through the adverse matter. We see its work 
 half completed ; we cry, ' Lo ! this is misery, this is hate,' 
 because the chaos is not yet a perfected world, and the stone 
 block is not yet a statue of Apollo. But for that reason must 
 we pause ? No ; we must work on, till the victory brings the 
 repose. 
 
 " All things come into order from the war of contraries ; 
 the elements fight and wrestle to produce the wild flower at 
 our feet ; from a wild flower man hath striven and toiled to 
 perfect the marvellous rose of the hundred leaves. Hate is 
 necessar}' for the energies of love, evil for the activity of good ; 
 until, I say, the victory is won, until Hate and Evil are sub- 
 dued, as the sculptor subdues the stone ; and then rises the 
 divine image serene forever, and rests on its pedestal in the 
 Uranian Temple. Lift thine eyes ; that temple is yonder. 
 O Pausanias, the sculptor's workroom is the earth." 
 
 Alcman paused, and, sweeping his hand once more over 
 his lyre, chanted as follows : —
 
 PAUSANTAS, THE SPARTAN: III 
 
 ** Dewdrop that weepest on the sharp-barbed thorn, 
 Why didst thou fall from Day's golden chalices ? 
 'My tears bathe the thorn,' said the Dewdrop, 
 'To nourish the bloom of the rose.' 
 
 "Soul of the Infant, why to calamity 
 
 Comest thou wailing from the calm spirit-source? 
 
 'Ask of the Dew,' said the Infant, 
 
 ' Why it descends on the thorn ! ' 
 
 "Dewdrop from storm, and soul from calamity 
 Vanish soon — whither ? let the Dew answer thee J 
 'Have not my tears been my glory ? 
 Tears drew me up to the sun.' 
 
 " What were thine uses, that thou art glorified? 
 What did thy tears give, profiting earth or sky ? 
 
 ' There, to the thorn-stem a blossom ; 
 
 Here, to the Iris a tint.'" 
 
 Alcman had modulated the tones of his voice into a sweet« 
 ness so plaintive and touching, that when he paused, the 
 handmaidens had involuntarily risen and gathered round, 
 hushed and noiseless. Cleonice had lowered her veil over 
 her face and bosom ; but the heaving of its tissue betrayed 
 her half-suppressed, gentle sob ; and the proud mournfulness 
 on the Spartan's swarthy countenance had given way to a soft 
 composure, melancholy still — but melancholy as a lulled 
 though dark water, over which starlight steals through dis- 
 parted cloud. 
 
 Cleonice was the first to break the spell which bound 
 them all. " I would go within," she murmured faintly. " The 
 sun, now slanting, strikes through the vine-leaves and blinds 
 me with its glare." 
 
 Pausanias approached timidly, and, taking her by the 
 hand, drew her aside, along one of the grassy alleys that 
 stretched onward to the sea. 
 
 The handmaidens tarried behind, to cluster nearer round 
 the singer. They forgot he was a slave. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " Thou art weeping still, Cleonice ! " said the Spartan, 
 •* and I have not the privilege to kiss away thy tears." 
 
 " Nay, I weep not," answered the girl, throwing up her
 
 112 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN: 
 
 veil ; and her face was calm, if still sad — the tear 3'et on the 
 eyelids, but the smile upon the lip — 
 
 " Thy singer has learned his art from a teacher heavenlier 
 than the Pierides, and its name is Hope." 
 
 " But if I understand him aright," said Pausanias, " the 
 Hope that inspires him is a goddess who blesses us little on 
 the earth." 
 
 As if the ]\Iothon had overheard the Spartan, his voice 
 here suddenly rose behind them, singing : — 
 
 " There the Beautiful and Glorious 
 Intermingle evermore." 
 
 Involuntarily both turned. The Mothon seemed as if 
 explaining to the handmaids the allegory of his marriage-song 
 upon Helen and Achilles, for his head was raised on high, 
 and again, with an emphasis, he chanted : — 
 
 " There, throughout the Blessed Islands, 
 
 And amid the Race of Light. 
 Do the Beautiful and Glorious 
 
 Intermingle evermore." 
 
 " Canst thou not wait, if thou so lovest me ? " said Cleo- 
 nice, w'ith more tenderness in her voice than it had ever yet 
 betrayed to him ; " life is very short. Hush 1 " she contin- 
 ued, checking the passionate interruption that burst from his 
 lips ; " I have something I would confide to thee : listen. 
 Know that in my childhood I had a dear friend, a maiden a 
 few years older than myself, and she had the divine gift of 
 trance which comes from Apollo. Often, gazing into space, 
 her eyes became fixed, and hef frame still as a statue's ; then 
 a shiver seized her limbs, and prophecy broke from her Ups. 
 And she told me in one of these hours, when, as she said, 
 ' all space and all time seemed spread before her like a sun- 
 lit ocean,' she told me of my future, so far as its leaves have 
 yet unfolded from the stem of my life. Spartan, she prophe- 
 sied that I should see thee — and — " Cleonice paused, blush- 
 ing, and then hurried on, " and she told me that suddenly 
 her eye could follow my fate on the earth no more, that it 
 vanished out of the time and the space on which it gazed, 
 and, saying it, she wept, and broke into a funeral song. 
 And therefore, Pausanias, I say life is very short, for me at 
 least—" 
 
 " Hold," cried Pausanias ; '* torture not me, nor delude
 
 PAISANIAS, THE SFARTA.W i i -^ 
 
 thyself with llie dreams of a raving girl. Lives she near ? 
 Let me visit her with thee, and I will prove thy prophetess 
 an impostor." 
 
 " They whom the Priesthood of Delphi employ through- 
 out Hellas to find the fit natures for a Pythoness heard ol 
 ber, and heard herself. She whom thou callest impostor 
 gives the answer to perplexed nations from the Pythian 
 shiine. But wherefore doubt her ? — where the sorrow .? 1 
 feel none. If love does rule the worlds beyond, and does 
 unite souls who love nobly here, yonder we shall meet, O 
 descendant of Hercules, and human laws will not part us 
 there ! " 
 
 " Thou die ! die before me ! thou, scarcely half my years ! 
 And I be left here, with no comfort but a singer's dreamy 
 verse, not even mine ambition ! Thrones would vanish out 
 of earth, and turn to cinders in thine urn." 
 
 " Speak not of thrones," said Cleonice, with imploring 
 softness, " for the prophetess, too, spake of steps that went 
 toward a throne, and vanished at the threshold of darkness, 
 beside which sat the Furies. Speak not of thrones, dream 
 but of glory and Hellas — of what thy soul tells thee is that 
 virtue which makes life a Uranian music, and thus unites it 
 to the eternal symphonj^, as the breath of the single tiute 
 melts when it parts from the instrument into the great con- 
 cord of the choir. Knowest thou not that in the creed of the 
 Persians each mortal is watched on earth by a good spirit 
 and an evil one ? And they who loved us below, or to whom 
 we have done beneficent and gentle deeds, if they go before 
 us into death, pass to the side of the good spirit, and 
 strengthen him to save and to bless thee against the malice 
 of the bad, and the bad is strengthened in his turn by those 
 whom we have injured. Wouldst thou have all the Greeks 
 whose birthright thou wouldst barter, whose blood thou 
 wouldst shed for barbaric aid to thy solitary and lawless 
 power, stand by the side of the evil Fiend ? And what 
 could I do against so many ? what could my soul do," added 
 Cleonice, with simple pathos, " by the side of the kinder 
 spirit ? " 
 
 Pausanias was wholly subdued. He knelt to the girl, he 
 kissed the hem of her robe, and for the moment ambition, 
 luxury, pomp, pride tied from his soul, and left there only 
 the grateful tenderness of the man, and the lofty instincts of 
 the hero. But just then — was it the evil spirit that sent him ? 
 — the boughs of the vine were put aside, and Gongylus the
 
 11^ PAUSAAUAS, THE SPAR TAW 
 
 Eretrian stood before them. His black eyes glittered keen 
 upon Pausanias, who rose from his knee, startled and dis 
 pleased. 
 
 " What brings thee hither, man ? " said the Regent 
 haughtily. 
 
 " Danger ! " answered Gongylus, in a hissing whisper. 
 Lose not a moment — come." 
 
 " Danger ! " exclaimed Cleonice, tremblingly, and clas]> 
 ing her hands, and all the human love at her heart was vis- 
 ible in her aspect. " Danger, and to him! " 
 
 " Danger is but as the breeze of my native air," said the 
 Spartan, smiling ; " thus I draw it in and thus bieathe it 
 away. I follow thee, Gongylus. Take my greeting Cleo- 
 nice — the Good to the Beautiful. Well, then, keep Alcman 
 yet awhile to sing thy kind face to repose, and this time 
 let him tune his lyre to songs of a more Dorian strain — 
 songs that show what a Heracleid thinks of danger." 
 
 He waved his hand, and the two men, striding hastily, 
 passed along the vine alley, darkened its vista for a few 
 minutes, then vanishing down the descent to the beach, the 
 wide blue sea again lay lone and still before the eyes of the 
 Byzantine maid. 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 Pausanias and the Eretrian halted on the shore. 
 
 " Now speak," said the Spartan Regent. " Where is the 
 danger } " 
 
 " Before thee," answered Gongylus, and his hand pointed 
 to the ocean. 
 
 " I see the fleet of the Greeks in the harbor — I see the 
 flag of my galley above the forest of their masts. I see de- 
 tached vessels skimming along the waves hither and thither 
 as in holiday and sport ; but discipline slackens where no foe 
 dares to show himself. Eretrian, I see no danger." 
 
 " Yet danger is there, and where danger is thou shouldst 
 be. I have learned from my spies, not an hour since, that 
 there is a conspiracy formed — a mutiny on the eve of an 
 outburst. Thy place now should be in thy galley."
 
 PA rs:A NIA S, THE SPA R TA N. I \ 5 
 
 ** My boat waits yonder in tliat creek, overspread by the 
 wild shrubs," answered Pausanias ; " a few strrkes of the 
 oar, and I am where thou seest. And in truth, without thy 
 summons, I should have been on board ere sunset, seeing 
 that on the morrow I have ordered a general review of the 
 vessels of the fleet. Was that to be the occasion for the 
 mutiny ? " 
 
 " So it is supposed." 
 
 " I shall see the faces of the mutineers," said Pausanias, 
 with a calm visage, and an eye which seemed to brighten 
 the very atmosphere. " Thou shakest thy head ; is this 
 all ? " 
 
 " Thou art not a bird — this moment in one place, that 
 moment in another. There, with yon armament, is the dan- 
 ger thou canst meet. But yonder sails a danger which thou 
 canst not, I fear me, overtake.'' 
 
 " Yonder ! " said Pausanias, his eye following the hand 
 of the Eretrian. " I see naught save the white wing of a sea- 
 gull — perchance, by its dip into the water, it foretells a 
 storm." 
 
 " Farther off than the sea-gull, and seeming smaller than 
 the white spot of its wing, seest thou nothing ? " 
 
 " A dim speck on the farthest horizon, if mine eyes 
 mistake not." 
 
 "The speck of a sail that is bound to Sparta. It carries 
 with it a request for thy recall." 
 
 This time the cheek of Pausanias paled, and his voice 
 slightly faltered as he said, — 
 
 " Art thou sure of this ? " 
 
 *' So I hear that the Samian captain, Uliades, has boasted 
 at noon in the public baths." 
 
 " A Samian !— is it only a Samian who hath ventured to 
 address to Sparta a complaint of her General ? " 
 
 " From what I could gather," replied Gong\'lus, " the 
 complaint is more powerfully backed. But I have not, as 
 yet heard more, though I conjecture that Athens has not 
 been silent, and before the vessels sailed Ionian captains 
 were seen to come with joyous faces from the lodgings of 
 Cimon." 
 
 The Regent's brow grew yet more troubled. " Cimon, 
 of all the Greeks out of Laconia, is the one whose word 
 would weigh most in Sparta. But my Spartans themselves 
 are not suspected of privity and connivance in this mis- 
 sion ? "
 
 Il6 PAC/SAXJAS, THE SPAKTAy. 
 
 " It is not said that they are." 
 
 Pausanias shaded his face with his hand for a moment '.n 
 deep thought. Gongykis continued, — 
 
 " If the Ephors recall thee before the Asian army is on 
 the frontier, farewell to the sovereignty of Hellas 1 " 
 
 " Ha! " cried Pausanias, " tempt me not. Thinkest thou 
 I need other tempter than I have here ? " — smiting his breast. 
 
 Gongvlus recoiled in surprise. " Pardon me, PausanJas, 
 but temptation is another word for hesitation. I dreamed 
 that I could not tempt ; I did not know that thou didst 
 hesitate." 
 
 The Spartan remained silent, 
 
 " Are not thy messengers on the road to the great king ? 
 — nay, perhaps already they have reached him. Didst thou 
 not say how intolerable to thee would be life henceforth in 
 the iron thraldom of Sparta — and now ? " 
 
 " And now — f forbid thee to question me more. Thou 
 hast performed thy task ; leave me to mine." 
 
 He sprang with the spring of the mountain goat from 
 the crag on which he stood — over a precipitous chasm, 
 lighted on a narrow ledge, from which a slip of the foot 
 would have been sure death, another bound yet more fear- 
 ful, and his whole weight hung suspended by the bough of 
 the ilex which he grasped with a single hand ; then from 
 bough to bough, from crag to crag, the Eretrian saw him 
 decending till he vanished amidst the trees that darkened 
 over the fissures at the foot of the cliff. 
 
 And before Gongvlus had recovered his amaze at the 
 almost preterhuman agility and vigor of the Spartan, and 
 his dizzy sense at the contemplation of such peril braved by 
 another, a boat shot into the sea from the green creek, and 
 he saw Pausanias seated beside Lysander on one of the 
 benches, and conversing with him, as if in calm earnestness, 
 while the ten rowers sent the boat toward the fleet with 
 the swiftness of an arrow to its goal. 
 
 " Lvsander," said Pausanias, " hast thou heard that the 
 lonians have offered to me the insult of a mission to the 
 Ephors demanding my recall ? " 
 
 " No. Who would tell me of insult to thee ? " 
 "But hast thou any conjecture that other Spartans 
 around me, and who love me less than thou, would ap- 
 prove, nay, have approved, this embassy of spies and mal- 
 contents ? " 
 
 " I think none have so approved. I fear some would so
 
 PAUSAXIAS, THE spartan: hj 
 
 approve. The Spartans round thee would rejoice did they 
 know that the pride of their armies, the Victor of Plataea, 
 were once more within their walls." 
 
 " Even to the dansrer of Hellas from the Mede ? " 
 
 '■' Thy would rather all Hellas were Medized than Pau- 
 sanias the Heracleid." 
 
 " Boy, boy," said Pausanias, between his ground teeth, 
 " dost thou not see that what is sought is the disgrace of 
 Pausanias the Heracleid ? Grant that I am recalled from 
 the head of this armament, and on the charge of lonians, 
 and I am dishonored in the eves of all Greece. Dost thou 
 remember in the last Olympiad that when Themistocles, the 
 only rival now to me in glory, appeared on the Altis, assem- 
 bled Greece rose to greet and do him honor ? And if I, 
 deposed, dismissed, appeared at the next Olympiad, how 
 would assembled Greece receive me 1 Couldst thou not see 
 the pointed finger ^nd hear the muttered taunt, ' That is 
 Pausanias, whom the lonians banished from Byzantium.' 
 No, I must abide here ; I must prosecute the vast plans which 
 shall dwarf into shadow the petty genius of Themistocles. I 
 must counteract this mischievous embassy to the Ephors. I 
 must send them an embassador of my own. Lysander, wilt 
 thou go, and, burying in thy bosom thine own Spartan preju- 
 dices, deem tha-t thou canst only serve me by proving the 
 reasons why I should remain here ; pleading for me, arguing 
 for me, and winning my suit ? " 
 
 " It is for thee to command, and for me to obey thee," 
 answered Lysander, simply. " Is not that the duty of sol- 
 dier to chief .'' When we converse as friends I may contend 
 with thee in speech. When thou sayest, ' Do this,' I execute 
 thine action. To reason with thee would be revolt." 
 
 Pausanias placed his clasped hands on the young man's 
 shoulder, and, leaving them there, impressively said, — 
 
 " I select thee for this mission because thee alone can I 
 trust. And of me hast thou a doubt ? Tell me.'* 
 
 " If I saw thee taking the Persian gold, I should say that 
 the Demon had mocked mine eyes with a delusion. Never 
 could I doubt, unless — unless — " 
 
 " Unless what .? " 
 
 " Thou wert standing under Jove's sky, against the arms 
 of Htdlas." 
 
 " And then, if some other chief bid thee raise thy sword 
 against me, thou art Spartan, and wouldst obey ? " 
 
 " I am Spartan, and cannot believe that I should evei
 
 jjg PAUSANTAS, THE SPARTAN: 
 
 have a cause or listen to a command, to raise my sword 
 against the cnief I now serve and love," replied Lysander. 
 
 Pausanias vvithdrew his hands from Hie young man's 
 broad shoulder. He felt humble beside the quiet truth of 
 that sublime soul. His own deceit became more black to his 
 conscience. " Methinks,"' he said, tremulously, " I will not 
 send thee, after all — and perhaps the news may be false." 
 
 The boat had now gained the fleet, and, steering amidst 
 the crowded triremes, made its way toward the floating ban- 
 ner of the Spartan Serpent. More immediately round the 
 General's galley were the vessels of the Peloponnesian allies, 
 by whom he was still honored. A welcoming shout rose from 
 the seamen lounging on their decks as they caught sight of 
 the renowned Heracleid. Cimon, who was on his own galley, 
 at some distance, heard the shout. 
 
 " So Pausanias," he said, turning to the officers round him, 
 " has deigned to come on board, to direct, I suppose, the 
 manoeuvres for to-morrow." 
 
 " I believe it is but the form of a review for manoeuvres," 
 said an Athenian officer, " in which Pausanias will inspect the 
 various divisions of the fleet, and, if more be intended, will 
 give the requisite orders for a subsequent day. No arrange- 
 ments demanding much preparation can be anticipated for 
 Antagoras, the rich Chian, gives a great banquet this day — a 
 supper to the principal captains of the Isles." 
 
 " A frank and hospitable reveller is Antagoras," answered 
 Cimon. " He would have extended his invitation to the 
 Athenians — me included — but in their name I declined." 
 
 " May I ask wherefore ? " said the officer who had before 
 spoken. " Cimon is not held averse to wine-cup and myrtle 
 bough." 
 
 " But things are said over some wine-cups and under 
 some myrtle boughs," answered Cimon, with a quiet laugh, 
 " which it is imprudence to hear, and would be treason to re- 
 peat. Sup with me here on deck, friends — a supper for so- 
 ber companions — sober as the Laconian Syssitia, and let not 
 Spartans say that our manners are spoiled by the luxuries of 
 Byzantium."
 
 FA USANIAS, THE SPA R TAN. 1 1 g 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 In an immerse peristyle of a house which a Byzantine 
 noble, ruined by lavish extravagance, had been glad to cede 
 to the accommodation of Antagoras and other officers of 
 Chios, the young rival of Pausanias feasted the chiefs of the 
 ^gean. However modern civilization may in some things 
 surpass the ancient, it is certainly not in luxury and splendor. 
 And although the Hellenic States had not, at that period, 
 aimed at the pomp of show and the refinements of voluptuous 
 pleasure which preceded their decline, and although they 
 never did carry luxury to the wondrous extent which it 
 reached in Asia, or even in Sicily, yet even at that time a 
 wealthy sojourner in such a city as Byzantium could com- 
 mand an entertainment that no monarch in our age would 
 venture to parade before royal guests, and submit to the crit- 
 icism of taxpaying subjects. 
 
 The columns of the peristyle were of dazzling alabaster, 
 with their capitals richly gilt. The space above was roof- 
 less ; but an immense awning of purple, richly embroidered 
 in Persian looms — a spoil of some gorgeous Mede — shaded 
 the feasters from the summer sky. The couches on which 
 the banqueters reclined were of citron-wood, inlaid with ivory, 
 and covered with the tapestries of Asiatic looms. At the four 
 corners of the vast hall played four fountains, and their spray 
 sparkled to a blaze of light from colossal candelabra, in which 
 burned perfumed oil. The guests were not assembled at a 
 single table, but in small groups ; to each group its tripod of 
 exquisite workmanship. To that feast of fifty revellers no less 
 than seventy cooks had contributed the inventions of their 
 art, but under one great master, to whose care the banquet 
 had been consigned by the liberal host, and who ransacked 
 earth, sky, and sea for dainties more various than this degen- 
 erate age ever sees accumulated at a single board. And the 
 epicure who has but glanced over the elaborate page of Athen- 
 aeus must own with melancholy self-humiliation that the an- 
 cients must have earned the art of flattering the palate to a 
 perfection as absolute as the art which built the Parthenon 
 and sculptured out of gold and ivory the Olymjiian Jove, 
 But the first course, with its profusion of birds, flesh, and
 
 120 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 fishes, its marvellous combinations of forced meats, and in- 
 ventive poetry of sauces, was now over. And in the interval 
 preceding that second course, in which gastronomy put forth 
 its most exquisite masterpieces, the slaves began to remove 
 the tables, soon to be replaced. Vessels of fragrant waters, 
 in which the banqueters dipped their fingers, were handed 
 round ; perfumes, which the Byzantine marts collected from 
 every clime, escaped from their precious receptacles. 
 
 Then were distributed the garlands. With these each 
 guest crowned locks that streamed with odors ; and in them 
 were combined the flowers that most charmed the eye, with 
 bud or herb that most guards from the head the fumes of wine ; 
 with hyacinth and flax, with golden asphodel and silver lily, 
 the green of ivy and parsley leaf were thus entwined ; and 
 above all, the rose, said to convey a delicious coolness to the 
 temples on which it bloomed. And now for the first time wine 
 came to heighten the spirits and test the charm of the garlands. 
 Each, as the large goblets passed to him, poured from the brim, 
 before it touched his lips, his libation to the good spirit. And 
 as Antagoras, rising first, set this pious example, out from the 
 farther ends of the hall, behind the fountains, burst a concert 
 of flutes, and the great Hellenic Hymn of the Pcean. 
 
 As this ceased, the fresh tables appeared before the ban- 
 queters, covered with all the fruits in season, and with those 
 triumphs in confectioner}'', of which honey was the main in- 
 gredient, that well justified the favor in which the Greeks held 
 the bee. 
 
 Then, insead of the pure juice of the grape, from which the 
 libation had been poured, came the wines, mixed at least three 
 parts with water, and deliciously cooled. 
 
 Up again rose Antagoras, and everl eye turned to him. 
 
 " Companions," said the young Chian, " it is not held in 
 free states well for a man to seize by himself upon supreme 
 authority. We deem that a magistracy should only be obtained 
 by the votes of others. Nevertheless, I venture to think that 
 the latter plan does not always insure to us a good master. I 
 believe it was by election that we Greeks have given to our- 
 selves a generalissimo, not contented, it is said, to prove the 
 invariable wisdom of that mode of government ; wherefore rhis 
 seems an occasion to revive the good custom of tyranny. And 
 I propose to do so in my person by proclaiming myself Sym- 
 posiarch and absolute Promander in the Commonwealth here 
 assembled. But if ye prefer the chance of the die — "
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN: I2j 
 
 " No, no," cried the guests almost universally ; " Antago- 
 ras, the Symposiarch, we submit. Issue thy laws." 
 
 " Hearken, then, and obey. First, then, as to the strength 
 of the wine. Behold the crater in which there are three 
 Naiades to one Dionysios. He is a match for them ; not for 
 more. No man shall put into his wine more water than the 
 slaves have mixed. Yet if any man is so diffident of the 
 god that he thinks three Naiades too much for him, he may 
 omit one or two, and let the wine and water fight it out upon 
 equal terms. So much for the quality of the drink. As to 
 quantity, it is a question to be deliberated hereafter. And 
 now this cup to Zeus the Preserver." 
 
 The toast went round. 
 
 '* Music, and the music of Lydia ! " then shouted Antago- 
 ras, and resumed his place on the couch beside Uliades. 
 
 The music proceeded, the wine circled. 
 
 " Friend," whispered Uliades to the host, " thy father left 
 thee wines, I know. But if thou givest many banquets like 
 this, I doubt if thou wilt leave wines to thy son." 
 
 " I shall die childless, perhaps," answered the Chian ; 
 " and any friend will give me enough to pay Charon's fee 
 across the Styx." 
 
 " That is a melancholy reflection," said Uliades, " and 
 there is no subject of talk that pleases me less than that 
 same Styx. Why dost thou bite thy lip, and choke the sigh ? 
 By the gods ! art thou not happy ? " 
 
 " Happy I " repeated Antagoras, with a bitter smile. 
 " Oh yes ! " 
 
 " Good. Cleonice torments thee no more. I myself have 
 gone through thy trials ; ay, and oftentimes. Seven times at 
 Samos, five at Rhodes; once at Miletus, and forty-three times 
 at Corinth, have I been an impassioned and unsuccessful 
 lover. Courage ; I love still." 
 
 Antagoras turned away. By this time the hall was yet 
 more crowded, for many not invited to the supper came, as 
 was the custom with the Greeks, to the Symposium ; but these 
 were all of the Ionian race. 
 
 " The music is dull without the dancers," cried the host. 
 " Ho, there ! the dancing-girls. Now would I give all the 
 rest of my wealth to see among these girls one face that yet 
 but for a moment could make me forget — " 
 
 " Forget what, or whom 1 " said Uliades ; " not Cleonice ? " 
 
 " Man, man, wilt thou provoke me to strangle thee ? ** 
 muttered Antagoras.
 
 122 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN: 
 
 Uliades edged himself away. 
 
 " Ungrateful ! " he cried. " What are a hundred Bvzan- 
 tine girls to one tried male friend ? " 
 
 *' I will not be ungrateful, Uliades, if thou stand by my 
 side against the Spartan." 
 
 " Thou art, then, bent upon this perilous hazard ? " 
 
 " Bent on driving Pausanias from Byzantium, or into Ha- 
 des — yes " 
 
 " Touch ! " said Uliades, holding out his right hand. " By 
 Cypris, but these girls dance like the daughters of Oceanus ; 
 every step undulates as a wave." 
 
 Antagoras motioned to his cupbearer. " Tell the leader 
 of that dancing choir to come hither." The cupbearer 
 obeyed. 
 
 A man with a solemn air came to the foot of the Chian's 
 couch, bowing low. He was an Eg}'ptian — one of the mean- 
 est castes. 
 
 " Swarthy friend," said Antagoras, " didst thou ever hear 
 of the Pyrrhic dance of the Spartans ? " 
 
 " Surely, of all dances am I teacher and preceptor." 
 
 " Your girls know it, then ? " 
 
 " Somewhat, from having seen it ; but not from practice. 
 'Tis a male dance and a warlike dance, O magnanimous, but, 
 in this instance, untutored, Chian ! " 
 
 " Hist, and listen." Antagoras whispered. The Kg\'p- 
 tian nodded his head, returned to the dancing-girls, and when 
 their measure had ceased, gathered them round him. 
 
 Antagoras again rose. 
 
 " Companions, we are bound now to do homage to our 
 masters — the pleasant, affable, and familiar warriors of 
 Sparta." 
 
 At this the guests gave way to their applauding laughter. 
 
 "And, therefore, these delicate maidens will present to 
 us that flowing and Amathusian dance which the Graces 
 taught to Spartan sinews. Ho, there — begin ! " 
 
 The Egyptian had by this time told the dancers what they 
 were expected to do ; and they came forward with an affecta- 
 tion of stern dignity, the burlesque humor of which delighted 
 all those lively revellers. And when, with adroit mimicr}^, 
 their slight arms and mincing steps mocked that grand and 
 masculine measure so associated with images of Spartan 
 austerity and decorum, the exhibition became so humorously 
 ludicrous that perhaps a Spartan himself would have been 
 compelled to laugh at it. But the merriment rose to its
 
 PA us A NI AS, THE SPARTAN'. 123 
 
 height, when the Egyptian, who had withdrawn for a few 
 minutes, re-appeared with a Median robe and mitred cap, and, 
 calling out in his barbarous African accent, " Way for the 
 conquerer ! " threw into his mien and gestures all the like- 
 ness to Pausanias himself which a practised mime and posture- 
 master could attain. The laughter of Antagoras alone was 
 not loud — it was low and sullen, as if sobs of rage were sti- 
 lling it ; but his eye watched the effect produced, and it an- 
 swered the end he had in view. 
 
 As the dancers now, while the laughter was at its loudest 
 roar, vanished behind the draperies, the host rose, and his 
 countenance was severe and grave. 
 
 " Companions, one cup more, and let it be to Harmodius 
 and Aristogiton. Let the song in thei-r honor come only 
 from the lips of free citizens, of our Ionian comrades. Ulia- 
 des, begin ! I pass to thee a myrtle bough ; and under it I 
 pass a sword." 
 
 Then he began the famous hymn ascribed to Callistratus, 
 commencing with a clear and sonorous voice, and the guests 
 repeating each stanza after him with the enthusiasm which 
 the words usually produced among the Hellenic republicans : 
 
 I in a myrtle bough the sword will carry, 
 As did Harmodius and Aristogiton ; 
 When they the tyrant slew, 
 And back to Athens gave her equal laws. 
 
 Thou art in nowise dead, best-loved Harmodius; 
 Isles of the Blessed are, they say, thy dwelling; 
 There swift Achilles dwells, 
 And there, they say, with thee dwells Diomed. 
 
 1 in a myrtle bough the sword will carry, 
 As did Harmodius and Aristogiton, 
 When to Athene's shrine 
 They gave their sacrifice — a tyrant man. 
 
 Ever on earth for both of you lives glory, 
 O loved Harmodius, loved Aristogiton, 
 For ye the tyrant slew, 
 And back to Athens ye gave equal laws. 
 
 When the song had ceased, the dancers, the musicians 
 the attendant slaves, had withdrawn from the hall, dismissed 
 by a whispered order from Antagoras. 
 
 He, now standing up, took from his brows the floral 
 crown, and, first sprinkling them with wine, replaced tha
 
 ra4 PAUSAMTAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 flowers by a wreath of poplar. The assembly, a little while 
 before so noisy, was hushed into attentive and earnest silence. 
 The action of Antagoras, the expression of his countenance, 
 the exclusion of the slaves, prepared all present for some- 
 thing more than the convivial address of a Symposiarch. 
 
 "Men and Greeks," said the Chian, " on the evening 
 before Teucer led his comrades in exile over the wide waters 
 to found a second Salamis, he sprinkled his forehead with 
 Lyaean dews, being crowned with the poplar leaves — 
 emblems of hardihood and contest ; and, this done, he 
 invited his companions to dispel their cares for the night, 
 that their hearts might with more cheerful hope and bolder 
 courage meet what the morrow might bring to them on the 
 ocean. I imitate the ancient hero, in honor less of him than 
 of the name of Salamis. We, too, have a Salamis to remem- 
 ber, and a second Salamis to found. Can ye forget that, had 
 the advice of the Spartan leader Eurybiades been adopted, 
 the victory of Salamis would never have been achieved ? 
 He was for retreat to the Isthmus ; he was for defending 
 the Peloponnese, because in the Peloponnesus was the un- 
 social, selfish Sparta, and leaving the rest of Hellas to the 
 armament of Xerxes. Themistocles spoke against the ignoble 
 counsel ; the Spartan raised his staff to strike him. Ye 
 know the Spartan manners. ' Strike if you will, but hear 
 nie,' cried Themistocles. He was heard, Xerxes was de- 
 feated, and Hellas saved. I am not Themistocles ; nor is 
 there a Spartan staff to silence free lips. But I too say, 
 Hear me ! for a new Salamis is to be won. What was the 
 former Salamis ? — the victory that secured independence to 
 the Greeks, and delivered them from the Mede and the 
 Medizing traitors. Again we must fight a Salamis Where, 
 ye say, is the Mede ? — not at Byzantium, it is true, in person ; 
 but the Medizing traitor is here." 
 
 A profound sensation thrilled through the assembly. 
 
 "Enough of humility do the maritime lonians practice 
 when they accept the hegemony of a Spartan landsman ; 
 enough of submission do the free citizens of Hellas show 
 when they suffer the imperious Dorian to sentence them to 
 punishments only fit for slaves. But when the Spartan ap- 
 pears in the robes of the Mede, when the imperious Do- 
 rian places in the government of a city, which our joint arms 
 now occupy, a recreant who has changed an Eretrian birth- 
 right for a Persian satrapy ; when prisoners, made by the 
 valor of all Hellas, mysteriously escape the care of the
 
 PA us AN/AS, THE SPARTA AT. 1 25 
 
 Lacedaemonian, who wears their garb, and imitates their 
 manners — say, O ye Greeks, O ye warriors, if there is no 
 second Salamis to conquer ! " 
 
 The animated words, and the wine already drunk, pro- 
 duced on the banqueters an effect sudden, electrical, uni- 
 versal. They had come to the hall gay revellers ; they were 
 prepared to leave the hall stern conspirators. 
 
 Their hoarse murmur was as the voice of the sea befoie a 
 storm. 
 
 Antagoras surveyed them with a fierce joy, and, with a 
 change of tone, thus continued : " Ye understand me, ye 
 know already that a delivery is to be achieved. I pass on : 
 I submit to your wisdom the mode of achieving it. While I 
 speak, a swift-sailing vessel bears to Sparta the complaints of 
 myself, of Uliades, and of many Ionian captains here present, 
 against the Spartan General. And although the Athenian 
 chiefs decline to profifer complaints of their own, lest their 
 State, which has risked so much for the common cause, be 
 suspected of using the admiration it excites for the purpose 
 of subserving its ambition, yet Cimon, the young son of the 
 great Miltiades, who has ties of friendship and hospitality 
 with families of high mark in Sparta, has been persuaded to 
 add to our public statement a private letter to the effect that, 
 speaking for himself, not in the name of Athens, he deems 
 our complaints justly founded, and the recall of Pausanias 
 expedient for the discipline of the armament. But can we 
 say what effect this embassy may have upon a sullen and 
 haughty government ; against, too, a royal descendant of Her- 
 cules ; against the General who at Plataea flattered Sparta 
 with a renown to which her absence from Marathon, and her 
 meditated flight from Salamis, gave but disputable preten- 
 sions V 
 
 " And," interrupted Uliades, rising, " and — if, O Antago- 
 ras, I may crave pardon for standing a moment between 
 thee and thy guests — and this is not all, for even if they re 
 call Pausanias, they may send us another general as bad, and 
 without the fame which somewhat reconciles our Ionian pride 
 to the hegemony of a Dorian. Now, whatever my quarrel 
 with Pausanias, I am less against a man than a principle. I 
 am a seaman, and against the principle of having for the 
 commander of the Greek fleet a Spartan w-ho does not know 
 how to handle a sail. I am an Ionian, and against the prin- 
 ciple of placing the Ionian race under the imperious domina- 
 tion of a Dorian. The 'ef ore I say, now is the moment to
 
 la^ PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN-. 
 
 emancipate our blood and our ocean — the one from an alien, 
 the other from a landsman. And the hegemony of the 
 Spartan should pass away." 
 
 Uliades sat down with an applause more clamorous than 
 had greeted the eloquence of Antagoras, for the pride of race 
 and of special calling is ever more strong in its impulses than 
 hatred to a single man. And, despite of all that could be 
 said against Pausanias, still these warriors felt awe for his 
 greatness, and remembered that at Plataea, where all were 
 brave, he had been proclaimed the bravest. 
 
 Antagoras, with the quickness of a republican Greek, 
 trained from earliest youth to sympathy with popular assem- 
 blies, saw that Uliades had touched the right key, and swal- 
 lowed down with a passionate gulp his personal wrath against 
 his rival, which might otherwise have been carried too far, 
 and have lost him the advantage he had gained. 
 
 " Rightly and wisely speaks Uliades," said he. *' Our 
 cause is that of our whole race ; and clear has that true 
 Samian made it to you all, O lonians and captains of the seas, 
 that we must not wait for the lordly answer Sparta may return 
 to our embassage. Ye know that while night lasts we must 
 return to our several vessels ; an hour more, and we shall be 
 on deck. To-morrow Pausanias reviews the fleet, and we 
 may be some days before we return to land, and can meet in 
 concert. Whether to-morrow, or later, the occasion for action 
 may present itself, is a question I would pray you to leave to 
 those whom you intrust with the discretionarj^ power to act." 
 
 " How act .'' " cried a Lesbian officer. 
 
 " Thus would I suggest," said Antagoras, with well-dis- 
 sembled humility : " let the captains of one or more Ionian 
 vessels perform such a deed of open defiance against Pausa- 
 nias as leaves to them no option between death and success ; 
 having so done, hoist a signal, and, sailing at once to the 
 Athenian ships, place themselves under the Athenian 
 leader ; all the rest of the Ionian captains will then 
 follow their example. And then, too numerous and too pow- 
 erful to be punished for a revolt, we shall proclaim a revolu- 
 tion, and declare that we will all sail back to our native 
 havens unless we have the liberty of choosing our own hege- 
 mon," 
 
 " But," said the Lesbian who had before spoken, " the 
 Athenians as yet have held back and declined our overtures, 
 and without them we are not strong enough to cope with the 
 Peloponnesian allies."
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 127 
 
 " The Athenians will be compelled to protect the lonians, 
 if the lonians in sufficient force demand it," said Uliades. 
 " For as we are naught without them, they are naught with 
 out us. Take the course suggested by Antagoras ; I advise 
 it. Ye know me, a plain man, but I speak not without war- 
 rant. And before the Spartans can either contemptuously 
 dismiss our embassy or send us out another general, the 
 Ionian will be the mistress of the Hellenic seas, and Sparta, 
 tlie land of oligarchies, will no more have the power to oligar 
 chize democracy. Otherwise, believe me, that power she has 
 now from her hegemony, and that power, whenever it suit 
 her, she will use." 
 
 Uliades was chiefly popular in the fleet as a rough, good 
 seaman, as a blunt and somewhat vulgar humorist. But 
 whenever he gave advice, the advice carried with it a weight 
 not always bestowed upon superior genuis, because, from the 
 ver)' commonness of his nature, he reached at the common 
 sense and the common feelings of those whom he addressed. 
 He spoke, in short, what an ordinary man thought and felt. 
 He was a practical man, brave, but not overaudacious, not 
 likely to run himself or others into idle dangers ; and when 
 he said he had a warrant for his advice, he was believed to 
 speak from his knowledge of the course which the Athenian 
 chiefs, Aristides and Cimon, would pursue if the plan recom- 
 mended were actively executed. 
 
 " I am convinced," said the Lesbian. " And since all 
 are grateful to Athens for that final stand against the Mede, 
 to which all Greece owes her liberties, and since the chief of 
 her armaments here is a man of so modest a virtue, and so 
 clement a justice, as we all acknowledge in Aristides, fitting 
 is it for us lonians to constitute Athens the maritime sov- 
 ereign of our race." 
 
 " Are ye all of that mind .? " cried Antagoras, and was an- 
 swered by the universal shout, " We are — all ! " or if the 
 shout was not universal, none heeded the few whom fear or 
 prudence might keep silent. " All that remains, then, is to 
 appoint the captain who shall hazard the first danger and 
 make the first signal. For my part, as one of the electors, I 
 give my vote for Uliades, and this is my ballot." He took 
 from his temples the poplar wreath, and cast it into a silver 
 vase on the tripod placed before him. 
 
 " Uliades by acclamation ! " cried several voices. 
 
 " I accept," said the Ionian , " and as Ulysses, a prudent 
 man, asked for a colleague in enterprises of danger, so I
 
 128 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTANS 
 
 ask for a companion in the hazard I undertake, and I select 
 Antagoras." 
 
 This choice received the same applauding acquiescence 
 as that which had greeted the nomination of the Ionian. 
 
 And in the midst of the applause was heard without the 
 sharp, shrill sound of the Phrygian pipe. 
 
 " Comrades," said Antagoras, " ye hear the summons to 
 our ships ? Our boats are waiting at the steps of the quay, by 
 the Temple of Neptune. Two sentences more, and then to 
 sea. First, silence and fidelity ; the finger to the lip, the 
 right hand raised to Zeus Horkios. For a pledge, here is 
 an oath. Secondly, be this the signal : whenever ye shall 
 see Uliades and myself steer our triremes out of the line in 
 which they may be marshalled, look forth and watch, breath- 
 less ; and the instant you perceive that beside our flags of 
 Samos and Chios we hoist the ensign of Athens, draw off 
 from your stations, and follow the wake of our heels, to the 
 Athenian navy. Then, as the gods direct us. Hark ! a sec- 
 ond time shrills the fife." 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 At the very hour when the Ionian captains were hurrying 
 toward their boats Pausanias was pacing his decks alone, 
 with irregular strides, and through the cordage and the masts 
 the starshine came fitfully on his troubled features. Long 
 undecided he paused, as the waves sparkled to the stroke of 
 oars, and beheld the boats of the feasters making towards the 
 division of the fleet in which lay the navy of the isles. Farther 
 on, remote and still, anchored the ships of Athens. He 
 clenched his hand, and turned from the sight. 
 
 " To lose an empire," he muttered, " and without a strug- 
 gle ; an empire over yon mutinous rivals, over yon happy 
 and envied Athens ; an empire — where its limits ? — if Asia 
 puts her armies to my lead, why should not Asia be Hellen- 
 ized, rather than Hellas be within the tribute of the Mede } 
 Dull, dull, stolid Sparta ! methinks I could pardon the slavery 
 thou inflictest on my life, didst thou but leave unshackled 
 my intelligence. But each vast scheme to be thwarted, every 
 thought for thine own aggrandizement beyond thy barren
 
 PAUSAAVAS. THE SPARTAN. 129 
 
 rocks, met and inexorably baffled by a selfish aphorism, a 
 cramping saw — ' Sparta is wide eno' for vSpartans.' — ' Ocean 
 is the element of the fickle.' — ' What matters the ascendency 
 of Athens ? — it does not cross the Isthmus.' — ' Venture noth- 
 ing where I want nothing." Why, this is the soul's prison ! 
 Ah, had I been born Athenian, I had never uttered a thought 
 against my country. She and I would have expanded and 
 aspired together." 
 
 Thus arguing with himself, he at length confirmed his 
 resolve, and with a steadfast step entered his pavilion. 
 There, not on broidered cushions, but by preference on the 
 hard floor, without coverlet, lay Lysander calmly sleeping, 
 his crimson warlike cloak, weather-stained, partially wrapped 
 around him ; no pillow to his head but his own right arm. 
 
 By the light of the lamp that stood within the pavilion, 
 Pausanias contemplated the slumberer. 
 
 " He says he loves me, and yet can sleep," he murmured, 
 bitterly. Then, seating himself before a table, he began to 
 write, with slowness and precision, whether as one not accus- 
 tomed to the task or weighing every word. 
 
 When he had concluded, he again turned his eyes to the 
 sleeper. " How tranquil ! Was my sleep ever as serene ? 
 I will not disturb him to the last." 
 
 The fold of the curtain was drawn aside, and Alcman en- 
 tered noiselessly. 
 
 " Thou hast obeyed ? " whispered Pausanias. 
 " Yes ; the ship is ready, the wind favors. Hast thou 
 decided ? " 
 
 " I have," said Pausanias, with compressed lips. 
 He rose, and touched Lysander lightly, but the touch 
 sufficed ; the sleeper woke on the instant, casting aside slum- 
 ber easily as a garment. 
 
 " My Pausanias," said the young Spartan, " I am at thine 
 orders — shall I go ? Alas ! I read thine eye, and I shall 
 leave thee in peril." 
 
 " Greater peril in the council of the Ephors and in the 
 babbling lips of the hoary Gerontes than amidst the meeting 
 of armaments. Thou wilt take this letter to the Ephors. I 
 have said in it but little ; I have said that I confide my cause 
 to thee. Remember that thou insist on the disgrace to me 
 — the Heracleid, and through me to Sparta, that my recall 
 would occasion ; remember that thou prove that my alleged 
 harshness is but necessary to the discipline that preserves 
 armies, and to the ascendency of Spartan rule. And as to the
 
 130 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 idle tale of Persian prisoners escaped, why thou knowest 
 how even the Ionian could make nothing of that charge. 
 Crowd all sail, strain every oar ; no ship in the fleet so swift 
 as that which bears thee. I care not for the few hours' start 
 the tale-bearers have. Our Spartan for-n.s are slow : tbey can 
 scarce have an audience ere thou leach. The gods speed and 
 guard thee, beloved friend. With thee goes all the future of 
 Pausanias." 
 
 Lysander grasped his hand in a silence more eloquent 
 than words, and a tear fell on that hand which he clasped. 
 " Be not ashamed of it," he said then, as he turned away and, 
 wrapping his cloak round his face, left the pavilion. Alcman 
 followed, lowered a boat from the side, and in a few moments 
 the Spartan and the Mothon were on the sea. The boat made 
 to a vessel close at hand — a vessel built in Cyprus, manned by 
 Bithynians ; its sails were all up but it bore no flag. Scarcely 
 had Lysander climbed the deck when it heaved to and fro sway- 
 ing as the anchor was drawn up, then, righting itself, sprang 
 forward, like a hound unleashed for the chase. Pausanias, 
 with folded arms, stood on the deck of his own vessel, gazing 
 after it, gazing long, till shooting far beyond the fleet, far to- 
 ward the melting line between sea and sky, it grew less and 
 lesser ; and as the twilight dawned, it had faded into space. 
 
 The Heracleid turned to Alcman, who, after he had con- 
 veyed Lysander to the ship, had regained his master's side. 
 
 " What thinkest thou, Alcman, will be the result of all 
 this > " 
 
 " The emancipation of the Helots," said the Mothon, 
 quietly. " The Athenians are too near thee ; tlie Persians 
 are too far. Wouldst thou have armies Sparta can neither 
 give nor take away from thee, bind to thee a race by the 
 strongest of human ties — make them see in thy power the 
 necessary condition of their freedom." 
 
 Pausanias made no answer. He turned within his pavilion, 
 and flinging himself down on the same spot from which he had 
 disturbed Lysander, said, " Sleep here was so kind to him that 
 ii may linger where he left it. I have two hours yet for obliv- 
 ion before the sun rise."
 
 FA USA NI AS, THE SPARTAN. 131 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 If we were enabled minutely to examine the mental or« 
 ganization of men who have risked great dangers, whether by 
 the impulse of virtue or in the perpetration <A crime, we sltould 
 probably find therein a large preponderance of hope. By 
 that preponderance we should account for those heroic designs 
 which would annihilate prudence as a calculator, did not a 
 sanguine confidence in the results produce special energies to 
 achieve them, and thus create a prudence of its own, being, as 
 it were, the self-conscious admeasurement of the diviner 
 strength which justified the preterhuman spring. Nor less 
 should we account by the same cause for that audacity which 
 startles us in criminals on a colossal scale, which blinds them 
 to the risks of detection, and often at the bar of justice, while 
 the evidences that insure condemnation are thickening round 
 them, with the persuasion of acquittal or escape. Hope is 
 thus alike the sublime inspirer or the arch corrupter ; it is the 
 foe of terror, the defier of consequences, the buoyant gamester 
 which at every loss doubles the stakes, with a firm hand rattles 
 the dice, and, invoking ruin, cries within itself, " How shall I 
 expend the gain ? " 
 
 In the character, therefore, of a man like Pausanias, risk- 
 ing so much glory, daring so much peril, strong indeed must 
 have been this sanguine motive power of human action. Nor 
 is a large and active development of hope incompatible with 
 a temperament habitually grave and often profoundly melan- 
 choly. For hope itself is often engendered by disconten., 
 A vigorous nature keenly susceptible to joy, and deprived of 
 the possession of the joy it yearns for by circumstances that 
 surround it in the present, is goaded on by its impatience 
 and dissatisfaction ; it hopes for the something x has not got, 
 indifferent to the things it possesses, and saddened by the 
 want which it experiences. And therefore it has been well 
 said by philosophers that real happiness would exclude desire ; 
 in other words not only at the gate of hell, but at the porch 
 of heaven, he who entered would leave hope behind him. For 
 perfect bliss is but supreme content. And if content could 
 say to itself, " But I hope for something more," it would de- 
 stroy its own existence.
 
 132 PAUSANIA^;, THE SPARTAN-. 
 
 From his brief slumber the Spartan rose refreshed. The 
 inimpets were sounding near him, and the very sound bright- 
 ened his aspect, and animated his spirits. 
 
 Agreeable to orders he had given the night before, the 
 anchor was raised, the rowers were on their benches, the 
 Hbationto the Carnean Apollo, under whose special protection 
 the ship was placed, had been poured forth, and with the ris 
 mg sea and to the blare of trumpets the gorgeous trireme 
 moved forth from the bay. 
 
 It moved, as the trumpets ceased, to the note of a sweeter, 
 but not less exciting, music. For, according to Hellenic 
 custom, to the rowers was allotted a musician, with whose 
 harmony their oars, when first putting forth to sea, kept time. 
 And on this occasion Alcman superseded the wonted per- 
 former by his own more popular song and the melody of his 
 richer voice. Standing by the mainmast, and holding the 
 large harp, which was stricken by the quill, its strings being 
 deepened by a sounding-board, he chanted an lo Paean to the 
 Dorian god of light and poesy. The harp at stated intervals 
 was supported by a burst of flutes, and the burden of the verse 
 was caught up by the rowers as in chorus. Thus, far and 
 wide over the shining waves, went forth the hymn. 
 
 lo, lo Paean ! slowly. Song and oar must chime together : 
 lo, lo Paean ! by what title call Apollo.? 
 Clarian.? Xanthian ? Boedromian .' 
 Countless are thy names, Apollo. 
 lo Carnee, lo Carnee ? 
 By the margent of Eurotas, 
 'Neath the shadows of Taygetus, 
 Thee the sons of Lacedsemon 
 Name Carneus. lo, lo ! 
 lo Carnee ! lo Carnee ! 
 
 lo, lo Paean ! quicker. Song and voice must chime together : 
 lo Pjean ! lo Paean ! King Apollo, lo, lo I 
 lo Carnee ! 
 
 For thine altars do the seasons 
 Paint the tributary flowers, 
 Spring thy hyacinth restores, 
 Summer greets thee with the rose, 
 Autumn the blue Cyane mingles 
 With the coronals of corn. 
 And in every wreath thy laurel 
 Weaves its everlasting green. 
 lo Carnee ! lo Carnee ! 
 For the brows Apollo favors 
 Spring and winter does the laurel 
 Weave its everlasting green.
 
 "33 
 
 PAUSANIAS. THE SPARTAN. 
 
 lo, lo Psean ! louder. Voice and oar must chime together : 
 
 For the brows Apollo favors 
 Even Ocean bears the laure.. 
 Id Carnee ! lo ("arnee ! 
 
 lo, lo Pasan ! stronger. Strong are those who win the laurel. 
 
 As the ship of the Spartan commander thus bore out to 
 sea, the other vessels of the armament had been gradually 
 forming themselves into a crescent, preserving still the ordei 
 in which the allies maintained their several contributions to 
 the fleet, the Athenian ships at the extreme end occupying 
 the right wing, the Peloponnesians massed together at the 
 left. 
 
 The Chian galleys adjoined the Samian ; for Uliades and 
 Antagoras had contrived that their ships should be close to 
 each other, so that they might take counsel at any moment 
 and act in concert. 
 
 And now when the fleet had thus opened its arms, as it 
 were, to receive the commander, the great trireme of Pau- 
 sanias began to veer round, and to approach the half moon 
 of the expanded armament. On it came, with its beaked 
 prow, like a falcon swooping down on some array of the 
 lesser birds. 
 
 From the stern hung a gilded shield and a crimson 
 pennon. The heavy-armed soldiers in their Spartan mail 
 occupied the centre of the vessel, and the sun shone full 
 upon their armor. 
 
 " By Pallas the guardian," said Cimon, " it is the Athe- 
 nian vessels that the strategus honors with his first visit." 
 
 And indeed the Spartan galley now came alongside that 
 of Aristides, the admiral of the Athenian navy. 
 
 The soldiers on board the former gave way on either 
 side. And a murmur of admiration circled through the 
 Athenian ship, as Pausanias suddenly appeared. For, as if 
 bent that day on either awing mutiny or conciliating the 
 discontented, the Spartan chief had wisely laid aside the 
 wondrous Median robes. He stood on her stern in the 
 aimor he had worn at Plattea, resting one hand upon his 
 shield, which itself rested on the deck. His head alone 
 was uncovered, his long sable locks gathered up into a knot, 
 in the Spartan fashion, a crest, as it were, in itself to that 
 lofty head. And so imposing were his whole air and car- 
 riage, that Cimon, gazing at him, muttered, " What profane 
 hand will dare to rob that demi-god of command ? "
 
 J34 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN- 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Pausanias came on board the vessel of the Athenian 
 admiral, attended by the five Spartan chiefs who have been 
 mentioned before as the warlike companions assigned to 
 him. He relaxed the haugJity demeanor which had given 
 so much displeasure, adopting a tone of marked courtesy. 
 He spoke with high and merited praise of the seamen-like 
 appearance of the Athenian crews, and the admirable build 
 and equipment of their vessels. 
 
 "Pity only," said he, smiling, " that we have no Persians 
 on the ocean now, and that instead of their visiting us we 
 must go in search of them." 
 
 " Would that be wise on our part ? " said Aristides. " Is 
 not Greece large enough for Greeks ? " 
 
 " Greece has not done growing," answered the Spartan ; 
 " and the gods forbid that she should do so. When man 
 ceases to grow in height he expands in bulk ; when he stops 
 there too, the frame begins to stoop, the muscles to shrink, 
 the skin to shrivel, and decrepit old age steals on. I have 
 heard it said of the Athenians that they think nothing done 
 while aught remains to do. Is it not truly said, worthy son 
 of Miltiades ? " 
 
 Cimon bowed his head. " General, I can not disavow the 
 sentiment. But if Greece entered Asia, would it not be as 
 a river that runs into a sea ? it expands, and is merged." 
 
 " The river, Cimon, may lose the sweetness of its wave, 
 and take the brine of the sea. But the Greek can never lose 
 the flavor of the Greek genius ; and could he penetrate the uni- 
 verse, the universe would be Hellenized. But if, O Athenian 
 chiefs, ye judge that we have now done all that is needful to 
 protect Athens, and awe the Barbarian, ye must be long- 
 ing to retire from the armament and return to your homes." 
 
 " When it is fit that we should return, we shall be re- 
 called," said Aristides, quietly. 
 
 " What, is your state so unerring in its judgment .-' Expe- 
 '■ienco does not permit me to think so, for it ostracizes Aris- 
 tides." 
 
 " An honor," replied the Athenian, " that I did not de- 
 serve, but an action that, had I been the adviser of those
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTA.V. 135 
 
 who sent me forth, I should have opposed as too lenient. 
 Instead of ostracizing me, they should have cast both myself 
 and Themistocles into the Barathrum." 
 
 " You speak with true Attic honor, and I comprehend 
 that where, in commonwealths constituted like yours, party 
 runs high, and the state itself is shaken, ostracism may be a 
 necessarv tribute to the verv virtues that attract the zeal ol 
 a party and imperil the equality ye so prize. But what can com- 
 pensate to a state for the evil of depriving itself of its great- 
 est citizens ? " 
 
 " Peace and freedom," said Aristides. " If you would 
 have the young trees thrive, you must not let one tree be so 
 large as to overshadow them. Ah, General, at Plataea," 
 added the Athenian, in a benignant whisper, for the grand 
 image before him moved his heart with a mingled feeling of 
 generous admiration and prophetic pity — " ah, pardon me if 
 I remind thee of the ring of Polycrates, and say that Fortune 
 is a queen that requires tribute. Man should tremble most 
 when most seemingly fortune-favored, and guard most 
 against a fall when his rise is at the highest." 
 
 " But it is only at its highest flight that the eagle is safe 
 from the arrow," answered Pausanias. 
 
 " And the nest the eagle has forgotten in her soaring is 
 the most exposed to the spoiler." 
 
 " Well, my nest is in rocky Sparta ; hardy the spoiler who 
 ventures thither. Yet, to descend from these speculative 
 comparisons, it seems that thou hast a friendly and meaning 
 purpose in thy warnings. Thou knowest that there are in 
 this armament men who grudge to me whatever I now owe 
 to Fortune ; who would topple me from the height to which 
 I did not climb, but was led by the congregated Greeks ; and 
 who, while, perhaps, they are forging arrow-heads for the 
 eagle, have sent to place poison and a snare in its distant 
 nest. So the Nausicaa is on a voyage to S]Darta, conveying 
 to the Ephors complaint against me — complaints from men 
 who fought by my side against the Mede ! " 
 
 " I have heard that a Cyprian vessel left yesterday, bound 
 to Laconia. I have heard that it does bear men charged by 
 some of the lonians with representations unfavorable to the 
 continuance of thy command. It bears none from me as the 
 Nauarchus of the Athenians. But — " 
 
 " But— what ? " 
 
 " But I have complained to thyself, Pausanias, in vain." 
 
 " Hast thou complained of late, and in vain ? "
 
 136 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 « Nay." 
 
 " Honest men may err. If they amend, do just men con* 
 tinue to accuse ? " 
 
 " I do not accuse, Pausanias ; I but imply that those who 
 do may have a cause ; but it will be heard before a tribunal 
 of thine own countrymen, and doubtless thou hast sent to the 
 tribunal those who may meet the charge on thy behalf." 
 
 " Well," said Pausanias, still preserving his studied ur- 
 banity and lofty smile, " even Agamemnon and Achilles quar- 
 elled; but Greece took Troy not the less. And, at least, 
 since Aristides does not denounce me, if I have committed 
 even worse faults than Agamemnon, I have not made an ene- 
 my of Achilles. And if," he added, after a pause, " if some 
 of these lonians, not waiting for the return of their envoys, 
 openly mutiny, they must be treated as Thersites was." 
 Then he hurried on quickly, for, observing that Cimon's brow 
 lowered and his lips quivered, he desired to cut off all words 
 that might lead to altercation. 
 
 " But I have a request to ask of the Athenian Nauarchus. 
 Will you gratify myself and the fleet by putting your Athenian 
 triremes into play ? Your seamen are so famous for their 
 manoeuvres that they might furnish us with sports of more 
 grace and agility than do the Lydian dancers. Landsman 
 though I be, no sight more glads mine eye than these sea- 
 lions of pine and brass, bounding under the yoke of their 
 tamers. I presume not to give thee instructions what to per- 
 form. Who can dictate to the seamen of Salamis ? But 
 when your ships have played out their martial sport, let them 
 exchange stations with the Peloponnesian vessels, and occupy 
 for the present the left of the armament. Ye object not ? " 
 
 " Place us where thou wilt, as was said to thee at Platsea," 
 answered Aristides. 
 
 " 1 now leave ye to prepare, Athenians, and greet ye, 
 saying. The Good to the Beautiful." 
 
 " A wondrous presence for a Greek commander ! " said 
 Cimon, as Pausanias again stood on the stern of his own ves- 
 sel, which moved off toward the ships of the Islands. 
 
 " And no mean capacity," returned Aristides. " See you 
 not his object in transplacing us ? " 
 
 " Ha, truly ; in case of mutiny on board the Ionian ships, 
 he separates them from Athens. But woe to him if he thinks 
 in his heart that an Ionian is a Thersites, to be silenced by 
 the blow of a sceptre. Meanwhile let the Greeks see what 
 manner of seaman are the Athenians. Methinks this game
 
 PA us AN/ AS, THE SPARTA fT. 
 
 137 
 
 ordained to us is a contest before Neptune, and for a crown." 
 
 Pausanias bore right on toward the vessels from the 
 ^gean Isles. Their masts and prows were heavy with gar- 
 lands, but no music sounded from their decl-:s, no welcoming 
 shout from their crews. 
 
 " Son of Cleombrotus," said the prudent Erasinidas, 
 "sullen dogs bite. Unwise the stranger who trusts himself 
 to their kennel. Pass not to those triremes ; let the captains, 
 if thou wantest them, come to thee." 
 
 Pausanias replied, '• Dogs fear the steady eye and spring 
 at the recreant back. Helmsman, steer to yonder ship with 
 the olive-tree on the parasemon, and the image of Bacchus 
 on the guardian standard. It is the ship of Antagoras, the 
 Chian captain." 
 
 Pausanias turned to his warlike Five. " This time, for- 
 give me, I go alone." And before their natural Spartan 
 slowness enabled them to combat this resolution, their leader 
 was by the side of his rival, alone in the Chian vessel, and 
 surrounded by his sworn foes. 
 
 " Antagoras," said the Spartan, " a Chian seaman's ship 
 Is his dearest home. I stand on thy deck as at thy hearth, 
 and ask thy hospitality ; a crust of thy honeyed bread, and a 
 cup of thy Chian wine. For from thy ship I would see the 
 Athenian vessels go through their nautical gymnastics." 
 
 The Chian turned pale and trembled ; his vengeance was 
 braved and foiled. He was powerless against the man who 
 trusted to his honor, and asked to break of his bread and 
 drink of his cup. Pausanias did not appear to heed the embar- 
 rassment of his unwilling host, but, turning round, addressed 
 some careless words to the soldiers on the raised central 
 platform, and then quietly seated himself, directing his eyes 
 toward the Athenian ships. Upon these all the sails were 
 now lowered. In nice manoeuvres the seamen preferred 
 trusting to their oars. Presently one vessel started forth, and 
 with a swiftness that seemed to increase at everj^ stroke. 
 
 A table was brought upon deck and placed before Pau- 
 sanias, and the slaves began to serve to him such light food 
 as sufficed to furnish the customary meal of the Greeks in 
 the earlier forenoon. 
 
 " But where is mine host ? " asked the Spartan. " Does 
 Antagoras himself not deign to share a meal with his guest ? " 
 
 On receiving the message, Antagoras had no option but 
 to come forward. The Spartan eyed him deliberately, and
 
 138 PA us A NT AS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 the young Chian felt with secret rage the magic of that com- 
 manding eye. 
 
 Pausanias motioned to him to be seated, making room 
 beside himself. The Chian silently obeyed. 
 
 " Antagoras," said the Spartan, in a low voice, " thou art 
 doubtless one of those who have already infringed the laws 
 t>i military discipline and obedience. Interrupt me not yet. 
 A vessel, without waiting my permission, has left the fleet 
 ivith accusations against me, thy commander ; of what nature 
 I am not even advised. Thou wilt scarcely deny that thou 
 art one of those who sent forth the ship and shared in the 
 accusations. Yet I had thought that if I had ever merited 
 thine ill-will, there had been reconciliation between us in the 
 council-hall. What has chanced since ? Why shouldst thou 
 hate me } Speak frankly, frankly have I spoken to thee." 
 
 " General," replied Antagoras, " there is no hegemony 
 over men's hearts ; thou sayest truly, as man to man, I hate 
 thee. Wherefore ? Because, as man to man, thou standest 
 between me and happiness. Because thou wooest, and canst 
 only woo to dishonor, the virgin in whom I would seek the 
 sacred wife." 
 
 Pausanias slightly recoiled, and the courtesy he had sim- 
 ulated, and which was essentially foreign to his vehement 
 and haughty character, fell from him like a mask. For 
 with the words of Antagoras, jealousy passed within him, 
 and for the moment its agony was such that the Chian was 
 avenged. But he was too habituated to the stateliness of 
 self-control to give vent to the rage that seized him. He 
 only said, with a whitened and writhing lip, " Thou art right : 
 All animosities may yield, save those which a woman's eye 
 can kindle. Thou hatest me — be it so — that is as man to 
 man. But as officer to chieftain, I bid thee henceforth be- 
 ware how thou givest me cause to set this foot on the head 
 that lifts itself to the height of mine." 
 
 With that he rose, turned on his heel, and walked toward 
 the stern, where he stood apart, gazing on the Athenian 
 triremes, which by this time were in the broad sea. And 
 all the eyes in the fleet were turned toward that exhibition. 
 For marvellous were the ease and beauty with which these 
 ships went through their nautical movements : now as in 
 chase of each other ; now approaching as in conflict, veering 
 off, darting aside, threading, as it were, a harmonious maze, 
 gliding in and out, here, there, with the undulous celerity of 
 the serpent. The admirable build of the ships ; the perfect
 
 PA us A NI AS, THE SPARTAN: 139 
 
 skill of the seamen ; the noiseless docility and instinctive 
 comprehension by which they seemed to seize and to obey 
 the unforeseen signals of their Admiral — all struck the lively 
 Greeks that beheld the display, and universal was the thought, 
 if not the murmur, There was the power that should command 
 tlie Grecian seas. 
 
 Pausanias was too much accustomed to the sway of 
 masses not to have acquired that electric knowledge of what 
 circles among them from breast to breast, to which habit 
 gives the quickness of an instinct. He saw that he had com- 
 mitted an imprudence, and that in seeking to divert a mutiny 
 he had incurred a yet greater peril. 
 
 He returned to his own ship without exchanging another 
 word with Antagoras, who had retired to the centre of the 
 vessel, fearing to trust himself to a premature utterance of 
 that defiance which the last warning of his chief provoked, 
 and who was therefore arousing the soldiers to louder shouts 
 of admiration at the Athenian skill. 
 
 Rowing back toward the wing occupied by the Pelopon 
 nesian allies, of whose loyalty he was assured, Pausanias 
 then summoned on board their principal officer, and com- 
 municated to him his policy of placing the lonians not only 
 apart from the Athenians, but under the vigilance and control 
 of Peloponnesian vessels in the immediate neighborhood. 
 " Therefore," said he, " while the Athenians will occupy thia 
 wing, I wish you to divide yourselves ; the Lacedaemonian 
 ships will take the way the Athenians abandon, but tha 
 Corinthian triremes will place themselves between the ships 
 of the Islands and the Athenians. I shall give further orders 
 toward distributing the Ionian navy. And thus I trust either 
 all chance of a mutiny is cut off, or it will be put down at the 
 first outbreak. Now, give orders to your men to take the 
 places thus assigned to you. . And having gratified the vanity 
 of our friends, the Athenians, by their holiday evolutions, I 
 shall send to thank and release them from the fatigue so 
 gracefully borne." 
 
 All those with whom he here conferred, and who had no 
 love for Athens or Ionia, readily fell into the plan suggested. 
 Pausanias then despatched a Laconian vessel to the Athenian 
 Admiral, with complimentary messages and orders to cease 
 the manoeuvres, and then, heading the rest of the Laconian 
 contingent, made slow and stately way toward the station de- 
 serted by the Athenians. But, pausing once more before the 
 vessels of the Isles, he despatched orders to their several
 
 I40 PAUSANIAS. THE SPARTAN. 
 
 commanders, which had the effect of dividing their array, 
 and placing between them the powerful Corinthian service. 
 In the orders of the vessel he forwarded for this change, he 
 took especial care to dislocate the dangerous contiguity of 
 the Samian and Chian triremes. 
 
 The sun was declining toward the west when Pausanias 
 had marshalled the vessels he headed, at their new stations, 
 and the Athenian ships were already anchored close and se- 
 cured. But there was an evident commotion in that part of 
 the fleet to which the Corinthian galleys had sailed. The 
 lonians had received with indignant murmurs the command 
 which divided their strength. Under various pretexts each 
 vessel delayed to move ; and when the Corinthian ships came 
 to take a vacant space, they found a formidable array — the 
 soldiers on the platforms armed to the teeth. The confusion 
 was visible to the Spartan chief ; the loud hubbub almost 
 reached to his ears. He hastened toward the place ; but 
 anxious to continue the gracious part he had so unwontedly 
 played that day, he cleared his decks of their formidable hop- 
 lites, lest he might seem to meet menace by menace, and, 
 drafting them into other vessels, and accompanied only by 
 his personal serving-men and rowers, he put forth alone, the 
 gilded shield and the red banner still displayed at his 
 stern. 
 
 But as he was thus conspicuous and solitary, and midway 
 in the space left between the Laconian and Ionian galleys, 
 suddenly two ships from the latter darted forth, passed 
 through the centre of the Corinthian contingent, and steered, 
 with the force of all their rowers, right toward the Spartan's 
 ship. 
 
 " Surely," said Pausanias, " that is the Chian's vessel. I 
 recognize the vine-tree and the image of the Bromian god ; 
 and surely that other one is the Chimera under Uliades, the 
 Samian. They come hither, the Ionian with them, to harangue 
 against obedience to my orders." 
 
 " They come hither to assault us," exclaimed Erasinidas ; 
 " their beaks are right upon us." 
 
 He had scarcely spoken, when the Chian's brass prow 
 smote the gilded shield, and rent the red banner from its 
 staff. At the same time the Chi?nera, under Uliades, struck 
 the right side of the Spartan ship, and with both strokes the 
 stout vessel reeled and dived. " Know, Spartan," cried 
 Antagoras, from the platform in the midst of his soldiers^
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. \a\ 
 
 " that we lonians hold together. He who would separate 
 means to conquer us. VVe disown thy hegemony. If ye 
 would seek us, we are with the Athenians." 
 
 With that the two vessels, having performed their inso- 
 lent and daring feat, veered and shot off with the same rapid- 
 ity with which they had come to the assault; and, as they 
 did so, hoisted the Athenian ensign over their own national 
 standards. The instant that signal was given, from the other 
 Ionian vessels, which had been evidently awaiting it, there 
 came a simultaneous shout; and all, vacating their place and 
 either gliding through or wheeling round the Corinthian 
 galleys, steered toward the Athenian fleet. 
 
 The trireme of Pausanias, meanwhile, sorely damaged, 
 part of its side rent away, and the water rushing in, swayed 
 and struggled alone in great peril of sinking. 
 
 Instead of pursuing the lonians, the Corinthian galleys 
 made at once to the aid of the insulted commander. 
 
 " Oh," cried Pausanias, in powerless wrath, " oh, the ac- 
 cursed element ! Oh that mine enemies had attacked me on 
 the land ! " 
 
 " How are we to act ? " said Aristides. 
 
 " We are citizens of a Republic in which the majority 
 govern," answered Cimon. " And the majority here tell us 
 how we are to act. Hark to the shouts of our men, as they 
 are opening way for their kinsmen of the Isles." 
 
 The sun sunk, and with it sunk the Spartan maritime as- 
 cendency over Hellas. And from that hour in which the 
 Samian and the Chian insulted the galley of Pausanias, if we 
 accord weight to the authority on which Plutarch must have 
 based his tale, commenced the brief and glorious sovereignty 
 of Athens. Commence when and how it might, it was an 
 epoch most signal in the records of the ancient world for its 
 results upon a civilization to which as yet human foresight 
 can predict no end.
 
 142 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 BOOK FOUR. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 We pass from Byzantium; we are in Spaita. In the 
 Archeion, or office of the Ephoralty, sat five men, all some- 
 what advanced in years. These constituted that stern and 
 terrible authority which had gradually, and from unknown 
 beginnings,* assumed a kind of tyranny over the descend- 
 ants of Hercules themselves. They were the representatives 
 of the Spartan people, elected without reference to rank or. 
 wealth,! and possessing jurisdiction not only over the Helots 
 and Laconians, but over most of the magistrates. They 
 could suspend or terminate any office ; they could accuse 
 the kings, and bring them before a court in which they them- 
 selves were judges upon trial of life and death. They ex- 
 ercised control over the armies and the embassies sent 
 abroad ; and the king, at the head of his forces, was still 
 bound to receive his instructions from this Council of Five. 
 Their duty, in fact, was to act as a check upon the kings, 
 and they were the representatives of that nobility which em- 
 braced the whole Spartan people, in contradistinction to the 
 Laconians and Helots. 
 
 The conference in which they engaged seemed to rivet 
 their most earnest attention. And as the presiding Ephor 
 continued the observations he addressed to them, the rest 
 listened with profound and almost breathless silence. 
 
 The speaker, named Periclides, was older than the others. 
 His frame, still upright and sinewy, was yet lean almost to 
 
 * K. O. Miiller ("Dorians"), book 3, ch. 7, § 2. According to 
 Aristotle, Cicero, and others, the Ephoralty was founded by Theopom- 
 pus subsequently to the mythical time of Lycurgus. To Lycurgus him- 
 self it is referred by Xenophun and Herodotus. Miiller considers rightly 
 that, though an ancient Doric institution, it was incompatible with the 
 primitive constitution of Lycurgus, and had gradually acquired its 
 peculiar character by causes operating on the Spartan State alone. 
 
 t Aristot., Pol. ii.
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 143 
 
 emaciation, his face sharp, and his dark eyes gleamed with 
 a cunning and sinister light under his gray brows. 
 
 '' If," said he, " we are to believe these lonians, Pausanias 
 meditates some deadly injury to Greece. As for the com 
 plaints of his arrogance, they aie to be received with due 
 caution. Our Spartans, accustomed to the peculiar disci- 
 pline of the Laws of .^gimius, rarely suit the humors of 
 lonians and innovators. The question to consider is not 
 whether he has been too imperious toward lonians who were 
 but the other day subjected to the Mede, but whether he 
 can make the command he received from Sparta menacing 
 to Sparta herself. We lend him iron, he hath holpen him- 
 self to gold." 
 
 " Besides the booty at Platsa, they say that he has 
 amassed much jDlunder at Byzantium," said Zeuxidamus. one 
 of the Ephors, after a pause. 
 
 Periclides looked hard at the speaker, and the two men 
 exchanged a significant glance. 
 
 " For my part," said a third, a man of a severe but noble 
 countenance, the father of Lysander, and, what was not 
 usual with the Ephors, belonging to one of the highest 
 families of Sparta, " I have always held that Sparta should 
 limit its policy to self-defense ; that, since the Persian inva- 
 sion is over, we have no business with Byzantium. Let the 
 busy Athenians obtain, if they will, the empire of the sea 
 The sea is no province of ours. All intercourse with for 
 eigners, Asiatics and lonians, enervates our men and cor 
 rupts our generals. Recall Pausanias — recall our Spartans. 
 I have said." 
 
 " Recall Pausanias first," said Periclides, " and we shall 
 then hear the truth, and decide what is best to be done." 
 
 " If he has Medized, if he has conspired against Greece, 
 let us accuse him to the death, " said Agesilaus, Lysander's 
 father. 
 
 " We may accuse, but it rests not with us to sentence, " 
 said Periclides, disapprovingly. 
 
 " And, " said a fourth Ephor, with a visible shudder, 
 "what Spartan dare counsel sentence of death to the 
 descendant of the gods ? " 
 
 " I dare .'' " replied Agesilaus; " but provided only that 
 the descendant of the gods had counselled death to Greece. 
 And for that reason, I say that I would not, without evidence 
 the clearest, even harbor the thought that a Heracleid could 
 meditate treason to his country. "
 
 144- PAUSAXIAS, THE SPARTAN; 
 
 Periclides felt the reproof, and bit his lips. 
 " Besides, " observed Zeuxidamus, *' fines enrich the 
 stale. " Periclides nodded approvingly. 
 
 An expression of lofty contempt passed over the brow 
 and lip of Agesilaus. But with national self-command, he 
 replied gravely, and with equal laconic brevity, " If Pausa- 
 nias hath committed a trivial error that a fine can expiate, so 
 be it. But talk not of fines till ye acquit hinj of all treason- 
 able connivance with the Mede. " 
 
 At that moment an officer entered on the conclave, and, 
 approaching the presiding Ephor, whispered in his ear. 
 
 " This is well, " exclaimed Periclides, aloud. " A messen- 
 ger from Pausanias himself. Your son Lysander has just 
 arrived from Byzantium." 
 
 " My son ! " exclaimed Agesilaus, eagerly, and then, check- 
 ing himself, added calmly, " That is a sign no danger to 
 Sparta threatened Byzantium when he left. " 
 " Let him be admitted, " said Periclides. 
 Lysander entered ; and, pausing at a little distance from 
 the council-board, inclined his head submissively to the 
 Ephors : save a rapid interchange of glances, no separate 
 greeting took place between son and father. 
 
 " Thou art welcome," said Periclides. " Thou hast done 
 thy duty since thou hast left the city. Virgins will praise 
 thee as the brave man ; age, more sober, is contented to say 
 thou hast upheld the Spartan name. And thy father without 
 shame may take thy hand. " 
 
 A warm flush spread over the young man's face. He 
 stepped forward with a quick step, his eyes beaming with 
 joy. Calm and stately, his father rose, clasped the extended 
 hand, then releasing his own, placed it an instant on his son's 
 bended head, and reseated himself in silence. 
 
 " Thou earnest straight from Pausanias ? " said Periclides. 
 
 Lysander drew from his vest the despatch intrusted to 
 
 him, and gave it to the presiding Ephor. Periclides half rose, 
 
 as if to take with more respect what had come from the hand 
 
 of the son of Hercules. 
 
 '• Withdraw, Lysander, " he said, " and wait without, 
 while we deliberate on the contents herein." 
 
 Lysander obeyed, and returned to the outer chamber. 
 Here he was instantly surrounded by eager, though not 
 noisy, groups. Some in that chamber were waiting on busi- 
 ness connected with the civil jurisdiction of the Ephors. 
 Some had gained admittance for the purpose of greeting their
 
 PA us A NT AS, TjIE SPARTAN. 145 
 
 brave countryman, and hearing news of the distant camp from 
 one who had so lately quit the great Pausanias. For men 
 could talk without restraint of their General, though it was but 
 with reserve and indirectly that they slid in some furtive 
 question as to the health and safety of a brother or a son. 
 
 " My heart warms to be among ye again," said the sim- 
 ple Spartan youth. " As I came through the defiles from the 
 sea-coast, and saw on the height the gleam from the old 
 Temple of Pallas Chalcioecus, I said to myself, ' Blessed be 
 the gods that ordained me to live with Spartans or die with 
 Sparta !' " 
 
 " Thou wilt see how much we shall make of thee, Ly- 
 sander," cried a Spartan youth a little younger than himself, 
 one of the superior tribe of the Hylleans. " We have heard 
 of thee at Plataea. It is said that had Pausanias not been 
 there thou wouldst have been called the bravest Greek in the 
 armament." 
 
 " Hush !" said Lysander, " thy few years excuse thee, 
 foung friend. Save our General, we were all equals in the 
 day of battle." 
 
 " So thinks not my sister Percalus, " whispered the youth 
 archly ; " scold her as thou dost me, if thou dare," 
 
 Lysander colored, and replied in a voice that slightly 
 trembled, " I cannot hope that thy sister interests herself in 
 me. Nay, when I left Sparta, I thought — " He checked 
 himself. 
 
 "Thought what ? " 
 
 *' That among those who remained behind, Percalus 
 might find her betrothed long before I returned." 
 
 "Among those who remained behind/ Percalus! How 
 meanly thou must think of her ! " 
 
 Before Lysander could utter the eager assurance that he 
 was very far from thinking meanly of Percalus, the other by- 
 standers, impatient at this whispered colloquy, seized his 
 attention with a volley of questions, to which he gave but 
 curt and not very relevant answers, so much had the lad's 
 few sentences disturbed the calm tenor of his existing self- 
 possession. Nor did he quite regain his presence of mind 
 until he was once more summoned into the presence of the 
 Ephors.
 
 146 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The communication of Pausanias had caused an animzited 
 discussion in the Council, and led to a strong division of 
 opinion. But the faces of the Ephors, rigid and composed, 
 revealed nothing to guide the sagacity of Lysander as ne re- 
 entered the chamber. He himself, by a strong effort, had 
 recovered from the disturbance into which the words of the 
 boy had thrown his mind, and he stood before the Ephors 
 intent upon the object of defending the name and fulfilling 
 the commands of his chief. So reverent and grateful was 
 the love that he bore to Pausanias that he scarcely permit- 
 ted himself even to blame the deviations from Spartan 
 austerity which he secretly mourned in his mind ; and as to 
 the grave guilt of treason to the Hellenic cause, he had 
 never suffered the suspicion of it to rest upon an intellect 
 that only failed to be penetrating where its sight was limited 
 by discipline and affection. He felt that Pausanias had in- 
 trusted to him his defense ; and though he would fain, in his 
 secret heart, have beheld the Regent once more in Sparta, 
 yet he well knew that it was the duty of obedience and friend, 
 ship to plead against the sentence of recall which was so 
 dreaded by his chief. 
 
 With all his thoughts collected toward that end, he stood 
 before the Ephors, modest in demeanor, vigilant in purpose. 
 
 " Lysander," said Periclides, after a short pause, " we 
 know thy affection to the Regent, thy chosen friend ; but we 
 know, also, thy affection for thy native Sparta : where the 
 two may come into conflict, it is, and it must be, thy country 
 which will claim the preference. We charge thee, by virtue 
 of our high powers and authority, to speak the truth on the 
 questions we shall address to thee, without fear or favor." 
 
 Lysander bowed his head. " I am in presence of Sparta 
 my mother, and Agesilaus my father. They know that I was 
 not reared to lie to either." 
 
 " Thou say'st well. Now answer. Is it true that Pau- 
 sanias wears the robes of the Mede ? " 
 
 " It is true." 
 
 " And has he stated to thee his reasons ? " 
 
 " Not only to me, but to others." 
 
 " What are they ? "
 
 PA USA NI AS, THE SPARTAiV. 147 
 
 " That, in the mixed and half-Medized population of By- 
 zantium, splendor of attire has become so associated with 
 the notion of sovereign power that the Eastern dress and at- 
 tributes of pomp are essential to authority ; and that men 
 bow before his tiara who might rebel against the helm and 
 the horse-hair. Outward signs have a value, O Ephors, ac- 
 cording to the notions men are brought up to attach to them." 
 
 " Good," said one of the Ephors. " There is in this de- 
 parture from our habits, be it right or wrong, no sign, then, 
 of connivance with the Barbarian." 
 
 " Connivance is a thing secret and concealed, and shuns 
 all outward signs." 
 
 " But," said Periclides, " what say the other Spartan 
 captains to this vain fashion, which savors not of the laws of 
 .^gimius ? " 
 
 " The first law of ^gimius commands us to fight and to 
 die for the king or the chief who has kingly sway. The 
 Ephors may blame, but the soldier must not question." , 
 
 "■ Thou speakest boldly for so young a man," said Peri- 
 clides, harshly. 
 
 " I was commanded to speak the truth." 
 
 " Has Pausanias intrusted the command of Byzantium tc 
 Gongylus the Eretrian, who already holds four provinces 
 under Xerxes ? " 
 
 " He has done so." 
 
 " Know you the reason for that selection ? " 
 
 " Pausanias says that the Eretrian could not more show 
 ■is faith to Hellas than by resigning Eastern satrapies so 
 fast." 
 
 " Has he resigned them ? '•' 
 
 " I know not ; but I presume that when the Persian 
 King knows that the Eretrian is leagued against him with 
 die other captains of Hellas, he will assign the satrapies to 
 Another." 
 
 " And is it true that the Persian prisoners, Ariamanes aiid 
 Datis, have escaped from the custody of Gongylus ? " 
 
 " It is true. The charge against Gongylus for that error 
 was heard in a council of confederate captains, and no proof 
 against him was brought forward. Cimon was intrusted with 
 the pursuit of the prisoners. Pausanias himself sent forth 
 fifty scouts on Thessalian horses. The prisoners were not 
 discovered." 
 
 " Is it true," said Zeuxidamus, " that Pausanias has 
 amassed much plunder at Byzantium ? " 
 
 " What he has w on as a conqueror was assigned to him
 
 1 48 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 by common voice ; but he has spent largely out of his own 
 resources in securing the Greek sway at Byzantium." 
 
 There was a silence. None liked to question the young 
 soldier further; none liked to put the direct- question, 
 whether or not the Ionian embassador could have cause for 
 suspecting the descendant of Hercules of harm against the 
 Greeks. At length Agesilaus said : — 
 
 u 
 
 I demand the word, and I claim the right to speak 
 plainly. My son is young, but he is of the blood of Hyllus. 
 " Son, Pausanias is dear to thee. Man soon dies : man's 
 name lives forever. Dear to thee if Pausanias is, dearer 
 must be his name. In brief, the Ionian embassadors com- 
 plain of his arrogance toward the confederates ; they de- 
 mand his recall. Cimon has addressed a private letter to 
 the Spartan host, with whom he lodged here, intimating that 
 it may be the best for the honor of Pausanias, and for our 
 weight with the allies, to hearken to the Ionian embassy. It 
 is agrave question, therefore, whether we should recall the 
 Regent or refuse to hear these charges. Thou art fresh 
 from Byzantium ; thou must know more of this matter than 
 we. Loose thy tongue, put aside equivocation. Say thy 
 mind ; it is for us to decide afterward what is our duty to the 
 
 state." 
 
 " I thank thee, my father," said Lysander, coloring deeply 
 at a compliment paid rarely to one so young, " and thus I 
 answer thee : 
 
 " Pausanias, in seeking to enforce discipline and preserve 
 the Spartan supremacy, was at first somewhat harsh and 
 severe to these lonians, who had indeed but lately emanci- 
 pated themselves from the Persian yoke, and who were lit- 
 tle accustomed to steady rule. But of late he has been af- 
 fable and courteous, and no complaint was urged against 
 him for austerity at the time when this embassy was sent to 
 you. Wherefore was it then sent ? Partly, it may be, from 
 moti^^es of private hate, not public zeal, but partly because 
 the Ionian race sees with reluctance and jealousy the he- 
 gemony of Sparta. I would speak plainly. It is not for 
 me to say whether ye will or not that Sparta should retain 
 the maritime supremacy of Hellas ; but if ye do will it, ye 
 will not recall Pausanias. No other than the Conqueror of 
 Plataea has a chance of maintaining that authority. Eager 
 would the lonians be upon any pretext, false or frivolous, to 
 rid themselves of Pausanias. Artfully willing would be the 
 Athenians in especial that ye listened to such pretexts ; for 
 Pausanias gone, Athens remains and rules. On what be-
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 145 
 
 longs to the policy of the state it becomes not me to proffer 
 a word, O Ephors. In what I have said I speak what the 
 whole armament thinks and mumiurs. But this I may say as 
 soldier to whom the honor of his chief is dear : The recall of 
 Pausanias may or may not be wise as a public act, but it will 
 be regarded throughout all Hellas as a personal affront to 
 your General ; it will lower the royalty of Sparta, it will be 
 an insult to the blood of Hercules. Forgive me, O venerable 
 magistrates. I have fought by the side of Pausanias, and I 
 cannot dare to think that the great Conqueror of Plataea, the 
 man who saved Hellas from the Mede, the man who raised 
 Sparta on that day to a renown which penetrated the farthest 
 corners of the East, will receive from you other return than 
 fame and glor}^ And fame and glory will surely make that 
 proud spirit doubly Spartan.'' 
 
 Lysander paused, breathing hard and coloring deeply — 
 annoyed with himself for a speech of which both the length 
 and the audacity were much more Ionian than Spartan. 
 
 The Ephors looked at each other, and there was again 
 silence. 
 
 " Son of Agesilaus," said Periclides, *' thou hast proved 
 thy Lacedaemonian virtues too well, and too high and general 
 is thy repute among our army, as it is borne to our ears, for 
 us to doubt thy purity and patriotism ; otherwise, we might 
 fear that while thou speakest in some contempt of Ionian 
 wolves, thou hadst learned the arts of Ionian Agoras. But 
 enough : thou art dismissed. Go to thy home ; glad the 
 eyes of thy mother ; enjoy the honors thou wilt find awaiting 
 thee among thy coevals. Thou wilt learn later whether thou 
 return to Byzantium, or whether a better field for thy valoi 
 may not be found in the nearer war with which Arcadia 
 threatens us." 
 
 As soon as Lysander left the chamber, Agesilaus spoke : 
 
 " Ye will pardon me, Ephors, if I bid my son speak thus 
 boldly. I need not say I am no vain, foolish father, desiring 
 to raise the youth above his years. But, making allowance 
 for his partiality to the Regent, ye will grant that he is a fair 
 specimen of our young soldier}\ Probably, as he speaks, so 
 will our young men think. To recall Pausanias is to dis- 
 grace our General. Ye have my mind. If the Regent be 
 guilty of the darker charges insinuated — correspondence with 
 the Persian against Greece — I know but one sentence for 
 him — Death. And it is because I would have ye consider well 
 how dread is such a charge, and how awful such a sentence,
 
 i-o PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAIV. 
 
 that I entreat ye not lightly to entertain the one unless ye 
 are prepared to meditate the other. As for the maritime 
 supremacy of Sparta, I hold, as I have held before, that it is 
 not within our councils to strive for it : it must pass from us. 
 We may surrender it later with dignity. If we recall our 
 General on such complaints, we lose it with humiliation." 
 
 " I agree with Agesilaus," said anot-her. " Pausanias is a 
 Heracleid ; my vote shall not insult him." 
 
 " I agree, too, with Agesilaus," said a third Ephor ; " not 
 because Pausanias is the Heracleid, but because he is the 
 victorious General who demands gratitude and respect from 
 every true Spartan." 
 
 " Be it so," said Periclides, who, seeing himself thus out- 
 voted in the council, covered his disappointment with the 
 self-control habitual to his race. " But be we in no hurry to 
 give these Ionian legates their answer to-day. We must de- 
 liberate well how to send such a reply as may be most con- 
 ciliating and prudent. And for the next few days we have an 
 excuse for delay in the religious ceremonials due to the 
 venerable Divinity of Fear, which commence to-morrow. 
 Pass we to the other business before us ; there are many 
 whom we have kept waiting. Agesilaus, thou art excused 
 from the public table to-day, if thou wouldst sup with thy 
 brave son at home." 
 
 " Nay," said Agesilaus, " my son will go to his pheidition 
 and I to mine — as I did on the day when I lost my first- 
 born." 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 On quitting the Hall of the Ephors, Lysander found 
 himself at once on the Spartan Agora, wherein that hall 
 was placed. This was situated on the highest of the five 
 hills, over which the unwalled city spread its scattered poj> 
 ulation, and was popularly called the Tower. Before the 
 eyes of the young Spartan rose the statues, rude and antique, 
 of Latona, the Pythian Apollo, and his sister Artemis 
 — venerable images to Lysander's early associations. The 
 place which they consecrated was called Chorus ; for there, 
 in honor of Apollo, and in the most pompous of all the 
 Spartan festivals, the young men were accustomed to lead 
 the sacred dance. The Temple of Apollo himself stood a
 
 PA us Am AS, THE SPARTAN: 151 
 
 little in the background, and near to it that of Hera, But 
 more vast that any image of a god was a colossal statues 
 which represented the Spartan people ; while on a still loft- 
 ier pinnacle of the hill than that table-land which enclosed 
 the Agora — dominating, as it were, the whole city — soared 
 into the bright-blue sky the sacred Chalcioecus, or Temple 
 of the Brazen Pallas, darkening with its shadow another 
 fane toward the left dedicated to the Lacedaemonian Muses, 
 and receiving a gleam on the right from the brazen statue 
 of Zeus, which was said by tradition to have been made by a 
 disciple of Daedalus himself. 
 
 But short time had Lvsander to note undisturbed the old 
 familiar scenes. A crowd of his early friends had already 
 collected round the doors of the Archeion, and rushed for- 
 ward to greet and welcome him. The Spartan coldness 
 and austerity of social intercourse vanished always before 
 the enthusiasm created by the return to his native city ot 
 a man renowned for valor ; and Lysander's fame had come 
 back to Sparta before himself. Joyously, and in triumph, 
 the young men bore away their comrade. As they passed 
 through the centre of the Agora, where assembled the vari- 
 ous merchants and farmers, who, under the name of Perioeci, 
 carried on the main business of the Laconian mart, and were 
 often much wealthier than the Spartan citizens, trade ceased 
 its hubbub ; all drew near to gaze on the young warrior ; 
 and now, as they turned from the Agora, a group of eager 
 women met them on the road, and shrill voices exclaimed, 
 " Go, Lysander, thou hast fought well — go and choose for 
 thyself tlie maiden that seems to thee the fairest. Go, marry, 
 and get sons for Sparta." 
 
 Lysander's step seemed to tread on air, and tears of rapt- 
 ure stood in his downcast eyes. But suddenly all the voices 
 hushed ; the crowds drew back ; his friends halted. Close 
 by the great Temple rf Fear, and coming from some place 
 within its sanctuary, there approached towards the Spartan 
 and his comrades a majestic woman — a woman of so grand 
 a step and port, that, though her veil as yet hid her face, her 
 form alone sufficed to inspire awe. All knew her by her gait 
 all made way for Alithea, the widow of a king, the mother of 
 Pausanias the Regent. Lysander, lifting his eyes from the 
 ground, impressed by the hush around him, recognized the 
 form as it advanced slowly toward him, and, leaving his com- 
 rades behind, stepped forward to salute the mother of his 
 chief. She, thus seeing him, turned slightly aside, and
 
 152 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAJV. 
 
 paused by a rude building of immemorial antiquity which 
 stood near the temple. That building was the tomb of the 
 mythical Orestes, whose bones were said to have been in- 
 terred there by the command of the Delphian Oracle. On a 
 stone at the foot of the tomb sat calmly down the veiled wo- 
 man, and waited the approach of Lysander. When he came 
 near, and alone — all the rest remaining aloof and silent — ■ 
 Alithea removed her veil, and a countenance grand and terri- 
 ble as that of a Fate lifted its rigid looks to the young Spar- 
 tan's eyes. Despite her age — for she had passed into middle 
 life before she had borne Pausanias — Alithea retained all the 
 traces of a marvellous and almost preterhuman beauty. But 
 it was not the beauty of woman. No softness sat on those 
 lips ; no love beamed from those eyes. Stern, inexorable — 
 not a fault in her grand proportions — the stoutest heart 
 might have felt a throb of terror as the eye rested upon that 
 pitiless and imposing front. And the deep voice of the 
 Spartan warrior had a slight tremor in its tone as it uttered 
 its respectful salutation. 
 
 " Draw near, Lysander. What sayest thou of my son ? " 
 
 " I left him well, and—" 
 
 " Does a Spartan mother first ask of the bodily health of 
 an absent man-child ? By the tomb of Orestes and near the 
 Temple of Fear, a king's widow asks a Spartan soldier what 
 he says of a Spartan chief." 
 
 " All Hellas," replied Lysander, recovering his spirit, 
 *' might answer thee best, Alithea. For all Hellas proclaimed 
 that the bravest man at Platjea was thy son, my chief." 
 
 " And where did my son, thy chief, learn to boast of bra- 
 ver)' ? They tell me he inscribed the offerings to the gods 
 with his name as the victor of Plataea — the battle won, not by 
 one man, but assembled Greece. The inscription that dis- 
 honors him by its vainglory will be erased. To be brave is 
 naught. Barbarians may be brave. But to dedicate bravery 
 to his native land becomes a Spartan. He who is everything 
 against a foe should count himself as nothing in the service of 
 his countr}'. 
 
 Lysander remaine 1 silent under the gaze of those fixed 
 and imperious eyes. 
 
 " Youth," said Alit - '•a, after a short pause, " if thou re- 
 tumest to Byzantium, >. ^7 this from Alithea to thy chief; 
 * From thy childhood, Pausanias, has thy mother feared for 
 thee ; and at the Temple of Fear did she sacrifice when she
 
 PAUSANTAS, THE SPARTAN-. 153 
 
 ceard that thou wert victorious at Plataea ; for in thy heart 
 are the seeds of arrogance and pride ; and victor}- to thine 
 arms may end in ruin to thy name. And ever since that day 
 does Alithea haunt the precincts of that temple. Come back 
 and be Spartan, as thine ancestors were before thee, and 
 AHthea will rejoice, and think the gods have heard her. But 
 if thou seest within thyself one cause why thy mother should 
 sacrifice to Fear, lest her son should break the laws of Sparta, 
 or sully his Spartan name, humble thyself, and mourn that thou 
 didst not perish at Plataea. By a temple and from a tomb I 
 bend thee warning.' Say this, I have done ; join thy 
 friends." 
 
 Again the veil fell over the face, and the figure of the 
 woman remained seated on the tomb long after the proces- 
 sion had passed on, and the mirth of young voices was again 
 released. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The group that attended Lysander continued to swell as 
 he mounted the aclivity on which his parental home was 
 placed. The houses of the Spartan proprietors were at that 
 day not closely packed together as in the dense population of 
 commercial towns. More like the villas of a suburb, they 
 lay a little apart, on the unequal surface of the rugged ground, 
 perfectly plain and unadorned, covering a large space with 
 ample courtyards, closed in, in front of the narrow streets. 
 And still was in force the primitive law which ordained that 
 doorways should be shaped only by the saw, and the ceilings 
 by the axe ; but in contrast to the rudeness of the private 
 houses, at ever}' opening in the street were seen the Doric 
 pillars or graceful stairs of a temple ; and high over all domi- 
 nated the Tower-hill, or Acropolis, with the antique fane of 
 Pallas Chalcioecus. 
 
 And so, loud and joyous, the procession bore the young 
 warrior to the threshold of his home. It was an act of public 
 honor to his fair repute and his proven valor. And the 
 Spartan felt as proud of that unceremonious attendance as 
 ever did Roman chief sweeping under arches of triumph in 
 the curule car.
 
 154 FAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 At the threshold of the door stood his mother — for the 
 tidings of his coming had preceded him — and his Uttle 
 brothers and sisters. His step quickened at the sight of these 
 beloved faces. 
 
 " Bound forward, Lysander," said one of the train 
 thou hast won the right to thy mother's kiss." 
 
 " But fail us not at the pheidition before sunset," cried 
 another, " Every one of the obe will send his best contribution 
 to the feast to welcome thee back. We shall have a rare ban- 
 quet of it." 
 
 And so, as his mother drew him within' the door, his arm 
 round her waist, and the children clung to his cloak, to his 
 knees, or sprung up to claim his kiss, the procession set up a 
 kind of chanted shout, and left the warrior in his home, 
 
 "Oh, this is joy, joy! " said Lysander, with sweet tears in 
 his eyes, as he sat in the women's apartment, his mother by 
 his side, and the little ones around him. " Where, save in 
 Sparta, does a man love a home ? " 
 
 And this exclamation, which might have astonished an 
 Ionian — seeing how much the Spartan civilian merged the 
 individual in the state — was yet true, where the Spartan 
 was wholly Spartan, where, by habit and association, he had 
 learned to love the severities of the existence that surrounded 
 him, and where the routine of duties which took him from 
 his home whether for exercises or the public tales, made yet 
 more precious the hours of rest and intimate intercourse 
 with his family. For the gay pleasures and lewd resort of 
 other Greek cities were not known to the Spartan. Not for 
 him were the cook-shops and baths and revels of Ionian idlers. 
 When the state ceased to -claim him, he had nothing but his 
 home. 
 
 As Lysander thus exclaimed, the door of the room had 
 opened noiselessly, and Agesilaus stood unperceived at the 
 entrance, and overheard his son. His face brightened sin- 
 gularly at Lysander's words. He came forward and opened his 
 arms. 
 
 "Embrace me now, my boy ! my brave boy ! embrace me 
 now ! The Ephors are not here." 
 
 Lysander turned, sprung up, and was in his father's 
 arms. 
 
 " So thou art not changed. Byzantium has not spoiled 
 thee. Thy name is uttered with praise unmixed with fear. 
 All Persia's gold, all the great king's satrapies, could not 
 Medize my Lysander. Ah, " continued the father, turning to
 
 PA USA NI AS, THE SPARTAN i^- 
 
 his wife, " who could have i^redicted the happiness of this 
 hour? Poor child ! he was born sickly. Hera had already 
 given us more sons than we could provide for, ere our land's 
 were increased by the death of thy childless relatives. Wife, 
 wife ! when the family council ordained him to be exposed on 
 Taygetus, when thou didst hide thyself lest thy tears should 
 be seen, and my voice trembled as I said, ' Be the laws 
 obeyed,' who could have guessed that the gods would yet 
 preserve him to be the pride of our house .? Blessed be Zeus 
 the saviour, and Hercules the warrior ! "* 
 
 " And," said the mother, " blessed be Pausanias, the de- 
 scendant of Hercules, who took the forlorn infant to his fa- 
 ther's home, and who has reared him now to be the example 
 of Spartan youths." 
 
 " Ah, " said Lysander, looking up into his father's eyes, 
 " if I can ever be worthy of your love, O my father, forget 
 not, I pray thee, that it is to Pausanias I owe life, home, and 
 a Spartan's glorious destiny." 
 
 " I forget it not," answered Agesilaus, with a mournful and 
 serious expression of countenance. " And on this I would 
 speak to thee. Thy mother must spare thee a while to me. 
 Come. I lean on thy shoulder instead of my staff." 
 
 Agesilaus led his son into the large hall, which was the 
 main chamber of the house ; and pacing up and down the 
 wide and solitary floor, questioned him closely as to the truth 
 of the stories respecting the Regent which had reached the 
 Ephors. 
 
 " Thou must speak with naked heart to me," said Agesil- 
 aus ; " for I tell thee that, if I am Spartan, I am also man 
 and father ; and I would serve him, who saved thy life and 
 taught thee how to fight for thy country, in every way that 
 may be lawful to a Spartan and a Greek." 
 
 Thus addressed, and convinced of his father's sincerity, 
 Lysander replied with ingenuous and brief simplicity. He 
 granted that Pausanias had exposed himself with a haughty 
 imprudence, which it was difficult to account for, to the 
 charges of the lonians. " But," he added, with that shrewd 
 observation which his affection for Pausanias rather than his 
 experience of human nature had taught him — "but we must 
 remember that in Pausanias we are dealing with no ordinary 
 man. If he has faults of judgment which a Spartan rarely 
 commits, he has, O my father, a force of intellect and passion 
 which a Spartan as rarely knows. Shall I tell you the truth ? 
 Our state is too small for him. But would it not have been
 
 156 PAUSAA'IAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 too small for Hercules ? Would the laws of ^gimius have 
 permitted Hercules to perform his labors and achieve his 
 conquests ? This vast and her}' nature suddenly released 
 from the cramps of our customs, which Pausanias never in 
 his youth regarded save as galling, expands itself, as an eagle 
 long caged would outspread its wings." 
 
 " 1 comprehend," said Agesilaus, thoughtfully, and some- 
 what sadly. " There have been moments in my own life 
 when I regarded Sparta as a prison. In my early manhood I 
 was sent on a mission to Corinth. Its pleasures, its wild 
 tumult of gay license, dazzled and inebriated me, I said, 
 'This it. is to live.' I came back to Sparta sullen and dis- 
 contented. But then, happily, I saw thy mother at the fes- 
 tival of Diana. We loved each other, we married ; and when 
 I was permitted to take her to my home, I became sobered 
 and was a Spartan again. I comprehend. Poor Pausanias ! 
 But luxury and pleasure, though they charm a while, do not 
 fill up the whole of a soul like that of our Heracleid. From 
 these he may recover ; but ambition — that is the true liver 
 of Tantalus, and grows larger under the beak that feeds on 
 it. What is his ambition, if Sparta be too small for him ? " 
 
 " I think his ambition would be to make Sparta as big as 
 himself." 
 
 Agesilaus stroked his chin musingly. 
 
 " And how ? " 
 
 " I cannot tell, I can only guess. But the Persian war, 
 if I may judge by what I hear and see, cannot roll away and 
 leave the boundaries of each Greek state the same. Two 
 states now stand forth prominent, Athens and Sparta. The- 
 mistocles and Cimon aim at making Athens the head of Hel- 
 las. Perhaps Pausanias aims to effect for Sparta what they 
 would effect for Athens." 
 
 " And what thinkest thou of such a scheme ? " 
 
 ** Ask me not. I am too young, too inexperienced, and 
 perhaps too Spartan to answer rightly." 
 
 " Too Spartan, because thou art too covetous of power 
 for Sparta." 
 
 " Too Spartan because I may be too anxious to keep 
 Sparta what she is." 
 
 Agesilaus smiled. "We are of the same mind, my son. 
 Think not that the reeky defiles which enclose us shut out 
 from our minds all the ideas that new circumstance strikes 
 from time. I have meditated on what thou sayest. Pausa- 
 nias may scheme. It is true that the invasion of the Mede
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTA AT. 1-7 
 
 must tend to raise up one state in Greece to which the o'hers 
 will look for a head. I have asked myself, can Sparta be 
 that state ? and my reason tells me, No ; Sparta is lost if she 
 attempt it. She may become something else, but she can 
 not be Sparta. Such a state must become maritime, and de- 
 pend on lieets. Our inland situation forbids this. True, we 
 have ports in which the Periceci flourish ; but did we use 
 them for a permanent policy, the Periceci must become our 
 masters. These five villages would be abandoned for a mart 
 on the sea-shore. This mother of men would be no more. 
 A state that so aspires must have ample wealth at its com- 
 mand. We have none. We might raise tribute from other 
 Greek cities, but for that purpose we must have fieets again, 
 to overawe and compel, for no tribute will be long voluntary. 
 A state that would be the active governor of Hellas must 
 have lives to spare in abundance. We have none, unless we 
 always do hereafter as we did at Platoea, raise an army of 
 Helots — seven Helots to one Spartan. How long, if we did 
 so, would the Helots obey us, and meanwhile how would our 
 lands be cultivated .-' A state that would be the centre of 
 Greece must cultivate all that can charm and allure strangers. 
 We banish strangers, and what charms and allures them would 
 womanize us. More than all, a state that would obtain the 
 sympathies of the turbulent Hellenic populations must have 
 the most popular institutions. It must be governed by a 
 Demus. We are an Oligarchic Aristocracy — a disciplined 
 camp of warriors, not a licentious Agora. Therefore, Sparta 
 cannot assume the head of a Greek Confederacy except in 
 the rare seasons of actual war ; and the attempt to make her 
 the head of such a confederacy would cause changes so re- 
 pugnant to our manners and habits, that it would be fraught 
 with destruction to him who made the attempt, or to us if he 
 succeeded. Wherefore, to sum up, the ambition of Pausanias 
 is in this impracticable, and must be opposed." 
 
 " And Athens," cried Lysander, with a slight pang of 
 natural and national jealousy, "Athens, then, must wrest 
 from Pausanias the hegemony he now holds for Sparta, and 
 Athens must be what the Athenian ambition covets." 
 
 "We cannot help it — she must ; but can it last.? Im- 
 possible. And woe to her if she ever comes in contact with , 
 the bronze of Laconian shields. But in the meanwhile, 
 what is to be done with this great and awful Heracleid } 
 They accuse him of Medizing, of secret conspiracy with Per- 
 sia itself. Can that be possible ? "
 
 [5S FAUSAA/AS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 " If SO, it is but to use Persia on behalf of Sparta. If he 
 would subdue Greece, it is not for the king — it is for the race 
 of Hercules." 
 
 " Ay, ay, ay," cried Agesilaus, shading his face with his 
 hand. " All becomes clear to me now. Listen. Did I 
 openly defend Pausanias before the Ephors, I should injure 
 his cause. But when they talk of his betraying Hellas and 
 Sparta, I place before them, nakedly and broadly, their duty 
 if that charge be true. For if true, O my son, Pausanias 
 must die as criminals die." 
 
 '' Die — criminal — a Heracleid — king's blood — the Vic- 
 tor of Plataea — my friend Pausanias !" 
 
 " Rather he than Sparta. What sayest thou ?" 
 
 "Neither, neither," exclaimed Lysander, wringing his 
 hands — " impossible both." 
 
 " Impossible both, be it so, I place before the Ephors the 
 terrors of accrediting that charge, in order that they may re- 
 pudiate it. For the lesser ones it matters not : he is in no 
 danger there, save that of fine, And his gold," added Age- 
 silaus, with a curved lip of disdain, "will both condemn and 
 save him. For the rest, I would spare him the dishonor of 
 being publicly recalled, and, to say truth, I would save 
 Sparta the peril she might incur from his wrath, if she in- 
 flicted on him that slight. But mark me, he himself must 
 resign his command, voluntarily, and return to Sparta. 
 Better so for him and his pride, for he cannot keep the 
 hegemony against the will of the lonians, whose fleet is so 
 much larger than ours, and it is to his gain if his successor 
 lose it, not he. But better, not only for his pride, but for 
 his glory and his name, that he should come from these 
 scenes of fierce temptation, and, since birth made him a 
 Spartan, learn here again to conform to what he cannot 
 change. I have spoken thus plainly to thee. Use the words 
 I have uttered as thou best may, after thy return to Pausanias, 
 which I will strive to make speedy. But while we talk there 
 goes on danger — danger still of his abrupt recall — for there 
 are those who will seize every excuse for it. Enough of 
 these grave matters : the sun is sinking toward the we't, 
 and thy companions await thee at thy feast ; mine will oe 
 eager to greet me on thy return,and thy little brothers, who 
 go with me to my pheidition, will hear thee so praised that 
 they will long for the cfypteia — long to be men, and find some 
 future Plataia for themselves. May the gods forbid it ! Wat 
 is a terrible unsettler. Time saps states, as a tide the cliflE
 
 PAUSANTAS, THE SPARTAN. i^g 
 
 War is an inundation ; and when it ebbs, a landmark has 
 vanished." 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Nothing so largely contributed to the peculiar character 
 of Spartan society as the uniform custom of taking the prin- 
 cipal meal at a public table. It conduced to four objects : the 
 precise status of aristocracy, since each table was formed ac- 
 cording to title and rank ; equality among aristocrats, since 
 each at the same table was held the equal of the other ; mili- 
 tary union, for as they feasted so they fought ; being formed 
 into divisions in the field according as they messed together 
 at home ; and, lastly, that sort of fellowship in public opinion 
 which intimate association among those of the same rank and 
 habit naturally occasions. These tables in Sparta were sup- 
 plied by private contributions ; each head of a family was 
 obliged to send a certain portion at his own cost, and accord- 
 ing to the number of his children. If his fortune did not 
 allow him to do this, he was excluded from the public tables. 
 Hence, a certain fortune was indispensable to the pure Spar- 
 tan, and this was one reasen why it was permitted to expose 
 infants, if the family threatened to be too large for the father's 
 means. The general arrangements were divided into syssitia, 
 according, perhaps, to the number of families, and correspon- 
 dent to the divisions, or obes, acknowledged by the state. 
 Bnt these larger sections were again subdivided into compa- 
 nies or clubs of fifteen, vacancies being filled up by ballot ; 
 but one vote could exclude. And since, as we have said, the 
 companies were marshalled in the field according to their as- 
 sociation at the table, it is clear that fathers of grave years 
 and of high station (station in Sparta increased with years) 
 could not have belonged to the same table as the young men, 
 their sons. Their boys under a certain age they took to their 
 own pheiditia, where the children sat upon a lower bench, and 
 partook of the simplest dishes of the fare. 
 
 Though the cheer at these public tables was habitually 
 plain, yet upon occasion it was enriched by presents to the 
 after-course, of game and fruit. 
 
 Lysander was received by his old comrades with that cor-
 
 l6o PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 diality in which was mingled for the first time a certain manly 
 respect, due to feats in battle, and so flattering to the young. 
 
 The prayer to the gods, correspondent to the modern 
 grace, and the pious libations being concluded, the attendant 
 Helots served the black broth, and the party fell to, with the 
 appetite produced by hardy exercise and mountain air. 
 
 " What do the allies say to the black broth ? " asked a 
 young Spartan. 
 
 " They do not comprehend its merits," answered Lysan- 
 der. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Everything in the familiar life to which he had returned 
 delighted the young Lysander. But for anxious thoughts 
 about Pausanias, he would have been supremely blessed. To 
 him the various scenes of his early years brought no associa- 
 tion of the restraints and harshness which revolted the more 
 luxurious nature and the fiercer genius of Pausanias. The 
 plunge into the frigid waters of Eurotas — the sole bath per- 
 mitted to the Spartans* at a time when the rest of Greece 
 had already carried the art of bathing into voluptuous refine- 
 ment ; the sight of the vehement contests of the boys, drawn 
 up as in battle, at the game of football, or in detached en- 
 gagements, sparing each other so little that the popular be- 
 lief out of Sparta was that they were permitted to tear out 
 each other's eyes,t but subjecting strength to every skilful art 
 that g\'mnastics could teach ; the mimic war on the island, 
 near the antique trees of the Plane Garden, waged with wea- 
 pons of wood and blunted iron, and the march regulated to 
 the music of flutes and lyres ; nay, even the sight of the stern 
 altar, at which boys had learned to bear the anguish of stripes 
 without a murmur — all produced in this primitive and in- 
 tensely national intelligence an increased admiration for the 
 
 * Except occasionally the dry sudorific bath, all warm bathing was 
 strictly forbidden, as enervating. 
 
 t An evident exaggeration. The Spartans had too great a regard for 
 the physical gifts as essential to warlike uses, to permit cruelties that 
 would have blinded their young warriors. And they even forbade the 
 practice of the pancratium as ferocious and needlessly dangerous tc 
 life.
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAM. l6i 
 
 ancestral laws, which, carrying patience, fortitude, address, 
 and strength to the utmost perfection, had formed a handful 
 of men into the cahn lords of a tierce population, and placed 
 the fenceless villages of Sparta beyond a fear of the external 
 assaults and the civil revolution which perpetually stormed 
 the citadels and agitated the market-places of Hellenic cities. 
 His was not the mind to perceive that much was relinquished 
 for the sake of that which was gained, or to comprehend that 
 there was more which consecrates humanity in one stormy- 
 day of Athens than in a serene century of iron Lacedaemon. 
 But there is ever beauty of soul where there is enthusiastic 
 love of country ; and the young Spartan was wise in his own 
 Dorian way. 
 
 The religious festival which had provided the Ephors with 
 an excuse for delaying their answer to the Ionian envoys oc- 
 cupied the city. The youths and the maidens met in the 
 sacred chorus ; and Lysander, standing by amidst the gazers, 
 suddenly felt his heart beat. A boy pulled him by the skirt 
 of his mantle. 
 
 " Lysander, hast thou yet scolded Percalus ? " said the 
 boy's voice, archly. 
 
 *' My young friend," answered Lysander, coloring high, 
 " Percalus hath vouchsafed me as yet no occasion ; and, in- 
 deed, she alone, of all the friends whom I left behind, does 
 not seem to recognize me." 
 
 His eyes, as he spoke, rested with a mute reproach in 
 their gaze on the form of a virgin who had just paused in the 
 choral dance, and whose looks were bent obdurately on the 
 ground. Her luxuriant hair was drawn upward from cheek 
 and brow, braided into a knot at the crown of the head, in 
 the fashion so trying to those who have neither bloom nor 
 beauty, so exquisitely becoming to those who have both ; and 
 the maiden, even amidst Spartan girls, was pre-eminently 
 lovely. It is true that the sun had somewhat embrowned 
 the smooth cheek ; but the stately throat and the rounded 
 arms were admirably fair — not, indeed, with the pale and 
 dead whiteness which the Ionian women sought to obtain by 
 art, but with the delicate rose-hue of Hebe's youth. Her 
 garment of snow-white wool, fastened over both shoulders 
 with large golden clasps, was without sleeves, fitting not too 
 tightly to the harmonious form, and leaving more than the 
 ankle free to the easy glide of the dance. Taller than Hel- 
 lenic women usually were, but about the average height of 
 her Spartan companions, her shape was that which the sculp
 
 1 62 PAUSANFAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 tors give to Artemis. Light and feminine and virgin-like, 
 but with all the rich vitality of a divine youth, with a force, 
 not indeed of a man, but such as art would give to the god- 
 dess whose step bounds over the mountain-top, and whose 
 arm can launch the shaft from the silver bow — yet was there 
 something in the mien and face of Percalus more subdued 
 and bashful than in those of most of the girls around her ; 
 and, as if her ear had caught Lysander's words, a smile just 
 now played round her lips, and gave to all the countenance 
 a wonderful sweetness. Then, as it became her turn once 
 more to join in the circling measure, she lifted her eyes 
 directed them full upon the young Spartan, and the eyes 
 said plainly, " Ungrateful ! 1 forget thee ! I ! " 
 
 It was but one glance, and she seemed again wholly in 
 tent upon the dance , but Lysander felt as if he had tasted 
 the nectar and caught a glimpse of the courts of the gods. 
 No further approach was made by either, although intervals 
 in the evening permitted it. But if, on the one hand, there 
 was in Sparta an intercourse between the youth of both sexes 
 wholly unknown in most of the Grecian States, and if that 
 intercourse made marriages of love especially more common 
 there than eleswhere, yet, when love did actually exist, and 
 was acknowledged by some young pair, they shunned public 
 notice ; the passion became a secret, or confidants to it were 
 few. Then came the charm of stealth : to woo and to win, 
 as if the treasure were to be robbed by a lover from the 
 heaven unknown to man. Accordingly, Lysander now mixed 
 with the spectators, conversed cheerfully, only at distant in- 
 tervals permitted his eyes to turn to Percalus, and when her 
 part in the chorus had concluded, a sigh, undetected by 
 others, seemed to have been exchanged between them, and, 
 a little while after, Lysander had disappeared from the 
 assembly. 
 
 He wandered down the street called the Aphetais, and 
 after a little while the way became perfectly still and lonely, 
 for the inhabitants had crowded to the sacred festival, and 
 the houses lay quiet and scattered. So he went on, passing 
 the ancient temple in which Ulysses is said to have dedi- 
 cated a statue in honor of his victory in the race over the 
 suiters of Penelope, and paused where the ground lay bare 
 and rugged around many a monument to the fabled chiefs of 
 tlie heroic age. Upon a crag that jutted over a silent hollow, 
 covered with oleander and arbute, and here and there the 
 wild rose, the young lover sat down, waiting patiently • foi
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTA!^. 163 
 
 the eyes of Percalus had told him he should not wait in vain. 
 Afar he saw, in the exceeding clearness of the atmosphere, 
 the Taenarium, or Temple of Neptune, unprophetic of the 
 dark connection that shrine would hereafter have with him 
 whom he then honored as a chief worthy, after death, of a 
 monument amidst those heroes ; and the gale that cooled his 
 forehead wandered to him from the field of the Hellanium 
 in which the envoys of Greece had taken council how to oi> 
 pose the march of Xerxes, when his myriads first poured in'o 
 Lurope. 
 
 Alas ! all the great passions that distinguish race from 
 race pass away in the tide of generations. The enthusiasm 
 of soul which gives us heroes and demi-gods for ancestors, and 
 hallows their empty tombs ; the vigor of thoughtful freedom 
 which guards the soil from invasion, and shivers force upon 
 the edge of intelligence. The heroic age and the civilized 
 alike depart ; and he who wanders through the glens of 
 Laconia can scarcely guess where was the monument of 
 Lelex, or the field of the Hellanium. And yet on the same 
 spot where sat the young Spartan warrior, waiting for the 
 steps of the beloved one, may, at this very hour, some rustic 
 lover be seated, with a heart beating with like emotions, and 
 an ear listening for as light a tread. Love alone never 
 passes away from the spot where its footstep hath once 
 pressed the earth, and reclaimed the savage. Traditions, 
 freedom, the thirst for glory, art, laws, creeds, vanish ; but 
 the eye thrills the breast, and hand warms to hand, as before 
 the name of Lycurgus was heard, or Helen was borne a 
 bride to the home of Menelaus. Under the influence of this 
 power, then, something of youth is still retained by nations 
 the most worn with time. But the power thus eternal in 
 nations is short-lived for the individual being. Brief, in- 
 deed, in the life of each is that season which lasts forever in 
 the life of all. — From the old age of nations glory fades away ; 
 but in their utmost decrepitude there is still a generation 
 young enough to love. To the individual man, however, 
 glory alone remains when the snows of ages have fallen, and 
 love is but the memory of a boyish dream. No wonder that 
 the Greek genius, half incredulous of the soul, clung with 
 such tenacity to youth. What a sigh from the heart of the 
 old sensuous world breathes in the strain of Mimnermus, be- 
 wailing with so fierce and so deep a sorrow the advent of the 
 years in which man is loved no more ! 
 
 Lysander's eye was still along the solitary road, when he
 
 164 FAUSANTAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 heard a low, musical laugh behind him. He started in sur- 
 prise, and beheld Percalus. Her mirth was increased by his 
 astonished gaze, till, in revenge, he caught both her hands, 
 and, drawing her toward him, kissed, not vyithout a struggle, 
 the lips into serious gravity. 
 
 Extricating herself from him, the maiden put on an air 
 of offended dignity, and Lysander, abashed at his own auda- 
 city, muttered some broken words of penitence. 
 
 " But, indeed,'' he added, as he saw the cloud vanishing 
 from her brow, " indeed thou wert so provoking, and so irre- 
 sistibly beauteous. And how earnest thou here, as if thou 
 hadst dropped from the heavens .'' " 
 
 " Didst thou think," answered Percalus, demurely, " chat 
 I could be suspected of following thee ? Nay ; I tarried till 
 I could accompany Euryclea to her home yonder, and then, 
 slipping from her by her door, I came across the grass and 
 the glen to search for the arrow shot yesterday in the hollow 
 below thee." So saying, she tripped from the crag by his 
 side into the nooked recess below, which was all out of sight, 
 in case some passenger should pass the road, and where, 
 stooping down, she seemed to busy herself in searching for 
 the shaft amidst the odorous shrubs. 
 
 Lysander was not slow in following her footsteps. 
 
 " Thine arrow is here," said he, placing his hand to his 
 heart. 
 
 " Fie ! The Ionian poets teach thee these compliments." 
 
 " Not so. Who hath sung more of Love and his arrows 
 than our own Alcman .'' " 
 
 " Mean you the Regent's favorite brother ? " 
 
 " Oh no ! The ancient Alcman ; the poet whom even the 
 Ephors sanction." 
 
 Percalus ceased to seek for the arrow, and they seated 
 themselves on a little knoll in the hollow, side by side, and 
 frankly she gave him her hand, and listened, with rosy cheek 
 and rising bosom, to his honest wooing. He told her truly 
 how her image had been with him in the strange lands ; how 
 faithful he had been to the absent, amidst all the beauties of 
 the Isles and of the East. He reminded her of their early 
 days — how, even as children, each had sought the other. He 
 spoke of his doubts, his fears, lest he should find himself for- 
 gotten or replaced ; and how everjoyed he had been when at 
 last her eye replied to his. 
 
 " And we understood each other so well, did we not, Per- 
 calus ? Here we have so often met before ; here we parted
 
 PAUSAN/AS, THE SPARTAN. 1 65 
 
 last : here thou knewest I should go : here I knew that I 
 might await thee." 
 
 Percakis did not answer at much length, but what she 
 said sufficed to enchant her lover. For the education of a 
 Spartan maid did not favor the affected concealment of real 
 feelings. It could not, indeed, banish what Nature prescribes 
 to women — the modest self-estem, the difficulty to utter by 
 word what eye and blush reveal — nor, perhaps, something of 
 that arch and innocent malice which enjoys to taste the power 
 which beauty exercises before the warm heart will freely ac- 
 knowledge the power which sways itself. But the girl, though 
 a little wilful and high spirited, was a candid, pure, and no- 
 ble creature, and too proud of being loved by Lysander to 
 feel more than a maiden's shame to confess her own. 
 
 " And when I return," said the Spartan, '*ah ! then, look 
 out and take care ; for I shall speak to thy father, gain his 
 consent to our betrothal, and then carry thee away despite all 
 thy struggles, to the bridesmaid, and these long locks, alas ! 
 will fall." 
 
 *' I thank thee for thy warning, and will find my arrow in 
 time to guard myself," said Percalus, turning away her face, 
 but holding up her hand in pretty menace ; " but where is 
 the arrow ? I must make haste and find it." 
 
 " Thou wilt have time enough, courteous Amazon, in 
 mine absence, for I must soon return to Byzantium." 
 
 Fercalus. " Art thou so sure of that .'' " 
 
 Lysa7ider. " Why — dost thou doubt it ? " 
 
 Fercalus (rising and moving the arbute boughs aside with 
 the tip of her sandal). " And unless thou wouldst wait very 
 long for my father's consent, perchance thou mayst have to 
 ask for it very soon — too soon to prepare thy courage for so 
 great a peril." 
 
 Lysander (perplexed). " \Vhat canst thou mean ? By 
 all the gods, I pray thee speak plain ! " 
 
 Fercalus. " If Pausanias be recalled, wouldst thou still 
 go to Byzantium } " 
 
 Lysander. " No ; but I think the Ephors have decided 
 not so to discredit their General." 
 
 1 ercalus (shaking her head incredulously). '* Count not 
 on their decision so surely, valiant warrior. And suppose 
 that Pausanias is recalled, and that some one else is sent in 
 his place whose absence would prevent thy obtaining that 
 consent thou covetest, and so frustrate thy designs on — on — " 
 (she added, blushing scarlet) — " on these poor locks of mine."
 
 l66 rAUSANTAS, TFTE SPARTA?^. 
 
 Lysauder (starting). " Oh, Percalus, do I conceive thee 
 aright ? Hast thou any reason to think that thy father Dorcis 
 •will be sent to replace Pausanias — the great Pausanias ? " 
 
 Fcrcalus (a little offended at a tone of expression which 
 seemed to slight her father's pretensions). *' Dorcis, my fa 
 ther, is a warrior whom Sparta reckons second to none ; a 
 most brave captain, and every inch a Spartan ; but — but — " 
 
 Lysauder. " Percalus, do not trifle with me. Thou know* 
 est how my fate has been linked to the Regent's. Thou 
 must have intelligence not shared even by my father, himself 
 an Ephor. What is it ? " 
 
 Percalus. " Thou wilt be secret, my Lysander, for what 
 I may tell thee I can only learn by the hearthstone.,' 
 
 Lysander. " Fear me not. Is not all between us a se- 
 cret ? " 
 
 Percalus. " Well, then, Periclides and my father, as thou 
 art aware, are near kinsmen. And when the Ionian envoys 
 first arrived, it was my father who was specially appointed to 
 see to their fitting entertainment. And that same night I 
 overheard Dorcis say to my mother, ' If I could succeed Pau- 
 sanias, and conclude this war, I should be consoled for not 
 having commanded at Plataea.' And my mother, who is 
 proud for her husband's glory, as a woman should be, said, 
 * Wliy not strain every ner\^e as for a crown in Olympia ? 
 Periclides will aid thee — thou wilt win.' " 
 
 Lysander. " But that was the first night of the lonians' 
 arrival." 
 
 Pcrealus. " Since then I believe that thy father and oth- 
 ers of the Ephors overruled Periclides and Zeuxidamus, for 
 I have heard all that passed between my father and mother 
 on the subject. But early this morning, while my mother 
 was assisting to attire me for the festival, Periclides himself 
 called at our house, and before I came from home, my mother 
 after a short conference with Dorcis, said to me, in the ex- 
 uberance of her joy, ' Go, child, and call here all the maid- 
 ens, as thy father ere long will go to outshine all the Grecian 
 chiefs,' So that if my father does go, thou wilt remain in 
 Sparta. Then, my beloved Lysander — and — and — but what 
 ails thee ? Is that thought so sorrowful .? " 
 
 Lysander. " Pardon me, pardon ; thou art a Spartan 
 maid; thou must comprehend what should be felt by a Spar- 
 tan soldier when he thinks of humiliation and ingratitude to 
 his chief. Gods ! the man who rolled back the storm of the 
 Mede to be insulted in the face of Hellas by the government
 
 FA us AN/AS, THE SPARTA AT. 167 
 
 of his native city ! The blush of shame upon his cheek burns 
 my own." 
 
 The warrior bowed his face in his clasped hands. 
 
 Not a resentful thought natural to female vanity and ex- 
 acting affection then crossed the mind of the Spartan girl 
 She felt at once, by the sympathy of kindred nurture, all that 
 was torturing her lover. She was even prouder of him that 
 he forgot her for the moment to be so truthful to his chief ; 
 and abandoning the innocent coyness she had before shown, 
 she put her arm round his neck with a pure and sisterly fond- 
 ness, and, kissing his brow, whispered, soothingly," It is for 
 me to ask pardon, that I did not think of this — that I spoke 
 so foolishly ; but comfort — thy chief is not disgraced even by 
 recall. Let them recall Pausanias, they can not recall his 
 glory. When, in Sparta, did we ever hold a brave man dis- 
 credited by obedience to the government } None are dis- 
 graced who do not disgrace themselves." 
 
 " Ah ! my Percalus, so I should say ; but so will not 
 think Pausanias, nor the allies ; and in this slight to him I see 
 the shadow of the Erinnys. But it may not be true yet ; nor 
 can Periclides of himself dispose thus of the Lacedaemonian 
 armies." 
 
 " We will hope so, dear Lysander," said Percalus, who, 
 born to be man's helpmate, then only thought of consoling 
 and cheering him. " And if thou dost return to the camp, 
 tarry as long as thou wilt, thou wilt find Percalus the same." 
 
 " The gods bless thee, maiden !" said Lysander, with 
 grateful passion," and blessed be the state that rears such 
 women ! Elsewhere Greece knows them not." 
 
 "And does Greece elsewhere know such men ?" asked 
 Percalus, raising her graceful head. " But so late — ^is it 
 possible ? See where the shadows are falling ! Thou wilt 
 but be in time for thy pheidition. Farewell." 
 
 " But when to meet again ?" 
 
 " Alas ! when we can." She sprung lightly away ; then, 
 turning her face as she fled, added," Look out ! thou wert 
 taught to steal in thy boyhood — steal an interview. I will be 
 thy accomplice."
 
 1 68 PAUSANIAS, THE S TARTAN. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 That night, as Agesilaus was leaving the public table a1 
 which he supped, Periclides, who was one of the same com- 
 pany, but who had been unusually silent during the enter- 
 tainment, approached him, and said, " Let us walk toward 
 thy home together ; the moon is up, and will betray listeners 
 to our converse, should there be any." 
 
 " And in default of the moon, thy years, if not yet mine, 
 permit thee a lantern, Periclides." 
 
 " I have not drunk enough to need it," answered the 
 chief of the Ephors, with unusual pleasantr)' ; " but as thou 
 art the younger man, I will lean on thine arm, so as to be 
 closer to thine ear." 
 
 " Thou hast something secret and grave to say, then ? " 
 
 Periclides nodded. 
 
 As they ascended the rugged aclivity, different groups, 
 equally returning home from the public tables, passed them. 
 Though the sacred festival had given excuse for prolonging 
 the evening meal, and the wine-cup had been replenished 
 beyond the abstemious wont; still each little knot of revellers 
 passed and dispersed in a sober and decorous quiet which, 
 perhaps, no other eminent city in Greece could have ex- 
 hibited ; young and old equally grave and noiseless. For 
 the Spartan youth, no fair Hetaerse then opened homes 
 adorned with flowers, and gay with wit, no less than alluring 
 with beauty ; but as the streets grew more deserted, there 
 stood in the thick shadow of some angle, or glided furtively 
 by some winding wall, a bridegroom lover, tarrjdng till all 
 was still, to steal to the arms of his lawful wife, whom for 
 years perhaps he might not openly acknowledge and carry in 
 triumph to his home. 
 
 But not of such young adventurers thought the sage Peri- 
 clides, though his voice was as low as a lover's " hist ! " and 
 his step as stealthy as a bridegroom's tread. 
 
 " My friend," said he, " with the faint gray of the dawn 
 there comes to my house a new messenger from the camp, 
 and the tidings he brings change all our decisions. The 
 Festival does not permit us as Ephors to meet in public, oi
 
 PAUSAN/AS, THE SPARTAN. 169 
 
 at least, I think thou wilt agree with me, it is more prudent 
 not to do so. All we should do now should be in strict 
 privacy." 
 
 " But, hush ! from whom the message — Pausanias ? " 
 
 " No — from Aristides the Athenian." 
 
 " And to what effect ? " 
 
 " The lonians have revolted from the Spartan hegemony, 
 and ranged themselves under the Athenian flag." 
 
 " Gods ! what I feared has already come to pass." 
 
 " And Aristides writes to me, with whom you remember 
 that he has the hospitable ties, that the Athenians cannot 
 abandon their Ionian allies and kindred who thus appeal to 
 them ; and that if Pausanias remain, open war may break 
 out between the two divisions into which the fleet of Hellas 
 is now rent." 
 
 " This must not be, for it would be war at sea ; we and 
 the Peloponnesians have far the fewer vessels, the less able 
 seamen. Sparta w^ould be conquered." 
 
 " Rather than Sparta should be conquered, must we not 
 recall her General .'' " 
 
 " I would give all my lands, and sink out of the rank of 
 Equal, that this bad not chanced," said Agesilaus, bitterly. 
 
 " Hist ! hist ! not so loud." 
 
 " I had hoped we might induce the Regent himself to 
 resign the command, and so have been spared the shame 
 and the pain of an act that affects the hero-blood of our 
 kings. Could not that be done yet ? " 
 
 " Dost thou think so ? Pausanias resign in the midst of 
 a mutiny ! Thou canst not know the man." 
 
 " Thou art right — impossible. I see no option now\ He 
 must be recalled. But the Spartan hegemony is, then, gone 
 — gone forever — gone to Athens." 
 
 '" Not so. Sparta hath many a worthy son besides this 
 too arrogant Heracleid." 
 
 " Yes ; but where his genius of command ? — where his 
 immense renown ? — where a man, I say, not in Sparta, but 
 in all Greece, fit to cope with Aristides and Cimon in the 
 camp, with Themistocles in the city of our rivals ? If Pau- 
 sanias fails, who succeeds ? " 
 
 " Be not deceived. What must be, must ; it is but a 
 little time earlier than necessity would have fixed. Wouldst 
 thou take the command ? " 
 
 "I ? The gods forbid ! ' 
 
 •* Then, if thou wilt not, I know but one man."
 
 lyo PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. 
 
 " And who is he ? " 
 
 " Dorcis." 
 
 Agesilaus started, and, by the Ught of the moon, gazed 
 full upon the face of the chief Ephor. 
 
 " Thy kinsman, Dorcis ! Ah, Periclides, hast thou 
 schemed this from the first ? " 
 
 Periclides changed color at finding himself thus abruptly 
 detected, and as abruptly charged ; however, he answered 
 with laconic dr}-ness : 
 
 " Friend, did I scheme the revolt of the lonians ? But if 
 thou knowest a better man than Dorcis, speak. Is he not 
 brave ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Skilful ? " 
 
 " No. Tut ! thou art as conscious as I am that thou 
 mightest as well compare the hat on thy brow to the brain it 
 hides, as liken the stolid Dorcis to thy fiery but profound 
 Heracleid." 
 
 " Ay, ay. But there is one merit the hat has which the 
 brow has not — it can do no harm. Shall we send our chiefs 
 to be made worse men by Eastern manners .'' Dorcis has 
 dull wit, granted ; no arts can corrupt it. He may not save 
 the hegemony, but he will return as he went, a Spartan." 
 
 " Thou art right again, and a wise man, Periclides. I 
 submit. Thou hast my vote for Dorcis. What else hast 
 thou designed ? for I see now that whatever thou designest 
 that wilt thou accomplish; and our meeting on the Archeion 
 is but an idle form." 
 
 "Nay, nay," said Periclides, Avith his austere smile, 
 " thou givest me a wit and a will that I have not. But as 
 chief of the Ephors I watch over the state. And though I 
 design nothing, this I would counsel : On the day we answer 
 the lonians, we shall tell them, ' What ye ask, we long siijce 
 proposed to do.' And Dorcis is already on the seas as suc- 
 cessor to Pausanias." 
 
 " When will Dorcis leave ? " said Agesilaus, curtly. 
 
 " If the other Ephors concur, to-morrow night." 
 
 " Here we are at my doors ; wilt thou not enter ? " 
 
 " No. I have others yet to see. I knew we should be of 
 the same mind." 
 
 Agesilaus made no reply ; but as he entered the court- 
 yard of his house, he muttered uneasily, — 
 
 " And if Lysander is right, and Sparta is too small for 
 Pau?5anias, do we not bring back a giant who will widen it to
 
 PAUSANIAS, THE SPARTAN. jyi 
 
 his own girth, and raze the old foundations to make room for 
 the buildings he would add ? " 
 
 (unfinished.) 
 
 [The pages covered by the manuscript of this uncom- 
 pleted story of " Pausanias " are scarcely more numerous 
 than those which its author has filled with the notes made by 
 him from works consulted with special reference to the sub- 
 ject of it. Those notes (upon Greek and Persian antiquities) 
 are wholly without interest for the general public. They 
 illustrate the author's conscientious industry, but they afford 
 no clue to the plot of his romance. Under the sawdust, 
 however, thus fallen in the industrial process of an imagina- 
 tive work, unhappily unfinished, I have found two specimens 
 of original composition. They are rough sketches erf songs 
 expressly composed for " Pausanias ; " and, since they are 
 not included in the foreoging portion of it, I think they may 
 properly be added here. The unrhymed lyrics introduced by 
 my father into some of the opening chapters of this romance 
 appear to have been suggested by some fragments of Mim- 
 nermus, and composed about the same time as " The Lost 
 Tales of Miletus." Indeed, one of them has been already 
 printed in that work. The following verses, however, which 
 are rhymed, bear evidence of having been composed at a 
 much earlier period. I know not whether it was my father's 
 intention to discard them altogether, or to alter them materi- 
 ally, or to insert them without alteration in some later portion 
 of the romance. But I print them here precisely as they are 
 written. — L.] 
 
 FOR PAUSANIAS. 
 
 [Partially borrowed from Aristophane's " Peace," v. 1 127, etc.] 
 
 Away, away, with the hehn and greaves. 
 Away with the leeks and cheese 1 * 
 I have conquer'd my passion for wounds and blows, 
 And the worst that I wish to the worst of my foes 
 Is the glory and gain 
 Of a year's campaign 
 On a diet of leeks and cheese. 
 
 • , Cheese and onions, the rations furnished 
 
 to soldiers in campaign.
 
 '17a PA us A KI AS, THE SPARTAN-. 
 
 I love to drink by my own warni hearth, 
 Nourished with logs from the pine-clad heights, 
 
 Which were hewn in the blaze of the summer sun 
 To treasure his rays for the winter nights 
 
 On the hearth where my grandam spun. 
 
 I love to drink of the grape I press, 
 And to drink with a friend of y^re ; 
 
 Quick 1 bring me a bough from the myrtle-tree 
 Which is budding afresh by Nicander's door. 
 
 Tell Nicander himself he must sup with me, 
 
 And along with the bough from his myrtle-tree 
 
 We will circle the lute, in a choral glee 
 To the goddess of corn and peace. 
 
 For Nicander and I were fast friends at school. 
 
 Here he comes ! We are boys once more. 
 
 When the grasshopper chants in the bells of thyme, 
 I love to watch if the Lemnian grape* 
 Is donning the purple that decks its prime; 
 And, as I sit at my porch to see, 
 With my little one trying to scale my knee, 
 To join in the grasshopper's chant, and sing 
 To Apollo and Pan from the heart of Spring, f 
 Listen, O list I 
 
 Hear ye not, neighbors, the voice of Peace ? 
 "The swallow I hear in the household eaves." 
 
 lo /Egien ! Peace ! 
 " An<i the skylark at poise o'er the bended sheaves," 
 
 lo -'Egien 1 Peace ! 
 
 Here and there, everywhere, hear we Peace, 
 Hear her, and see her, and clasp her — Peace I 
 The grasshopper chants on the bells of thyme, 
 And the halcyon is back to her nest in Greece 1 
 
 IN PRAISE OF THE ATHENIAN KNIGHTS. 
 
 [Imitated from the " Knights" of Aristophanes, v. 565, etc.] 
 
 Chant the fame of the Knights, or in war or in peace, 
 Chant the darlings of Athens, * the bulwarks of Greece, 
 
 *It ripened earlier than the others. The words of the Chorus are, 
 
 tVariation — 
 
 " What a blessing is life in a noon of Spring." 
 
 • Variation — 
 
 •' The adorners of Athens, the bulwarks of Greece."
 
 PA USA NI AS, THE SPARTAN: 173 
 
 Pressing foremost to glory, on wave and on shore, 
 Where the steed has no footing they win with the oar. t 
 
 On their bosoms the battle splits, wasting its shock. 
 If they charge like the whirlwind, they stand like the rock. 
 Ha ! they count not the numbers, they scan not the ground ; 
 When a foe comes in sight, on his lances they bound. 
 
 Fails a foot in its speed ? heed it not. One and all % 
 Spurn the earth that they spring from, and own not a fall. 
 Oh the darlings of Athens, the bulwarks of Greece, 
 Wherefore envy the love-locks they perfume in peace I 
 
 Wherefore scowl if they fondle a quail or a dove, 
 Or inscribe on a myrtle the names that they love ? 
 Does Alcides not teach us how valor is mild ? 
 Lo, at rest from his labors he plays with a child. 
 
 When the slayer of Python has put down his bow, 
 By his lute and his love-locks Apollo we know. 
 Fear'd, O rowers, those gallants their beauty to spoil 
 When they sat on your benches, and shared in your toil ? 
 
 When with laughter they row'd to your cry "Hippopai," 
 " On, ye coursers of wood, for the palm wreath, away!" 
 Did those dainty youths ask you to store in your holds 
 Or a cask from their crypt or a Iamb from their folds ? 
 
 No, they cried, " We are here both to fight and to fast, 
 Place us first in the fight, at the board serve us last 1 
 Wheresoever is peril, we knights lead the way, 
 Wheresoever is hardship, we claim it as pay. 
 
 Call us proud, O Athenians, we know it full well, 
 And we give you the life we're too haughty to sell." 
 Hail the stoutest in war, hail the mildest in peace, 
 Hail the darlings of Athens, the bulwarks of Greece I 
 
 t Variation — 
 
 "Keenest racers to glory, on wave or on shore. 
 By the rush of the steed or the stroke of the oar I" 
 
 J Variation — 
 
 '* Falls there one ? never help him ! Our knights one and all.
 
 THE 
 
 PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD BULWER, LORD LYTTON. 
 
 CHICAGO AXD NEW YORK : 
 BELFORD, CLARKE & COMPANY, 
 
 PUBLTSHERS.
 
 TROWS 
 
 ♦-BINTrNG AND BOOKBINDINQ COMPANV, 
 
 NEW YORK.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 In which the Reader is introduced to Queen Nyniphalin. PAGE. 9 
 
 CHAPTER H. 
 
 The Lovers • '3 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 Feelings ^7 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Maid of Malincs 20 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Rotterdam.— The character of the Dutch. — Their resemblance to 
 the Germans.— A dispute between Vane and Trevylyan, after the 
 manner of the ancient novelists, as to which is preferable, the life 
 of action or the life of repose. — Trevylyan's contrast between lit- 
 erary ambition and the ambition of public life 46 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Gorcum. — The Tour of the Virtues: a Philosopner's Tale. . . 53 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Cologne. — The traces of the Roman Yoke. — The Church of St. 
 Maria. — Trevylyan's reflections on the Monastic Life. — The 
 Tomb of the three Kings. — An Evening Excursion on the Rhine. 63 
 
 CHAPTER VIH. 
 The Soul in Purgatory ; or Love stronger than Death. . . •66
 
 iv CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The scenery of the Rhine analogous to 'he German literary genius. 
 — The Drachenfels 6g 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Legend of Roland. — The Adventures of Nymphalin on the Is- 
 land of Nonnewerth. — Her Song. — The Decay of the Fairy-faith 
 in England 71 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Wherein the Reader is made spectator with the English Fairies of 
 the Scenes and Beings that are beneath the Earth. . . .76 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The Wooing of Master Fox . '79 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The Tomb of a Father of many Children. .... 100 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The Fairy's Cave, and the Fairy's Wish. loi 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 The Banks cf the Rhine. — From the Drachenfels to Brohl ; an inci- 
 dent that suffices in this Tale for an Epoch. . . • . 102 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 Gertrude. — The Excursion to Hammerstein. — Thoughts. . .1 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 Letter from Trevylyan to * * * *. . . . . .10 
 
 CHAPTER XVIIL 
 
 Coblentz. — Excursion to the Mountains of Taunus ; Roman Tower 
 in the Valley of Ehrenbreitstein, — Travel, its pleasures estimated 
 differently by the young and the old. — The Student of Heidel- 
 berg; his Criticisms on German literature. . . . .110 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 The Fallen Star : or, the history of a false Religion. , . 113
 
 CONTENTS. » 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Gelnhauscn.— The power of Love in sanctified places.— A portrait 
 of Frederick Barbarossa.— Tire ambition of men finds no adequate 
 sympathy in women 14^ 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 View of Ehrenbreitstein. — A new alarm in Gertrude's health. — Trar- 
 bach. . . . • . . • • ■ • •M^ 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 The Double Life.— Trevylyan's fate.— Sorrow the Parent of Fame. 
 — Niederlahnstein. — Dreams. 146 
 
 CHAPTER XXIIL 
 The Life of Dreams 149 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 The Brothers ^53 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 The Immortality of the Soul. — A Common Incident not before de- 
 scribed. — Trevylyan and Gertrude I7S 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 In which the Reader will learn how the Fairies were received by 
 the Sovereigns of the Mines. — The complaint of the last of the 
 Fauns. — The Red Huntsman. — The Storm. — Death. . . . 178 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 Tlmrmberg. — A storm upon the Rhine. — The Ruins of Rheinfels. — 
 Peril unfelt by love. — The echo of the Lurlei-berg. — St. Goar. — 
 Caub, Gutenfels, and Pfalzgrafenstein. — A certain vastness of 
 mind in the first Hermits. — The scenery of tire Rhine to Bachrach. 185 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIIL 
 
 The voyage to Bingen. — The simple incidents in this tale excusea. 
 — The situation and character of Gertrude. — The conversation of 
 the lovers in the Temple. — A fact contradicted. — Thoughts occa- 
 sioned by a Madhouse amongst the most beautiful Landscapes of 
 the Rhine 188
 
 vi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 Ellfeld. — Mayence. — Heidelberg. — A Conversation between Vane 
 and the German Student. — The Ruins of the Castle of Heidelberg 
 and its solitary Habitant 194 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 No part of the Earth really solitary. — The Song of the Fairies. — 
 The sacred spot. — The Witch of the Evil Winds. — The Spell and 
 the Duty of the Fairies. 199 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 Gertrude and Trevylyan, when the former is awakened to the ap- 
 proach of Death, 201 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 A Spot to be buried in .... 204 
 
 CHAPTER THE LAST. 
 
 The Conclusion of this Tale 205 
 
 Poem on the Ideal World. ... • , . 213
 
 TO 
 
 HENRY LYTTON BULWER. 
 
 Allow me, my clear Erothcr, to dedicate this Work to 
 you. The greater part of it (viz., the tales which vary and 
 relie\-e the voyages of Gertrude and Trevylyan) was written 
 in (he pleasant excursion we made together some years ago. 
 Among the associations — some sad, and some pleasing — con- 
 nected with the general design, none are so agreeable to me 
 as those that remind me of the friendship subsisting between 
 us, and which, unlike that of near relations in general, has 
 grown stronger and more intimate as our footsteps have re- 
 ceded farther from the fields where we played together in 
 our childhood. I dedicate this Work to you with the more 
 pleasure, not only when I remember that it has always been 
 a favorite with yourself, but when I think that it is one of my 
 writings most liked in foreign countries ; and I may possibly, 
 therefore, have found a record destined to endure the afifec- 
 tionate esteem which this Dedication is intended to convey. 
 
 Yours, &c. 
 
 E. L,. B. 
 I.oxro>f. 
 
 W////23, 1S40.
 
 ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 TO 
 
 THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 Could I prescribe to the critic and to the public, I would 
 wish that this work might be tried by the rules rather of poetry 
 than prose, for according to those rules have been both its 
 conception and its execution ; — and I feel that something of 
 sympathy with the author's design is requisite to win_ indul- 
 o-ence for the superstitions he has incorporated with his tale ; 
 for the floridity of his style and the redundance of his de 
 scriptions. Perhaps, indeed, it would be impossible, in at- 
 tempting to paint the scenery and embody some of the Le- 
 gends of the Rhine, not to give (it may be, too loosely) the 
 reins to the imagination, or to escape the influence of that 
 wild German spirit, which I have sought to transfer to a 
 colder tongue. 
 
 I have made the experiment of selecting for the mam 
 interest of my work the simplest materials, and weaving upon 
 them the ornaments given chiefly to subjects of a more fanci- 
 ful nature. I know not how far I have succeeded, but vari- 
 ous reasons have conspired to make this the work, above all 
 otliers that I have written, which has given me the most de- 
 light (though not unmixed with melancholy) in producing, 
 and in which my mind, for the time, has been the most com- 
 pletely absorbed. But the ardor of composition is often dis- 
 propoVtioned to the merit of the work ; and the public 
 sometimes, not unjustly, avenges itself for that forgetfulness 
 of its existence, which makes the chief charm of an author's 
 solitude ; and the happiest, if not the wisest, inspiration of 
 his dreams.
 
 P R E F AC E 
 
 TO 
 
 PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 With the younger class of my readers, this work has had 
 the good fortune to find especial favor ; perhaps because it 
 is in itself a collection of the thoughts and sentiments that 
 constitute the Romance of youth. It has little to do with the 
 positive truths of our actual life, and does not pretend to 
 deal with the larger passions and more stirring interests of 
 our kind. It is but an episode out of the graver epic of hu- 
 man destinies. It requires no explanation of its purpose, 
 and no analysis of its story ; the one is evident, the other 
 simple : — the first seeks but to illustrate visible nature 
 through the poetry of the affections ; the other is but the 
 narrative of the most real of mortal sorrows which the Au- 
 thor attempts to take out of the region of pain, by various 
 accessories from the Ideal. The connecting tale itself is but 
 the string that binds into a garland the wild flowers cast 
 upon a grave. 
 
 The descriptions of the Rhine have been considered by 
 Germans sufficiently faithful to render this tribute to theii 
 land and their legends one of the popular guide-books along 
 the course it illustrates ; especially to such tourists as wish 
 not only to take in with the eye the inventory of the river, 
 but to seize the peculiar spirit which invests the wave and the 
 bank with a beauty that can only be made visible by reflex- 
 ion. He little comprehends the true charm of the Rhine, 
 who gazes on the vines on the hill-tops without a thought of 
 the imaginary world with which their recesses have been
 
 8 PREFACE. 
 
 peopled by the graceful credulity of old ; who surveys the 
 steep ruins that overshadow the water, untouched by one 
 lesson from the pensive morality of Time. Everywhere 
 around us is the evidence of perished opinions and departed 
 races — every\vhere around us, also, the rejoicing fertility of 
 unconquerable Nature, and the calm progress of Man himself 
 through the infinite cycles of decay. He who would judge 
 adequately of a landscape, must regard it not only with the 
 painter's eye, but with the poet's. The feelings which the 
 sight of any scene in nature conveys to the mind — more^ es- 
 pecially of any scene on which history or fiction has left its 
 trace — must depend upon our sympathy with those associa- 
 tions which make up what may be called the spiritual char- 
 acter of the spot. If indifferent to those associations, we 
 should see o-nly hedgerows and ploughed land in the battle- 
 field of Bannockburn ; and the traveller would but look on a 
 dreary waste, whether he stood amidst the piles of the Druid, 
 on Salisbury plain, or trod his bewildered way over the 
 broad expanse on which the Chaldean first learned to number 
 the stars. 
 
 £. B. Lf.
 
 THE 
 PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 In which the reader is introduced to Queen Nymphalin. 
 
 In one of those green woods which belong so peculiarly 
 to our island ( for the continent has its forests, but England, 
 its woods), there lived, a short time ago, a charming little 
 fairy called Nymphalin. I believe she is descended from a 
 younger branch of the house of Mab, but perhaps that may 
 only be a genealogical fable, for your fairies are very sus- 
 ceptible to the pride of ancestry, and it is impossible to deny 
 that they fall somewhat reluctantly into the liberal opinions 
 so much in vogue at the present day. 
 
 However that may be, it is quite certain that all the 
 courtiers in Nymphalin's domain ( for she was a queen fairy) 
 made a point of asserting her right to this illustrious descent ; 
 and, accordingly, she quartered the Mab arms with her own 
 — three acorns vert, with a grasshopper rampant. It was as 
 merry a little court as could possibly be conceived, and on a 
 fine midsummer night it would have been worth while attend- 
 ing the queen's balls — that is to say, if you could have got a 
 ticket ; a favor not obtained without great interest. 
 
 But, unhappily, until both men and fairies adopt Mr. 
 Owen's proposition, and live in parallelograms, they will 
 always be the victims of ennui. And Nymphalin, who had 
 been disappointed in love, and was still unmarried, had for
 
 lO THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 the last five or six months been exceedingly tired even of 
 giving balls. She yawned very frequently, and consequently 
 yawning became a fashion. 
 
 " But why don't we have some new dances, my Pipalee ? " 
 said Nymphalin to her favorite maid of honor ; " These 
 waltzes are very old-fashioned." 
 
 " Very old-fashioned," said Pipalee. 
 
 The queen gaped, and Pipalee did the same. 
 
 It was a gala night ; the court was held in a lone and 
 beautiful hollow, with the wild brake closing round it on 
 every side, so that no human step could easily gain the spot. 
 Wherever the shadows fell upon the brake, a glow-worm 
 made a point of exhibiting itself, and the bright August 
 moon sailed slowly above, pleased to look down upon so 
 charming a scene of merriment ; for they wrong the moon 
 who assert that she has an objection to mirth — with the 
 mirth of fairies she has all possible sympathy. Here and 
 there in the thicket, the scarce honeysuckles — in August, 
 honeysuckles are somewhat out of season — hung their rich 
 festoons, and at that moment they were crowded with the 
 elderly fairies, who had given up dancing and taken to 
 scandal. Beside the honeysuckle you might see the hawk- 
 w-eed and the white convolvulus, varying the soft verdure of 
 the thicket ; and mushrooms in abundance had sprung up in 
 the circle, glittering in the silver moonlight, acceptable 
 beyond measure to the dancers : every one knows how 
 agreeable a thing tents are in ■Afetediampdre ? I was mis- 
 taken in saying that the brake closed the circle entirely round : 
 for there was one gap, scarcely apparent to mortals, through 
 which a fairy at least might catch a view of a brook that was 
 •close at hand, rippling in the stars, and chequered at in- 
 tervals by the rich weed, floating on the surface, interspersed 
 with the delicate arrowhead and the silver water-lily. Then 
 the trees themselves, in their prodigal variety of hues ; the 
 blue, the purple^ the yellowing tint — the tender and silvery 
 verdure, and the deep mass of shade frowning into black ; 
 the willow, the elm, the ash, the fir, the lime, " and, best of all. 
 Old England's haunted oak : " these hues were broken again 
 into a thousand minor and subtler shades, as the twinkling 
 stars pierced the foliage, or the moon slept with a richer 
 light upon some favored glade. 
 
 It was a gala night ; the elderly fairies, as I said before, 
 were chatting among the honeysuckles ; the young were 
 flirting, and dancing, and making love ; the middle-aged
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. u 
 
 talked politics under the mushrooms • and the queen herself, 
 and half-a-dozen of her favorites, were yawning their pleasure 
 from a little mound, covered with the thickest moss. 
 
 " It has been very dull, madam, ever since Prince 
 Fayzenheiin left us," said the fairy Nip. 
 
 The queen sighed. 
 
 " How handsome the prince is ! " said Pipalee. 
 
 The queen blushed. 
 
 " He wore the prettiest dress in the world ; and what a 
 mustache!" cried Pipalee, fanning herself with her left 
 wing. 
 
 " He was a coxcomb," said the lord treasurer, sourly. 
 The lord treasurer was the honestest and most disagreeable 
 fairy at court ; he was an admirable husband, brother, son, 
 cousin, uncle, and godfather ; it was these virtues that had 
 made him a lord treasurer. Unfortunately they had not made 
 him a sensible fairy. He was like Charles the Second in one 
 respect, for he never did a wise thing ; but he was not like 
 him in another — for he very often said a foolish one. 
 
 The queen frowned. 
 
 " A young prince is not the worse for that," retorted 
 Pipalee. " Hcigho ! does your majesty think his highness 
 likely to return. 
 
 " Don't tease me," said Nymphalin, pettishly. 
 
 The lord treasurer, by way of giving the conversation an 
 agreeable turn, reminded her majesty that there was a 
 prodigious accumulation of business to see to, especially that 
 difficult affair about the emmet-wasp loan. Her majesty 
 rose, and leaning on Pipalee's arm, walked down to the 
 supper-tent. 
 
 " Pray," said the fairy Trip to the fairy Nip, " what is all 
 this talk about Prince Fayzenheim } Excuse my ignorance ; 
 I am only just out, you know." 
 
 " Why," answered Nip, a young courtier, not a marrying 
 fairy, but very seductive, " the story runs thus : — Last sum- 
 mer a foreigner visited us, calling himself Prince Fayzen- 
 heim : one of your German fairies, I fancy ; no great things, 
 but an excellent waltzer. He wore long spurs, made out of 
 the stings of the horse-flies in the Black Forest ; his cap sat on 
 one side, and his mustachios curled like the lip of the dragon 
 flower. He was on his travels, and amused himself by mak- 
 .ng love to the queen. You can't fancy, dear Trip, how fond 
 she was of hearing him tell stories about the strange crea- 
 tures of Germany — about wild-huntsmen, water-sprites, and a
 
 12 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 pack of such stuff," added Nip, contemptuously, for Nip was 
 a free-tliinker. 
 
 " In sliort ? " said Trip. 
 
 " In short, she loved," cried Nip, with a theatrical air. 
 
 *' And the prince ? " 
 
 " Packed up his clothes, and sent on lis travelling-car- 
 riage, in order that he might go at his ease on the top of a 
 stage-pigeon ; in short — as you say — in short, he deserted 
 the queen, and ever since she has set the fashion of yawn- 
 
 " It was very naughty in him," said the gentle Trip. 
 
 " Ah, my dear creature," cried Nip, " if it had been you 
 to whom he had paid his addresses ! " 
 
 Trip simpered, and the oM fairies from their seats in the 
 honeysuckles observed she was " sadly conducted ; " but the 
 Trips had never been too respectable. 
 
 Meanwhile the queen, leaning on Pipalee, said, after a 
 short pause, " Do you know I have formed a plan ? " 
 
 " How delightful ! " cried Pipalee. " Another gala ! " 
 
 " Pooh, surely even you must be tired with such levities : 
 the spirit of the age is no longer frivolous ; and I daresay 
 as the march of gravity proceeds, we shall get rid of galas 
 altogether." The queen said this with an air of inconceiv- 
 able wisdom, for the " Societ}' for the Diffusion of General 
 Stupefaction " had been recently established among the 
 fairies, and its tracts had driven all the light reading out of 
 the market. " The Penny Proser" had contributed greatly 
 to the increase of knowledge and yawning, so visibly progress- 
 ive among the courtiers. 
 
 " No, " continued Nymphalin ; " I have thought of some- 
 thing better than galas — Let us travel ! " 
 
 Pipalee clasped her hand in ecstasy. 
 
 '■' Where shall we travel .-'" 
 
 " Let us go up the Rhine," said the queen, turning away 
 iier head. " We shall be amazingly welcomed ; there are 
 fairies without number, all the way by its banks ; and various 
 distant connections of ours, whose nature and properties will 
 afford interest and instruction to a philosophical mind." 
 
 *' Number Nip, for instance," cried the gay Pipalee. 
 
 " The Red Man !" said the graver Nymphalin. 
 
 " O, my queen, what an excellent scheme 1 " and Pipalee 
 was so lively during the rest of the night, that the old fairies 
 in the honeysuckle insinuated that the lady of honor had 
 drunk a buttercup too much of the Maydew.
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 13 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 THE LOVERS. 
 
 I WISH only for such readers as give themselves heart 
 and soul up to me — if they begin to cavil, I have done with 
 them ; their fancy should put itself entirely under my man- 
 agement ; and, after all, ought they not to be too glad to get 
 out of this hackneyed and melancholy world, to be run awgy 
 with by an author who promises them something new ? 
 
 From the heights of Bruges, a Mortal and his betrothed 
 gazed upon the scene below. They saw the sun set slowly 
 amongst purple masses of cloud, and the lover turned to his 
 mistress and sighed deeply ; for her cheek was delicate in 
 its blended roses, beyond the beauty that belongs to the hues 
 of health ; and when he saw the sun sinking from the world, 
 the thought came upon him that she was his sun, and the 
 glory that she shed over his life might soon pass away into 
 the bosom of the "ever-during Dark." But against the 
 clouds, rose one of the many spires that characterize the town 
 of Bruges ; and on that spire, tapering into heaven, rested 
 the eyes of Gertrude Vane. The different objects that 
 caught the gaze of each was emblematic both of the different 
 channel of their thoughts, and the different elements of their 
 nature : he thought of the sorrow, she of the consolation : his 
 heart prophesied of the passing away from earth — hers of the 
 ascension into heaven. The lower part of the landscape was 
 wrapt in shade ; but, just where the bank curved round in a 
 mimic bay, the water caught the sun's parting smile, and rii> 
 pled against the herbage that clothed the shore, with a scarce- 
 ly noticeable wave. There were two of the numerous mills 
 which are so picturesque a feature of that country, standing 
 at a distance from each other on the rising banks, their sails 
 perfectly still in the cool silence of the evening, and adding 
 to the rustic tranquillity which breathed around. For to me 
 there is something in the stilled sails of one of those inven- 
 tions of man's industry peculiarly eloquent of repose : the 
 rest seems typical of the repose of our own passions — short 
 and uncertain, contrary to their natural ordination ; and 
 doubly impressive from the feeling which admonishes us how
 
 H 
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 precarious is the stillness — how utterly dependent on every 
 wind rising at any moment and from any quarter of the 
 heavens ! They saw before them no living forms, save of one 
 or two peasants yet lingering by the water-side. 
 
 Trevylyan drew closer to his Gertrude ; for his love was 
 inexpressibly tender, and his vigilant anxiety for her made 
 his stern frame feel the first coolness of the evening, even 
 before she felt it herself. 
 
 " Dearest, let me draw your mantle closer round you," 
 
 Gertrude smiled her thanks. 
 
 " I feel better than I have done for weeks," said she \ 
 " and when once we get into the Rhine, you v/ill see me grow 
 so strong as to shock all your initerest for me." 
 
 " Ah, would to Heaven my interest for you may be put to 
 such an ordeal ! " said Trevylyan ; and they turned slowly to 
 fhe inn, where Gertrude's father already awaited them. 
 
 Trevylyan was of a wild, a resolute, and an active nature. 
 Thrown on the world at the age of sixteen, he had passed his 
 youth in alternate pleasure, travel, and solitary study. At the 
 age in which manhood is least susceptible to caprice, and most 
 perhaps to passion, he fell in love with the loveliest person 
 that ever dawned upon a poet's vision. I say this without 
 exaggeration, for Gertrude Vane's was indeed the beauty, but 
 the perishable beauty, of a dream. It happened most singu- 
 larly to Trevylyan, (but he was a smgular man) that being 
 naturally one whose affections it was very difficult to excite, 
 he should have fallen in love at first sight with ajoerson whose 
 disease, already declared, would have deterred any other 
 heart from risking its treasures in a bark so utterly unfitted 
 for the voyage of life. Consumption, but consumption in its 
 most beautiful shape, had set its seal upon Gertrude Vane, 
 when Trevylyan first saw her, and at once loved. He knew 
 the danger of the disease ; he did not, except at intervals de- 
 ceive himself ; he wrestled against the new passion ; but, 
 stern as his nature was, he could not conquer it. He loved, 
 he confessed his love, and Gertrude returned it. 
 
 In a love like this there is something ineffably beautiful — 
 it is essentially the poetry of passion. Desire grows hallowed 
 by fear, and, scarce permitted to indulge its vent in the com- 
 mon channel of the senses, breaks forth into those vague 
 yearnings — those holy aspirations, which pine for the Bright, 
 the Far, the Unattained. It is " the desire of the moth for 
 the star" — it is the love of the soul ! 
 
 Gertrude was advised by the Faculty to try a southern
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 15 
 
 climate ; l^ut Gertrude was the daughter of a German mother, 
 and her young fancy had been nursed in all the wild legends 
 and the alluring visions that belong to the children of the 
 Rhine. Her imagination, more romantic than classic, yearned 
 for the vineclad hills, and haunted forests, which are so fertile 
 in their spells to those who have once drunk, even sparingly 
 of the Literature of the North. Her desire strongly ex- 
 pressed lier declared conviction, that if any change of scene 
 could yet arrest the progress of her malady, it would be the 
 shores of the river she had so longed to visit, prevailed with 
 her physicians and her father, and they consented to that 
 pilgrimage along the Rhine on which Gertrude, her father, 
 and her lover were now bound. 
 
 It was by the green curve of the banks which the lovers 
 saw from the heights of Bruges, that our fairy travellers met. 
 They were reclining on the waterside, playing at dominoes 
 with eyebright and the black specks of the trefoil ; viz. 
 Pipalee, Nip, Trip, and the lord treasurer (for that was all 
 the party selected by the queen for her travelling corfege, 
 and waiting for her majesty, who, being a curious little 
 elf, had gone round the town to reconnoitre. 
 
 " Bless me ! " said the lord treasurer ; " what a mad 
 freak is this ! Crossing that immense pond of water ! And 
 was there ever such bad grass as this ? One may see that 
 the fairies thrive ill here." 
 
 " You are always discontented, my lord," said Pipalee ; 
 " but then you are somewhat too old to travel — at least, un- 
 less you go in your nutshell and four." 
 
 The lord treasurer did not like this remark, so he mut- 
 tered a peevish pshaw, and took a pinch of honeysuckle dust 
 to console himself for being forced to put up with so much 
 frivolity. 
 
 At this moment, ere the moon was yet at her middest 
 height, Nymphalin joined her subjects. 
 
 " i ha\'e just returned," said she, with a melancholy ex 
 l^ression on her countenance, " from a scene that has almost 
 renewed in me that sympathy with human beings which ot 
 late years our race has wellnigh relinquished. 
 
 " I hurried through the town without noticing much food 
 for adventure. I paused for a moment on a fat citizen's pil- 
 low, and bade him dream of love. He woke in a fright, and 
 ran down to see that his cheeses were safe. I swept with a 
 Hght wing over a politician's eyes, and straightway he dreamed 
 of theatres and music. I caught an undertaker in his first
 
 1 6 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 nap, and I left him whirled into a waltz. For what would 
 be sleep if it did not contrast life ? Then I came to a soli- 
 tary chamber, in which a girl, in her tenderest youth, knelt by 
 the bedside in prayer, and I saw that the death-spirit had 
 passed over her, and the blight was on the leaves of the rose. 
 The room was still and hushed — the angel of Purity kept 
 watch there. Her heart was full of love, and 3-et of holy 
 thoughts, and I bade her dream of the long life denied her— 
 of a happy home — of the kisses of her young lover — of eter- 
 nal faith, and unwaning tenderness. Let her at least enjoy 
 in dreams what Fate has refused to Truth ! — and passing 
 from the room, I found her lover stretched in his cloak beside 
 the door ; for he reads with a feverish and desperate prophesy 
 the doom that waits her; and so loves he the very air she 
 breathes, the very ground she treads, and when she has left 
 his sight he creeps silently and unknown to her, to the near- 
 est spot hallowed by her presence, anxious that while yet she 
 is on earth not an hour, not a moment, should be wasted upon 
 other thoughts than those that belong to her ; and feeling a 
 security, a fearful joy, in lessening the distance that now 
 only momentarily divides them. And that love seemed to me 
 not as the love of the common world, and I stayed my wings 
 and looked upon it as a thing that centuries might pass, and 
 bring no parallel to, in its beauty and its melancholy truth. 
 But I kept away the sleep from the lovers' eyes, for well I 
 knew that sleep was a tyrant, that shortened the brief time 
 of waking tenderness for the living, yet spared him ; and one 
 sad, anxious thought of her was sweeter, in spite of its sor- 
 row, than the brightest of fairy dreams. So I left him awake, 
 and watching there through the long night, and felt that the 
 children of earth have still something that unites them to 
 the spirits of a finer race, so long as they retain amongst 
 them the presence of real love ! " 
 
 And oh ! Is there not a truth also in our fictions of the 
 Unseen World. Are there not yet bright lingerers by the 
 forest and the stream ? Do the moon and the soft stars look 
 out on no delicate and winged forms bathing in their light ? 
 Are the fairies and the invisible hosts but the children of our 
 dreams ; and not their inspiration t Is that all a delusion 
 which speaks from the golden page 1 And is the world only 
 given to harsh and anxious travellers, that walk to and fro in 
 pursuit of no gentle shadows ? Are the chimeras of the pas- 
 sions the sole spirit of the Universe ? No ! while my remem- 
 brance treasures in its deepest cell the image of one no more,
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. i; 
 
 — one who was " not of the earth, earthy," — one in whom love 
 was the essence of thoughts divine — one whose shape and 
 mould, whose heart and genius, would, had Poesy never be- 
 fore have dreamed it, have called forth the first notions of 
 spirits, resembling mortals but not of them ; — no, Gertrude ! 
 while I remember you, the faith, the trust in brighter shapes 
 and fairer natures than the ♦.•orlcl knows of, comes clinging to 
 my heart; and still will I think that Fairies might have 
 watched over your sleep, and Spirits have ministered to your 
 dreams. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 FEELINGS. 
 
 Gertrude and her companions proceeded by slow, and, 
 to her, delightful stages to Rotterdam. Trevylyan sat by her 
 side, and her hand was ever in his ; and when her delicate 
 frame became sensible of fatigue, her head drooped on his 
 shoulder as its natural resting-place. Her father was a man 
 who had lived long enough to have encountered many rever- 
 ses of fortune, and they had left him, as I am apt to believe 
 long adversity usually does leave its prey, somewhat chilled 
 and somewhat hardened to affection ; passive and quiet of 
 hope, resigned to the worst as to the common order of events, 
 and expecting little from the best, as an unlooked-for incident 
 in the regularity of human afflictions. He was insensible of 
 his daughter's danger, for he was not one whom the fear of 
 love endows with prophetic vision ; and he lived tranquilly in 
 the present, without asking what new misfortune awaited him 
 in the future. Yet he loved his child, his only child, with 
 whatever of affection was left him by the many shocks his 
 heart had received ; and in her approaching connection with 
 one rich and noble as Trevylyan, he felt even something bor- 
 dering upon pleasure. Lapped in the apathetic indifference 
 of his nature, he leaned back in the carriage, enjoying the 
 bright weather that attended their journey, and sensible — for 
 he was one of fine and cultivated taste — of whatever beauties 
 of nature or remains of art varied their course. A companion 
 of this sort was the most agreeable that two persons never need
 
 1 8 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 ing a third listener, could desire ; he left them undisturbed to 
 the intoxication of their mutual presence ; he marked not the 
 interchange of glances ; he listened not to the whisper, the low 
 delicious whisper, with which the heart speaks its sympathy 
 to heart. He broke not that charmed silence which falls over 
 us when the thoughts are full, and words leave nothing to 
 explain ; that repose of feeling ; that certainty that we are 
 understood without the effort of w-ords, which makes the real 
 luxury of intercourse and the true enchantment of travel. 
 What a memory hours like these bequeath, after we have set- 
 tled down into the calm occupations of common life ! — how 
 beautiful, through the vista of years, seems that brief moon- 
 light track upon the waters of our youth ! 
 
 And Trevylyan's nature, which, as I have said before, was 
 naturally hard and stern ; which was hot, irritable, ambitious, 
 and prematurely tinctured with the policy and lessons of the 
 world, seemed utterly changed by the peculiarities of his 
 love ; every hour, every moment, was full of incident to him ; 
 every look of Gertrude's was entered in the tablets of his 
 heart, so that his love knew no Ian;; uor, it required no change ; 
 he was absorbed in it — it was himself ! And he was soft and 
 watchful as the step of a mother by the couch of her sick 
 child ; the lion within him was tamed by indomitable love ; 
 the sadness, the presentiment that was mixed with all his 
 passion for (Gertrude, filled him too with that poetry of feeling 
 which is the result of thoughts weighing upon us, and not to 
 be expressed by ordinary language. In this part of their 
 journey, as I find by the date, were the following lines written ; 
 they are to be judged as the lines of one in whom emotion 
 and truth were the only inspiration — 
 
 I. 
 
 " As leaves left darkling in the flusli of day, 
 
 When glints the glad sun chequering o'er the tree. 
 I see the green earth brightening in the ray, 
 Which only casts a shadow upon nit ! 
 
 II. 
 
 ^Vhat arc the Ijcams, the flowers, the glory, all 
 IJfc's glow and gloss — the music and the bloom, 
 
 When every sun but speeds the Kletnal Pall, 
 And Time is Death that dallies with the Tomb ? 
 
 III. 
 
 And yet — oh yet, so young, so pure 1 — the while 
 
 Fresh laugh the rose-hues round youth's morning sky,
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 19 
 
 That voice — those eyes — the deep love of that smile, 
 Are they not soul — all soul — and can they die ? 
 
 IV. 
 
 Are there the words, 'No More ' for thoughts like our* ? 
 
 Must the bark sink upon so soft a wave ? 
 Hath the short summer of thy life no flowers, 
 
 But those which bloom above thine early grave ? 
 
 V. 
 
 O God ! and what is life, that I should live 
 
 (Hath not the world enow of common clay ?) ^ 
 
 And she — the Rose — whose life a soul could give 
 To the void desert, sigh its sweets away. 
 
 VI. 
 
 And I that love thee thus, to whom the air, 
 
 Blest by thy breath, makes heaven where'er it be, 
 
 Watch thy cheek wane, and smile away despair — 
 Lest it should dim one hour yet left to thee. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Still let me conquer self, — oh, still conceal 
 
 By the smooth brow the snake tliat coils below ; 
 
 Break, break my heart, it comforts yet to feel 
 That she dreams on, unwaken'd by my woe 1 
 
 Vllt. 
 
 Hush'd, where the Star's soft angel loves to keep 
 Watch o'er their tide, the mourning waters roll ; 
 
 So glides my spirit — darkness in the deep, 
 But o'er the wave the presence of thy soul I " 
 
 Gertrude had not as yet the presentiments that filled the 
 soul of Trev}'lyan. She thought too little of herself to know 
 her danger, and those hours to her were hours of unmingled 
 sweetness. Sometimes, indeed, the exhaustion of her disease 
 tinged her spirits with a vague sadness, an abstraction came 
 over her, and a languor she vainly struggled against. These 
 fits of dejection and gloom touched Trevylyan to the quick , 
 his eye never ceased to watch them, nor his heart to soothe. 
 Often when he marked them, he sought to attract her atten- 
 tion from what he. fancied, though erringly, a sympathy with his 
 own forebodings, and to lead her young and romantic imagin- 
 ation through the temporary beguilements of fiction for
 
 20 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE 
 
 Gertrude was yet in the first bloom of youth, and all the dews 
 of beautiful childhood sparkled freshly from the virgin bios 
 soms of her mind. And Trevylvan, who had passed some of 
 his early years among the students of Leipsic, and was deeply 
 versed in the various world of legendary lore, ransacked his 
 memory for such tales as seemed to him most likely to win 
 her interest ; and often with false smiles entered into the 
 playful tale, or oftener, with more faithful interest, into the 
 graver legend of trials that warned of, yet beguiled them from 
 their own. Of such tales I have selected but a few ; I know 
 not that they are the least unworthy of repetition : they are 
 those which many recollections induce me to repeat the most 
 willingly. Gertrude loved these stories, for she had not yet 
 lost, by the coldness of the world, one leaf from that soft and 
 wild romance which belonged to her beautiful mind. And, 
 more than all, she loved the sounds of a voice which every 
 day became more and more musical to her ear. " Shall I tell 
 you," said Trevylyan, one morning, as he observed her 
 gloomier mood stealing over the face of Gertrude, " shall I 
 tell you, ere yet we pass into the dull land of Holland, a 
 story of Malines, whose spires we shall shortly see ? " Ger- 
 trude's face brightened at once, and, as she leaned back in 
 the carriage as it whirled rapidly along, and fixed her deep 
 blue eyes on Trevvlyan, he began the following tale. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The Maid of Malines. 
 
 Ii was noonday in the town of Malines, or Mechlin, as 
 the English usually term it ; the Sabbath bell had summoned 
 the inhabitants to divine worship ; and the crowd that had 
 loitered round the church of St. Rembauld had gradually 
 emptied itself within the spacious aisles of the sacred edifice. 
 
 A young man was standing in the street, with his eyes 
 bent on the ground, and apparently listening for some sound ; 
 for, without raising his looks from the rude pavement, he 
 turned to every corner of it with an intent and anxious ex- 
 pression of countenance ; he held in one hand a staff, in the 
 other a long slender cord, the end of which trailed on the
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. ji 
 
 ground ; every now and then he called, with a plaintive voice, 
 " Fido, Fido, come back ! Why hast thou deserted me ? " 
 Fido returned not ; the dog, wearied of confinement, had 
 slipped from the string, and was at play with his kind in a dis- 
 tant quarter of the town, leaving the blind man to seek his way 
 as he might to his solitary inn. 
 
 By and by a light step passed through the street, and the 
 young stranger's face brightened. 
 
 " Pardon me," said he, turning to the spot where his 
 quick ear had caught the sound, " and direct me, if you are 
 not much pressed for a few moments' time, to the hotel 
 Mortier d' Orr 
 
 It was a young woman whose dress betokened that she 
 belonged to the middling class of life, whom he thus addressed. 
 " It is some distance hence, sir," said she ; "but if you con- 
 tinue straight on for about a hundred yards, and then take the 
 second turn to your right hand " 
 
 " Alas ! " interrupted the stranger, with a melancholy 
 smile, " your direction will avail me little ; my dog has de- 
 serted me, and I am blind ! " 
 
 There was something in these words and in the stranger's 
 v^oice, which went irresistibly to the heart of the young woman. 
 " Pray, forgive me," she said, almost with tears in her eyes, 
 *' I did not perceive your — " misfortune, she was about to say 
 but she checked herself with an instinctive delicacy. — " Lean 
 upon me, I will conduct you to the door ; nay, sir," observing 
 that he hesitated, " I have time enough to spare, I assure 
 you." 
 
 The stranger placed his hand on the young woman's arm, 
 and though Lucille was naturally so bashful that even her 
 mother would laughingly reproach her for the excess of a 
 maiden virtue, she felt not the least pang of shame as she 
 found herself thus suddenly walking through the streets of 
 Malines, along with a young stranger, whose dress and air be- 
 tokened him of rank superior to her own. 
 
 " Your voice is very gentle," said he, after a pause ; " and 
 that," he added, with a sigh, " is the only criteron by which I 
 know the young and the beautiful ! " Lucille now blushed, 
 and with a slight mixture of pain in the blush, for she knew 
 well that to beauty she had no pretension. "Are you a 
 native of this town ? " continued he. 
 
 " Yes, sir ; my father holds a small office in the customs, 
 and my mother and I eke out his salary by making lace. We 
 are called poor, but we do not feel it sir."
 
 22 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 " You are fortunate ; there is no wealth like the heart's 
 wealth — content," answered the blind man, mournfully. 
 
 " And, monsieur," said Lucille, feeling angry with herseli 
 that she had awakened a natural envy in the stranger's mind, 
 and anxious to change the subject — " and, monsieur, has he 
 been long at Malines ? " 
 
 " But yesterday. I am passing through the Low Coun 
 tries on a tour; perhaps you smile at the tour of a blind man 
 — but it is wearisome even to the blind to rest always in the 
 same place. I thought during church-time, when the streets 
 v/ere empt}^, that I might, by the help of my dog, enjoy safely 
 at least the air, if not the sight of the town ; but there are 
 some persons, methinks, m ho cannot have even a dog for a 
 friend ! " 
 
 The blind man spoke bitterly ; the desertion of his dog 
 had touched him to the core. Lucille wiped her eyes. 
 
 " And does monsieur travel then alone ? " said she ; and 
 looking at his face more attentively than she had yet ventured 
 to do, she saw that he was scarcely above two-and-twenty. 
 " His fatlier, his mother,^'' she added, with an emphasis on the 
 last word, " are they not with him." 
 
 " I am an orphan ! " answered the stranger ; " and I have 
 neither brother nor sister." 
 
 The desolate condition of the blind man quite melted Lu- 
 cille ; never had she been so strongly affected. She felt a 
 strange flutter at the heart — a secret and earnest sympathy 
 that attracted her at once towards him. She wished that 
 Heaven had suffered her to be his sister. 
 
 The contrast between the youth and the form of the stran- 
 ger, and the affliction which took hope from the one, and ac- 
 tivity from the other, increased the compassion he excited. 
 His features were remarkably regular, and had a certain no- 
 bleness in their outline ; and his frame was gracefully and 
 fumly knit, though he moved cautiously and with no cheerful 
 step. 
 
 They had now passed into a narrow street leading towards 
 the hotel, when they heard behind them the clatter of hoofs ; 
 and Lucille, looking hastily back, saw that a troop of the Bel- 
 gian horse was passing through the town. 
 
 She drev,' her charge by the wall, and trembling with fear 
 for him, she stationed herself by his side. The troop passed 
 at a full trot through the street : and at the sound of their 
 clanging arms, and the ringing hoofs of their heavy chargers, 
 Lucille might have seen, had she looked at the blind man's
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE KHhVE. 23 
 
 face, that its sad features kindled with enthusiasm, and his 
 head was raised proudly from its wonted and melancholy 
 bend. 
 
 " Thank Heaven ! " she said, as the troop had nearly 
 passed them, " the danger is over ! " 
 
 Not so. One of the last two soldiers who rode abreast, 
 was unfortunately mounted on a young and unmanageable 
 horse. The rider's oaths and digging spur only increased 
 the fire and impatience of the charger ; it plunged from side 
 to side of the narrow street. 
 
 " Look to yourselves ! " cried the horseman, as he was 
 borne on to the place where Lucille and the stranger stood 
 against the wall. " Are ye mad ? — why do you not run ? " 
 
 " For Heaven's sake — for mercy's sake, he is blind 1 " 
 cried Lucille, clinging to the stranger's side. 
 
 " Save yourself, my kind guide ! " said the stranger. But 
 Lucille dreamed not of such desertion. The trooper wrested 
 ihe horse's head from the spot where they stood : with a 
 snort, as it felt the spur, the enraged animal lashed out with 
 its hind legs ; and Lucille, unable to save both, threw herself 
 before the blind man, and received the shock directed against 
 him ; her slight and delicate arm fell broken by her side — 
 the horseman was borne onward. " Thank God, you are 
 saved ! " was poor Lucille's exclamation ; and she fell, over- 
 come with pain and terror, into the arms which the stranger 
 mechanically opened to receive her. 
 
 " My guide ! my friend ! " cried he, " you are hurt, you 
 
 1) 
 
 " No, sir," interrupted Lucille, faintingly, " I am better 
 — I am well. This arm, if you please — we are nut far from 
 your hotel now." 
 
 But the stranger's ear, tutored to every inflection of voice, 
 told him at once of the pain she suffered ; he drew from her 
 by degrees the confession of the injury she had sustained ; 
 but the generous girl did not tell him it had been incurred 
 solely in his protection. He now insisted on reversing their 
 duties, and accompanying her to her home ; and Lucille, al- 
 most fainting with pain, and hardly able to move, was forced 
 to consent. But a few steps down the next turning stood the 
 humble mansion of her father. They reached it : and Lucille 
 scarcely crossed the threshold, before she sank down, and for 
 some minutes was insensible to pain. It was left to the stran- 
 ger to explain, and to beseech them immediately to send for 
 a surgeon, " the most skilful — the most practised in the town,"
 
 24 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 said he. " See, T am rich, and this is the least I can do to 
 atone to your genei'ous daughter for not forsaking even a 
 stranger in peril." 
 
 He held out his purse as he spoke, but the father refused 
 the offer ; and it saved the blind man some shame, that he 
 could not see the blush of honest resentment with which so 
 poor a species of remuneration was put aside. 
 
 The young man stayed till the surgeon arrived, till the 
 arm was set ; nor did he depart until he had obtained a prom- 
 ise from the mother that he should learn the next morning 
 how the sufferer had passed the night. 
 
 The next morning, indeed, he had intended to quit a 
 town that offers but little temptation to the traveller ; but he 
 :arried day after day, until Lucille herself accompanied her 
 mother, to assure him of her recovery. 
 
 You know, or at least I do, dearest Gertrude, that there 
 is such a thing as love at the first meeting — a secret, an un- 
 accountable affinity between persons (strangers before), which 
 draws them irresistibly together. As if there were truth in 
 Plato's beautiful phantasy, that our souls were a portion of 
 the stars, and that spirits, thus attracted to each other, have 
 drawn their original light from the same orb, and yearn for 
 a renewal of their former union. Yet, without recurring to 
 such fanciful solutions of a daily mystery, it was but natural 
 that one, in the forlorn and desolate condition of Eugene 
 St. Amand, should have felt a certain tenderness for a person 
 who had so generously suffered for his sake. 
 
 The darkness to which he was condemned did not shut 
 from his mind's eye the haunting image of ideal beauty ; 
 rather, on the contrary, in his perpetual and unoccupied soli- 
 tude, he fed the reveries of an imagination naturally warm, 
 and a heart eager for sympathy and commune. 
 
 He had said rightly that his only test of beauty was in 
 the melody of voice ; and never had a softer or a more thrill- 
 ing tone than that of the young maiden touched upon his ear. 
 Her exclamation, so beautifully denying self, so devoted in 
 ,ts charity — " Thank God, you are saved ! " uttered too in 
 the moment of her own suffering, rang constantly upon his 
 soul and he yielded, without precisely defining their nature, 
 to vague and delicious sentiments, that his youth had nevei 
 awakened to, till then. And Lucille — the very accident thai 
 had happened to her on his behalf, only deepened the in- 
 terest she had already conceived for one who, in the first 
 flush of youth was thus cut off from the glad objects of life,
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 25 
 
 and left to a night of years desolate and alone. There is, to 
 your beautiful and kindly sex, a natural inclination to protect. 
 This makes them the angels of sickness, the comforters of 
 age, the fosterers of childhood ; and this feeling, hi Lucilie 
 peculiarly developed, had already inexpressibly linked her 
 compassionate nature to the lot of the unfortunate traveller. 
 With ardent affections, and with thoughts beyond her station 
 and her years, she was not without that modest vanity which 
 made her painfully susceptible to her own deficiencies in 
 beauty. Instinctively conscious of how deeply she herself 
 could'love, she believed it impossible that she could ever be 
 so loved in return. This stranger, so superior in her eyes to 
 all she had yet seen, was the first who had ever addressed 
 her in that voice which by tones, not words, speaks that 
 admiration most dear to a woman's heart. To him she was 
 beautiful, and her lovely mind spoke out, undimmed by the 
 imperfections of her face. Not, indeed, that Lucille was 
 wholly without personal attraction ; her light step and grace- 
 ful form were elastic with the freshness of youth, and hei 
 mouth and smile had so gentle and tender an expression, that 
 there were moments when it would not have been the blind 
 only who would have mistaken her to be beautiful. Her 
 early childhood had indeed given the promise of attractions, 
 which the small-pox, that then fearful malady, had inexorably 
 marred. It had not only seared the smooth skin and the 
 brilliant hues, but utterly changed even the character of the 
 features. It so happened that Lucille's family were cele- 
 brated for beauty, and vain of that celebrity ; and so bitterly 
 had her parents deplored the effects of the cruel malady, 
 that poor Lucille had been early taught to consider them far 
 more grievous than they really were, and to exaggerate the 
 advantages of that beauty, the loss of which was considered by 
 her parents so heavy a misfortune. Lucille, too, had a cousin 
 named Julie, who was the wonder of all Malines for her per- 
 sonal perfections ; and as the cousins were much together, 
 the contrast was too striking not to occasion frequent morti- 
 fication to Lucille. But everj^ misfortune has something oi 
 a counterpoise ; and the consciousness of personal inferiority 
 had meekened, without souring, her temper, had given gentle- 
 ness to a spirit that otherwise might have been too high, and 
 humility to a mind that was naturally strong, impassioned, 
 and energetic. 
 
 And yet Lucille had long conquered the one disadvantage 
 she most dreaded, in the want of beauty. Lucille was never
 
 j6 the pilgrims of the RHINE. 
 
 known but to be loved. Wherever came her presence, hei 
 bright and soft mind diffused a certain inexpressible charm • 
 and where she was not, a something wis absent from the 
 scene which not even Julie's beauty could replace. 
 
 " I propose," said St. Amand to Madame le Tisseur, 
 Lucille's mother, as he sat in her little salon — for he had 
 already contracted that acquaintance with the family which 
 permitted him to be led to their house, to return the visits 
 Madame le Tisseur had made him ; and his dog, oncemoie 
 returned a penitent to his master, always conducted his steps 
 to the humble abode, and stopped instinctively at the door — 
 " I propose," said St. Amand, after a pause, and with some 
 embarrassment, " to stay a little while longer at Malines ; 
 the air agrees with me, and I like the quiet of the place ? but 
 you are aware, madame, that at a hotel among strangers, I 
 feel my situation somewhat cheerless. I have been thinking" 
 — St. Amand paused again — " I have been thinking that if I 
 could persuade some agreeable family to receive me as a 
 lodger, I would fix myself here for some weeks. I am easily 
 pleased." 
 
 " Doubtless there are many in Malines who would be too 
 happy to receive such a lodger." 
 
 " Will you receive me ? " asked St. Amand, abruptly. " It 
 was oi your family I thought," 
 
 " Of us ? Monsieur is too flattering. But we have scarce- 
 ly a room good enough for you." 
 
 "What difference between one room and another can 
 there be lo me ? That is the best apartment to my choice, in 
 which the human voice sounds most kindly." 
 
 The arrangement was made, and St. Amand came now to 
 reside beneath the same roof as Lucille. And was she not 
 happy that he wanted so constant an attendance ? was she 
 not happy that she was ever of use ? St. Amand was passionate- 
 ly fond of music ; he played himself with a skill that was 
 only surpassed by the exquisite melody of his voice ; and 
 was not Lucille happy when she sat mute and listening to 
 such sounds as in Malines were never heard before ? Was 
 she not happy in gazing on a face to whose melancholy aspect 
 her voice instantly summoned the smile ? Was she not 
 happy when the music ceased, and St, Amand called 
 " Lucille ? " Did not her own name uttered by that voice 
 seem to her even sweeter than the music ? Was she not 
 happy when they walked out in the still evenings of summer, 
 and her arm thrilled beneath the light touch of one to whom
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE 27 
 
 she was so necessary ? Was she not proud in her happiness, 
 and was there not something like worship in the gratitude 
 she felt to him, for raising her humble spirit to the luxury of 
 feeling herself beloved ? 
 
 St. Amand's parents were French. They had resided in 
 the neighborhood of Amiens, where they had inherited a com 
 petent property, to which he had succeeded about two years 
 previous to the date of my story. 
 
 He had been blind from the age of three years. " I 
 know not," said he, as he related these particulars to Lucille 
 one evening when they were alone ; " I know not what the 
 earth may be like, or the heavens, or the rivers whose voice 
 at least I can hear, for I have no recollection beyond that of 
 a confused, but delicious blending of a thousand glorious 
 colors — a bright and quick sense of joy — a visible music. 
 But it is only since my childhood that I have mourned, as I 
 now unceasingly mourn, for the light of day. My boyhood 
 passed in a quiet cheerfulness ; the least trifle then could 
 please and occupy the vacancies of my mind ; but it was as 
 I took delight in being read to ; as I listened to the vivid 
 descriptions of poetry ; as I glowed at the recital of great 
 deeds ; as I was made acquainted by books with the energy, 
 the action, the heat, the fervor, the pomp, the enthusiasm of 
 life, that I gradually opened to the sense of all I was for ever 
 denied. I felt that I existed, not lived ; and that, in the 
 midst of the Universal Liberty, I was sentenced to a prison, 
 from whose blank walls there was no escape. Still however, 
 while my parents lived, I had something of consolation ; a1 
 least I was not alone. They died, and a sudden and dread 
 solitude, a vast and empty dreariness, settled upon my dun- 
 geon. One old servant only, who had attended me from my 
 childhood, who had known me in my short privilege of light, 
 by whose recollections my mind could grope back its way 
 through the dark and narrow passages of memory to the fain* 
 glimpses of the sun, was all that remained to me of human 
 sympathies. It did not suffice, however, to content me with 
 a home where my father's and my mother's kind voice were 
 not. A restless impatience, an anxiety to move, possessed 
 me, and I set out from my home, journeying whither I cared 
 not, so that at least I could change an air that weighed upon 
 me like a palpable burthen. I took only this old attendant 
 as my companion ; he too died three months since at Brux- 
 elles, worn out with years. Alas 1 I had forgotten that he 
 was old, for I saw not his progress to decay ; and now, saye
 
 28 THE PILGRIMS OP THE RHINE. 
 
 my faithless dog, I was utterly alone, till I came hither and 
 found thee.^^ 
 
 Lucille stooped down to caress the dog ; she blessed the 
 desertion that had led him to a friend who never could de- 
 sert. 
 
 But however much, and however gratefully, St. Amand 
 loved Lucille, her power availed not to chase the melancholy 
 from his brow, and to reconcile him to his forlorn condition, 
 
 " All ! would that I could see thee ! Would that I could 
 look upon a face that my heart vainly endeavors to delin- 
 eate. 
 
 " If thou couldst," sighed Lucille, " thou wouldst cease 
 to love me." 
 
 " Impossible ! " cried St. Amand, passionately. " How- 
 ever the world may find thee, thou wouldst become my stan- 
 dard of beauty ; and I should judge not of thee by others, 
 but of others by thee." 
 
 He loved to hear Lucille read to him, and mostly he 
 loved the descriptions of war, of travel, of wild adventure, 
 and yet they occasioned him the most pain. Often she 
 paused from the page as she heard him sigh, and felt that 
 she would even have renounced the bliss of being loved by 
 him, if she could have restored to him that blessing, the de- 
 sire for which haunted him as a spectre. 
 
 Lucille's family were Catholic, and, like most in their 
 station, they possessed the superstitions, as well as the de- 
 votion of the faith. Sometimes they amused themselves, of 
 an evening, by the various legends and imaginary miracles 
 of their calendar ; and once, as they were thus conversing with 
 two or three of their neighbors, "The Tomb of the Three Kings 
 of Cologne " became the main topic of their wondering re- 
 citals. However strong was the sense of Lucille, she was, 
 as you will readily conceive, naturally influenced by the be- 
 lief of those with whom she had been brought up from her 
 cradle, and she listened to tale after tale of the miracles 
 wrought at the consecrated tomb, as earnestly and undoubt- 
 ingly as the rest. 
 
 And the kings of the East were no ordinary saints ; to 
 the relics of the Three Magi, who followed the Star of 
 Bethlehem, and were the first potentates of the earth who 
 adored its Saviour, well might the pious Catholic suppose 
 that a peculiar power, and a healing sanctity, would belong. 
 Each of the circle (St. Amand, who had been more than us- 
 ually silent, and even gloomy during the day, had retired to
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 29 
 
 his own apartment, for there were some moments when, in 
 the sadness of his thoughts, he sought that solitude which he 
 so impatiently fled from at others) — each of the circle had 
 some story^ to relate equally veracious and indisputable, of 
 an infirmity cured, or a prayer accorded, or a sin atoned for 
 at the foot of the holy tomb. One story peculiarly affected 
 Lucille ; the narrator, a venerable old man with gray locks, 
 •solemnly declared himself a witness of its truth. 
 
 A woman at Anvers had given birth to a son, the off- 
 spring of an illicit connection, who came into the world deaf 
 and dumb. The unfortunate mother believed the calamity a 
 punishment for her own sin. " Ah ! would," said she, " that 
 the affliction had fallen only upon me ! Wretch that I am, 
 my innocent child is punished for my offence ! " This idea 
 haunted her night and day : she pined and could not be com- 
 forted. As the child grew up, and wound himself more and 
 more round her heart, his caresses added new pangs to her 
 remorse ; and at length (continued the narrator) hearing per- 
 petually of the holy fame of the Tpmb of Cologne, she re- 
 solved upon a pilgrimage barefoot to the shrine. " God is 
 merciful," said she, " and he who called Magdalene his sis- 
 ter, may take the mother's curse from the child." She then 
 went to' Cologne ; she poured her tears, and her prayers, at 
 the sacred tomb. When she returned to her native town, 
 what was her dismay as she approached her cottage to behold 
 it a heap of ruins ! — its blackened rafters and yawning case- 
 ments betokened the ravages of fire. The poor woman sank 
 upon the ground utterly overpowered. Had her son per 
 ished ? At that moment she heard the crj' of a child's voice, 
 and, lo ! her child rushed to her arms, and called her 
 " mother ! " 
 
 Pie had beei. saved from the fire which had broken out 
 seven days before but in the terror he had suffered, the 
 string that tied his tongue had been loosened ; he had uttered 
 articulate sounds of distress ; the curse was remove'd, and 
 one word at least the kind neighbors had already taught him, 
 to welcome his mother's return. What cared she now that 
 her substance was gone, that her roof was ashes ? — she bowed 
 in grateful submission to so mild a stroke ; her prayer had 
 been heard, and the sin of the mother was visited no longer 
 on the child. 
 
 I have said, dear Gertrude, that this story made a deep 
 mipression upon Lucille. A misfortune so nearly akin to 
 that of St. Amand, removed by the prayer of another, filled
 
 JO THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 her with derated thoughts, and a beautiful hope. " Is not 
 the tomb still standing ? " thought she. " Is not God still 
 in heaven ? — He who heard the guilty, may He not hear the 
 guiltless ? Is He not the God of love ? Are not the affec- 
 tions the offerings that please Him best ? and what though 
 the diild's mediator was his mother, can even a mother love 
 her child more tenderly than I love Eugene ? But if, Lucille, 
 thy prayer be granted, if he recover his sight, thy charm is 
 gone, he will love thee no longer. No matter ! be it so — I 
 shall at least have made him happy ! " 
 
 Such were the thoughts that filled the mind of Lucille ; 
 she cherished them till they settled into resolution, and she 
 secretly vowed to perform her pilgrimage of love. She told 
 neither St. Amand nor her parents of her intention ; she 
 knew the obstacles such an announcement would create. 
 Fortunately she had an aunt settled at Bruxelles, to whom 
 she been accustomed, once in eveiy year, to pay a month's 
 visit, and at that time she generally took with her the work of 
 a twelvemonth's industry, which found a readier sale at 
 Bruxelles than at Malines. Lucille and St. Amand were 
 already betrothed ; their wedding was shortly to take place ; 
 and the custom of the country leading parents, however poor, 
 to nourish the honorable ambition of giving some dowry with 
 their daughters, Lucille found it easy to hide the object of 
 her departure, under the pretence of taking the lace to Brux- 
 elles, which had been the year's labor of her mother and her- 
 self — it would sell for sufficient, at least, to defray the prep- 
 arations for the wedding. 
 
 " Thou art ever right, child," said Madame le Tisseur ; 
 " the richer St. Amand is, why the less oughtest thou to go a 
 beggar to his house." 
 
 In fact, the honest ambition of the good people was ex- 
 cited ; their pride had been hurt by the envy of the town and 
 the current congratulations on so advantageous a marriage ; 
 and they employed themselves in counting up the fortune 
 they should be able to give to their only child, and flattering 
 their pardonable vanity with the notion that there would be 
 no such great disproportion in the connection after all. They 
 were right, but not in their own view of the estimate ; the 
 wealth that Lucille brought was what fate could not lessen, — 
 reverse could not reach, — the ungracious seasons could not 
 blight its sweet harvest, — imprudence could not dissipate, 
 fraud could not steal, one grain from its abundant coffers I.
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 31 
 
 Like the purse in the Fairy Tale, its use was hourly, its 
 treasure inexhaustible. 
 
 St. Amand alone was not to be won to her departure ; 
 he chafed at the notion of a dowry ; he was not appeased 
 even by Lucille's representation, that it was only to gratify 
 and not to impoverish her parents. " And thou, too, canst 
 leave me ! " he said, in that plaintive voice which had made 
 his first charm to Lucille's heart. " It is a double blind 
 ness ! " 
 
 " But for a few days ; a fortnight at most, dearest 
 Eugene." 
 
 " A fortnight ! you do not reckon time as the blind do," 
 said St. Amand, bitterly. 
 
 " But listen, listen, dear Eugene," said Lucille, weeping. 
 
 The sound of her sobs restored him to a sense of his in- 
 gratitude. Aks, he knew not how much he had to be grate- 
 ful for. He held out his arms to her ; " Forgive me," said 
 he. " Those who can see nature know not how terrible it is to 
 be alone." 
 
 " But my mother will not leave you." 
 
 " She is not you ! " 
 
 " And Julie," said Lucille, hesitatingly. 
 
 '■' What is Julie to me ? " 
 
 " Ah, you are the only one, save my parents, who could 
 think of me in her presence." 
 
 " And whv, Lucille ? " 
 
 '■' Why ! She is more beautiful than a dream." 
 
 " Say not so. Would I could see, that I might prove to 
 the world how much more beautiful thou art ! There is no 
 music in her voice." 
 
 The evening before Lucille departed, she sat up late with 
 St. Amand and her mother. They conversed on the future ; 
 they made plans ; in the wide sterility of the world they laid 
 out the garden of household love, and filled it with flowers, 
 forgetful of the wind that scatters, and the frost that kills. 
 And when, leaning on Lucille's arm, St. Amand sought his 
 chamber, and they parted at his door, which closed upon her 
 she fell down on her knees at the threshold, and poured out 
 the fulness of her heart in a prayer for his safety, and the 
 fulfilment of her timid hope. 
 
 At daybreak she was consigned to the conveyance that 
 performed the short journey from Malines to Bruxelles. 
 When she entered the town, instead of seeking her aunt, she 
 rested at an auberge in the suburbs, and confiding her little
 
 32 
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 basket of lace to the care of its hostess, she set out alone, 
 and on foot, upon the errand of her heart's lovely supersti- 
 tion. And erring though it was, her faith redeemed its weak- 
 ness — her affection made it even sacred. And well may we 
 believe, that the Eye which reads all secrets, scarce looked 
 reprovingly on that fanaticism whose only infirmity was love. 
 So fearful was she, lest, by rendering the task too easy, 
 she might impair the effect, that she scarcely allowed herself 
 rest or food. Sometimes, in the heat of noon, she wandered 
 a little from the roadside, and under the spreading lime-trees 
 surrendered her mind to its sweet and bitter thoughts ; but 
 ever the restlessness of her enterprise urged her on, and faint, 
 weary, and with bleeding feet, she started up and continued 
 her way. At length she reached the ancient city, where a 
 holier age has scarce worn from the habits and aspects of 
 men the Roman trace. She prostrated herself at the tomb 
 of the Magi ; she proffered her ardent but humble prayer to 
 Him before whose Son those fleshless heads (yet to faith at 
 least preserved) had, eighteen centuries ago, bowed in adora- 
 tion. Twice every day, for a whole week, she sought the 
 same spot, and poured forth the same prayer. The last day 
 an old priest, who, hovering in the church, had, observed her 
 constantly at devotion, with that fatherly interest which the 
 better ministers of the Catholic sect (that sect which has 
 covered the earth with the mansions of charity) feel for the 
 unhappy, approached her as she was retiring with moist and 
 downcast eyes, and saluting her, assumed the privilege of his 
 order, to inquire if there was aught in which his advice or aid 
 could serve. There was something in the venerable air of 
 the old man which encouraged Lucille ; she opened her 
 heart to him ; she told him all. The good priest was much 
 moved by her simplicity and earnestness. He questioned 
 her minutely as to the peculiar species of blindness with 
 which St. Amand was afflicted ; and after musing a little 
 while, he said, " Daughter, God is great and merciful ; we 
 must trust in his power, but we must not forget that he mostly 
 works by mortal agents. As you pass through Louvain in 
 your way home, fail not to see there a certain physician, 
 named Le Kain. He is celebrated through Flanders for the 
 cures he has wrought among the blind, and his advice is 
 sought by all classes from far and near. He lives hard by 
 the Hotel de Ville, but any one will inform you of his resi- 
 dence. Stay, my child, you shall take him a note from me ; 
 he is a benevolent and kindly man, and you shall tell him
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE 
 
 33 
 
 exactly the same story (and with the same voice) you have 
 told to me." 
 
 So saying, the priest made Lucille accompany him to his 
 home, and forcing her to refresh herself less sparingly than 
 she had yet done since she had left Malines, he gave her his 
 blessing, and a letter to Le Kain, which he rightly judged 
 would ensure her a patient hearing from the physician. Well 
 known among all men of j .ence was the name of the priest, 
 and a word of recommenuation from him went farther, where 
 virtue and wisdom were honored, than the longest letter from 
 the haughtiest sieur in Flanders. 
 
 With a patient and hopeful spirit, the young pilgrim 
 turned her back on the Roman Cologne ; and now about to 
 rejoin St. Amand, she felt neither the heat of the sun nor 
 the weariness of the road. It was one day at noon that she 
 again passed through Louvain, and she soon found herself 
 by the noble edifice of the Hotel de Ville. Proud rose its 
 spires against the sky, and the sun shone bright on its rich 
 tracery and Gothic casements ; the broad open street was 
 crowded with persons of all classes, and it was with some 
 modest alarm that Lucille lowered her veil and mingled with 
 the throng. It was easy, as the priest had said, to find the 
 house of Le Kain ; she bade the servant take the priest's 
 letter to his master, and she was not long kept waiting before 
 she was admitted to the physician's presence. He was a 
 spare, tall man, with a bald front, and a calm and friendly 
 countenance. He was not less touched than the priest had 
 been, by the manner in which she narrated her story, described 
 the affliction of her betrothed, and the hope that had inspired 
 the pilgrimage she had just made. 
 
 " Well," he said encouragingly, " we must see our patient. 
 You can bring him hither to me." 
 
 " Ah, sir, I had hoped " Lucille stopped suddenly. 
 
 " What, my young friend ? " 
 
 " I'hat I might have had the triumph of bringing you to 
 Malines. I know, sir, what you are about to say ; and I 
 know, sir, your time must be very valuable ; but I am not 
 sc poor as I seem, and Eugene, that is Monsieur St. Amand, 
 is very rich, and, — and I have at Bruxelles, what I am sure is 
 a large sum ; it was to have provided for the wedding, but it 
 is most heartily at your service, sir." 
 
 Le Kain smiled ; he was one of those men who love to 
 read the human heart when its leaves are fair and undefiled ; 
 and, in the benevolence of science, he would have gone a
 
 34 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 longer journey than from Louvain to Malines to give sight to 
 the blind, even had St. Amand been a beggar. 
 
 " Well, well," said he ; but you forget that Monsieur St. 
 Amand is not the only one in the world who wants me. I 
 must look at my note-book, and see if I can be spared for a 
 day or two." 
 
 So saying, he glanced at his memoranda ; ever}'thing 
 smiled on Lucille ; he had no engagements that his partner 
 could not fulfil, for some days ; he consented to accompany 
 Lucille to Malines. 
 
 Meanwhile, cheerless and dull had passed the time to St. 
 Amand ; he was perpetually asking Madame le Tisseur what 
 hour it was ; it was almost his only question. There seemed 
 to him no sun in the heavens, no freshness in the air — and 
 he even forbore his favorite music ; the instrument had lost 
 its sweetness since Lucille was not by to listen. 
 
 It was natural that the gossips of Malines should feeV 
 some envy at the marriage Lucille was about to make with 
 one, whose competence report had exaggerated into prodigal 
 wealth, whose birth had been elevated from the respectable 
 to the noble, and whose handsome person was clothed by 
 the interest excited by his misfortune, with the beauty of 
 Antinous. Even that misfortune, which ought to have leveled 
 all distinctions, was not sufficient to check the general envy; 
 ]5erhaps to some of the damsels of Malines blindness in a 
 husband would not have seemed an unwelcome infirmity ! 
 But there was one in whom this envy rankled with a peculiar 
 sting ; it was the beautiful, the all conquering Julie. That the 
 humble, the neglected Lucille should be preferred to her ; 
 that Lucille, whose existence was w^ell-nigh forgot beside 
 Julie's, should become thus suddenly of importance ; that 
 there should be one person in the world, and that person 
 young, rich, handsome, to whom she was less than nothing, 
 when weighed in the balance with Lucille, mortified to the 
 quick a vanity that had never till then received a wound. 
 " It is well," she would say with a bitter jest, " that Lucille's 
 lover is blind. To be the one, it is necessary to be the 
 other ! " 
 
 During Lucille's absence she had been constantly in 
 Madame le Tisseur's house ; indeed Lucille had prayed her 
 to be so. She had sought, with an industry that astonished 
 herself, to supply Lucille's place, and among the strange con- 
 tradictions of human nature, she had learned during her
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 35 
 
 efforts to please, to love the object of those efforts — as much, 
 at least, as she was capable of loving. 
 
 She conceived a positive hatred to Lucille ; she persisted 
 in imagining that nothing but the accident of first acquain- 
 tance had deprived her of a conquest with which she per- 
 suaded herself her happiness had become connected. Had 
 St. Amand never loved Lucille and proposed to Julie, his 
 misfortune would have made her reject him, despite his 
 wealth and his youth ; but to be Lucille's lover, and a conquest 
 to be won from Lucille, raised him instantly to an importance 
 not his own. Safe, however, in his affliction,the arts and beauty 
 of Julie fell harmless on the fidelity of St Amand. Nay, he 
 jiked her less than ever, for it seemed an impertinence in any 
 one to counterfeit the anxiety and watchfulness of Lucille. 
 
 " It is time, surely it is time, Madame le Tisseur, that 
 Lucille should return ! She might have sold all the lace in 
 Malines by this time," said St. Amand, one day, peevishly. 
 
 " Patience, my dear friend, patience ; perhaps she may 
 return to-morrow." 
 
 " To-morrow ! let me see, it is only six o'clock — only six, 
 you are sure ? " 
 
 "Just five, dear Eugene — shall I read to you? this is 
 a new book from Paris ; it has made a great noise ; " said 
 Julie. 
 
 " You are very kind, but I will not trouble you." 
 
 " It is anything but trouble." 
 
 " In a word, then, I would rather not." 
 
 " Oh ! that he could see," thought Julie ; " would I not 
 punish him for this ! " 
 
 " I hear carriage-wheels : who can be passing this way ? 
 Surely it is the voiturier from Bruxelles," said St. Amand, 
 starting up ; " it is his day — his hour, too. Nor, no, it is a 
 lighter vehicle," and he sank down listlessly on his seat. 
 
 Nearer and nearer rolled the wheels ; they turned the 
 corner ; they stopped at the lowly door ; and, overcome, 
 overjoyed, Lucille was clasped to the bosom of St. Amand. 
 
 '• Stay," said she, blushing, as she recovered her self- 
 f ossession, and turned to Le Kain ; " pray pardon me, sir. 
 Dear Eugene, I have brought with me one who, by God's 
 blessing, may yet restore you to sight." 
 
 " We must not be sanguine, my child," said Le Kain ; 
 " anything is belter than disappointment." 
 
 To close this part of my story, dear Gertrude, Le Kain 
 examined St. Amand. and the result of the examination wi<s ■»
 
 36 
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 confident belief in the probability of a cure, St. Amand 
 gladly consented to the experiment of an operation ; it suc- 
 ceeded — the blind man saw ! Oh ! what were Lucille's feel- 
 ings, what her emotion, what her joy, when she found the 
 object of her pilgrimage — of her prayers — fulfilled ! That 
 joy was so intense, that in the eternal alternations of human 
 life she might have foretold from its excess how bitter the 
 sorrows fated to ensue. 
 
 As soon as by degrees the patient's new sense became 
 reconciled to the light, his first, his only demand, was for 
 Lucille. " No, let me not see her alone, let me see her in 
 the midst of you all, that I may convince you that thG heart 
 never is mistaken in its instincts.*' With a fearful, a sinking, 
 presentiment, Lucille yielded to the request, to which the 
 impetuous St. Amand would hear indeed no denial. The 
 father, the mother, Julie, Lucille, Julie's younger sisters 
 assembled in the little parlor : the door opened, and St. 
 Amand stood hesitating on the threshold. One look around 
 sufficed to him ; his face brightened, he uttered a cry of joy. 
 " Lucille ! Lucille ! " he exclaimed, " it is you, I know it, you 
 only ! " He sprang forward, and 7^// at the feet of Julie I 
 
 Flushed, elated, triumphant, Julie bent upon him her 
 si^arkling eyes ; she did not undeceive him. 
 
 " You are wrong, you mistake," said Madame le Tisseur, 
 in confusion ; " that is her cousin Julie — this is your Lu- 
 cille." 
 
 St. Amand rose, turned, saw Lucille, and at that moment 
 she wished herself in her grave. Surprise, mortification, 
 disappointment, almost dismay, were depicted in his gaze. 
 He had been haunting his prison-house with dreams, and, 
 now set free, he felt how unlike they were to the truth. Too 
 new to observation to read the woe, the despair, the lapse 
 and shrinking of the whole frame, that his look occasioned 
 Lucille, he yet felt, when the first shock of his surprise 
 was over, that it was not thus he should thank her who had 
 restored him to sight. He hastened to redeem his error ; — ■ 
 ah ! how could it be redeemed ! 
 
 From that hour, all Lucille's happiness was at an end ; 
 her fairy palace was shattered in the dust; the magician's 
 wand was broken up ; the Ariel was given to the winds ; and 
 the bright enchantment no longer distinguished the land she 
 lived in from the rest of the barren world. It was true that 
 St. Amand's words were kind ; it is true that he remembered 
 'vith the deepefet gratitude all she had done in his behalf ; it
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 37 
 
 is true that he forced himself again and again to say, " She 
 is my betrothed — my benefactress ! " and he cursed himself 
 to think that the feelings he had entertained for her were 
 fled. Where was the passion of his words ? where the ardor 
 of his tone ? where that play and light of countenance which 
 her step, her voice, could formerly call forth ? When they 
 were alone he was embarrassed and constrained, and almost 
 cold ; his hand no longer sought hers ; his soul no longer 
 missed her if she was absent a moment from his side. When 
 in their household circle, he seemed visibly more at ease ; 
 but did his eyes fasten upon her who had opened them to the 
 day ? did they not wander at every interval with a too elo- 
 quent admiration to the blushing and radiant face of the ex- 
 ulting Julie ? This was not, you will believe, suddenly 
 perceptible in one day or one week, but eveiy day it was per- 
 ceptible more and more. Yet still — bewitched, ensnared, 
 as St. Amand was — he never perhaps would have been 
 guilty of an infidelity that he strove with the keenest remorse 
 to wrestle against, had it not been for the fatal contrast, at 
 the first moment of his gushing enthusiasm, which Julie had 
 presented to Lucille ; but for that he would have formed no 
 previous idea of real and living beauty to aid the disappoint- 
 ment of his imaginings and his dreams. He would have 
 seen Lucille young and graceful, and with ej-es beaming 
 affection, contrasted only by the wrinkled countenance and 
 bended frame of her parents, and she would have completed 
 her conquest over him before he had discovered that she 
 was less l^eautiful than others ; nay, more — that infidelity 
 never could have lasted above the first few days, if the vain 
 and heartless object of it had not exerted every art, all the 
 power and witcher}'- of her beauty, to cement and continue it. 
 The unfortunate Lucille — so susceptible to the slightest 
 change in those she loved, so diffident of herself, so proud, 
 too, in that diffidence — no longer necessary, no longer missed, 
 no longer loved — could not bear to endure the galling com- 
 parison beween the past and the present. She fled uncom- 
 plainingly to her chamber to indulge her tears, and thus, un- 
 happily, absent as her father generally was during the day, 
 and busied as her mother was either at v>'ork or in household 
 matters, she left Julie a thousand opportunities to complete 
 the power she had begun to wield over — no, not the heart ! — 
 the senses of St. Amand ! Yet, still not suspecting, in the 
 open generosity of her mind, the whole extent of her affliction, 
 poor Lucille buoyed herself at times with the hope that, when
 
 38 - THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 once married, when, once in that intimacy of friendship, the 
 unsjDeakable love she felt for him could disclose itself with 
 less restraint than at present — she should perhaps regain a 
 heart which had been so devotedly hers, that she could not 
 think that without a fault it was irrevocably gone : on that 
 hope she anchored all the little happiness that remained to 
 her. And still St. Amand pressed their marriage, but in 
 what different tones ! In fact, he wished to preclude from 
 himself the possibility of a deeper ingratitude than that 
 which he had incurred already. He vainly thought that the 
 broken reed of love might be bound up and strengthened by 
 the ties of duty ; and at least he was anxious that his hand, 
 his fortune, his esteem, his gratitude, should give to Lucille 
 the only recompense it was now in his power to bestow. 
 Meanwhile, left alone so often with Julie, and Julie bent on 
 achieving the last triumph over his heart, St. Amand was 
 gradually preparing a far different reward, a far different re- 
 turn for her to whom he owed so incalculable a debt. 
 
 There was a garden, behind the house, in which there was 
 a small arbor, where often in the summer evenings Eugene 
 and Lucille had sat together — hours never to return ! One day 
 she heard from her own chamber, where she sat mourning, 
 the sound of St. Amand's flute swelling gently from that be- 
 loved and consecrated bower. She wept as she heard it, and 
 the memories that the music bore, softening and endearing 
 his image, she began to teproach herself that she had yielded 
 so often to the impulse of her wounded feelings ; that chilled 
 by his coldness, she had left him so often to himself, and had 
 not sufficiently dared to tell him of that affection which, in her 
 modest self-depreciation, constituted her only pretension to 
 his love. " Perhaps he is alone now," she thought ; "the air 
 too is one which he knows that I love : " and with her heart 
 in her steps, she stole from the house and sought the arbor. She 
 had scarce turned from her chamber when the flute ceased ; 
 a she neared the arbor, she heard voices — Julie's voice in 
 grief, St. Amand's in consolation. A dread foreboding seized 
 her ; her feet clung rooted to the earth. 
 
 " Yes, marry her — forget me," said Julie ; " in a few days 
 you will be another's, and I, I — forgive me, Eugene, forgive 
 me that I have disturbed your happiness, I am punished 
 sufficiently — my heart will break, but it will break in loving 
 you :" sobs choked Julie's voice. 
 
 " Oh, speak not thus,"said St. Amand. "I, / only am 
 to blame ; I, false to both, ungrateful. Oh, from the hour that
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 39 
 
 these eyes opened upon you, I drank in a new life ; the sun 
 itself to me was less wonderful than your beauty. But — but — • 
 let me forget that hour. What do I not owe to Lucille ? It 
 shall be wretched-I shall deserve to be so ; for shall I not think 
 Julie, that I have embittered your life with our ill-fated love ? 
 But all that I can give — my hand — my home — my plighted 
 faith — must be hers. Nay, Julie nay — why that look ? could 
 I act otherwise ? can I dream otherwise ? Whatever the sac- 
 rifice, must I not render it ? Ah, what do I owe to Lucille, 
 were it only for the thought that but for her I might never 
 have seen thee ! " 
 
 Lucille stayed to hear no more ; with the same soft step 
 as that which had borne her within hearing of these fatal 
 words, she turned her back once more to her desolate cham- 
 ber. 
 
 That evening, as St. Amand was sitting alone in his 
 apartment, he heard a gentle knock at the door. " Come in,' 
 he ?aid ; and Lucille entered. He started in some confusion, 
 and would have taken her hand, but she gently repulsed him. 
 She took a seat opposite to him, and looking down, thus ad- 
 dressed him : — 
 
 " My dear Eugene, that is Monsieur St. Amand, I have 
 something on my mmd that I think it better to speak at once ; 
 and if I do not exactly express what I would wish to say, you 
 must not be offended with Lucille : it is not an easy matter to 
 put into words what one feels deeply." Coloring, and sus- 
 pecting something of the truth, St. Amand would have bro- 
 ken in upon her here ; but she, with a gentle impatience, mo- 
 tioned him to be silent, and continued : — 
 
 " You know that when you once loved me, I used to tell 
 you that you would cease to do so, could you see how unde- 
 serving I was of your attachment ! I did not deceive myself 
 Eugene ; I always felt assured that such would be the case^ 
 that your love for me necessarily rested on your affliction ; 
 but for all that, I never at least had a dream, or a desire, but 
 for your happiness ; and God knows, that if again, by walkmg 
 barefooted, not to Cologne, but to Rome — to the end of the 
 world, I could save you from a much less misfortune than 
 that of blindness, I would cheerfully do it ; yes, even though 
 I might foretell all the while that, on my return, you would 
 speak to me coldly, think of me lightly, and that the penalty 
 to me would — would be — what it has been ! " Here Lucille 
 wiped a few natural tears from her eyes ; St. Amand, struck
 
 ^j THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 to the heart, covered his face with his hands without the 
 courage to interrupt her. Lucille continued : — 
 
 " That which I foresaw, has come to pass ; I am no 
 longer to you what I once was, when you could clothe this 
 poor form and this homely face with a beauty they dxl not 
 possess ; you would wed me still, it is true ; but I am proud, 
 Eugene, and cannot stoop to gratitude where I once had 
 love. I am not so unjust as to blame you ; the change was 
 natural, was inevitable. I should have steeled myself more 
 against it ; but I am now resigned : we must part ; you love 
 Julie — that too is natural — and she loves you : ah ! what 
 also more in the probable course of events ? Julie loves you, 
 not yet, perhaps, so much as I did, but then she has not known 
 you as I have, and she whose whole life has been triumph, 
 cannot feel the gratitude I felt at fancying myself loved ; but 
 this will come — God grant it ! Farewell, then, for ever, dear 
 Eugene ; I leave you when you no longer want me ; you are 
 now independent of Lucille ; wherever you go, a thousand 
 hereafter can supply my place ; — farewell ! " 
 
 She rose, as she said this, to leave the room ; but St. 
 Amand seizing her hand, which she in vain endeavored to 
 withdraw from his clasp, poured forth incoherently, passion- 
 ately, his reproaches on himself, his eloquent persuasions 
 against her resolution. 
 
 " I confess," said he, " that I have been allured for a 
 moment ; I confess that Julie's beauty made me less sensible 
 to your stronger,your holier, oh ! far. far holier title to my love ! 
 But forgive me, dearest Lucille ; already I return to you, to 
 all I once felt for you ; make me not curse the blessing of 
 sight that I owe to you. You m.ust not leave me ; never can 
 we two part ; try me, only try me, and if ever, hereafter, my 
 heart wander from you, then, Lucille, leave me to my re- 
 morse ! " 
 
 Even at that moment Lucille did not yield : she felt that 
 his prayer was but the enthusiasm of the hour ; she felt that 
 there was a virtue in her pride ; that to leave him was a duty 
 to herself. In vain he pleaded ; in vain were his embraces, 
 his prayers ; in vain he reminded her of their plighted troth, 
 of her aged parents, whose happiness had become wrapt in 
 her union with him : " How, — even were it as you wrongly be- 
 lieve, — how, in honor to them, can I desert you, can I wed 
 another ? " 
 
 "Trust that, trust all, to me," answered Lucille : "your 
 honor shall be my care, none shall blame you : only do not
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 41 
 
 let your marriage with Julie be celebrated here before their 
 eyes : that is all I ask, all they can expect. God bless you ! 
 do not fancy I shall be unhappy, for whatever happiness the 
 world gives you, shall I not have contributed to bestow it ? — 
 and with that thought, I am above compassion." 
 
 She glided from his arms, and left him to a solitude more 
 bitter even than that of blindness ; that very night Lucille 
 sought her mother; to her she confided all. I pass over the 
 reasons she urged, the arguments she overcame ; she con- 
 quered rather than convinced, and leaving to Madame le Tis- 
 seur the painful task of breaking to her father her unalterable 
 resolution, she quitted Mah'nes the next morning, and with a 
 heart too honest to be utterly without comfort, paid that vish 
 to her aunt which had been so long deferred. 
 
 The pride of Lucille's parents prevented them from re- 
 proaching St. Amand. He' could not bear, however, their 
 cold and altered looks ; he left their house ; and though for 
 several days he would not even see Julie, yet her beauty and 
 her art gradually resumed their empire over him. They were 
 married at Courtroi, and, to the joy of the vain Julie, departed 
 to the gay metropolis of France. But, before their departure, 
 before his marriage, St. Amand endeavored to appease his 
 conscience by obtaining for Monsieur le Tisseur a much more 
 lucrative and honorable office than that he now held. Rightly 
 judging that Malines could no longer be a pleasant residence 
 for them, and much less for Lucille, the duties of the post 
 were to be fulfilled in another town ; and knowing that Mon- 
 sieur le Tisseur's delicacy would revolt at receiving such a 
 favor from his hands, he kept the nature of his negotiation a 
 close secret, and suffered the honest citizen to believe that 
 his own merits alone had entitled him to so unexpected a pro- 
 motion. 
 
 Time went on. This quiet and simple history of humble 
 affections took its date in a stormy epoch of the world — the 
 dawning Revolution of France. The family of Lucille had 
 been little more than a year settled in their new residence, 
 when Dumouriez led his army into the Netherlands. But 
 how meanwhile, had that year passed for Lucille ? I have 
 said that her spirit was naturally high ; that, though so tender, 
 she was not weak ; her very pilgrimage to Cologne alone, 
 and at the timid age of seventeen, proved that there was a 
 strength in her nature no less than a devotion in her love, 
 The sacrifice she had made brought its own reward. She 
 believed St. Amand was happy, and she would not give was
 
 42 
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 to the selfishness of grief ; she had still duties to perform ; 
 she could still comfort her parents and cheer their age ; she 
 could still be all the world to them : she felt this, and was 
 consoled. Only once during the year had she heard of Julie ; 
 she had been seen by a mutual friend at Paris, gay, brilliant, 
 courted, and admired ; of St. Amand she heard nothing. 
 
 My tale, dear Gertrude, does not lead me through the 
 harsh scenes of war. I do not tell you of the slaughter and 
 the siege, and the blood that inundated those fair lands — the 
 great battle-field of Europe. The people of the Netherlands 
 in general were with the cause of Dumouriez ; but the town 
 in which Le Tisseur dwelt offered some faint resistance to 
 his arms. Le Tisseur himself, despite his age, girded on his 
 sword ; the town was carried, and the fierce and licentious 
 troops of the conqueror poured, flushed with their easy vic- 
 tor}'-, through its streets. Le Tisseur's house was filled with 
 drunken and rude troopers ; Lucille herself trembled in the 
 fierce grip of one of those dissolute soldiers, more bandit 
 than soldier, whom the subtle Dumouriez had united to his 
 army, and by whose blood he so often saved that of his no- 
 bler band. Her shrieks, her cries were vain, when suddenly 
 the troopers gave way ; " the Captain ! brave Captain ! " was 
 shouted forth ; the insolent soldier, felled by a powerful arm, 
 sank senseless at the feet of Lucille ; and a glorious form, 
 towering above its fellows — even through its glittering garb, 
 even in that dreadful hour, remembered at a glance by 
 Lucille, stood at her side ; her protector — her guardian ! 
 Thus once more she beheld St. Amand ! 
 
 The house was cleared in an instant — the door barred. 
 Shouts, groans, wild snatches of exciting song, the clang of 
 arms, the tramp of horses, the hurr}'ing footsteps, the deep 
 music, sounded loud, and blended terribly without. Lucille 
 heard them not ; she was on that breast which never sliould 
 have deserted her. 
 
 Effectually to protect his friends, St. Amand took up his 
 quarters at their house ; and for two days he was once more 
 under the same roof as Lucille. He never recurred volun- 
 tarily to Julie ; he answered Lucille's timid inquiry after her 
 health briefly, and with coldness ; but he spoke, with all the 
 enthusiasm of a long-pent and ardent spirit, of the new pro- 
 fession he had embraced. Glory seemed now to be his only 
 mistress ; and the vivid delusion of the first bright dreams of 
 the Revolution filled his mind, broke from his tongue, and
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 43 
 
 lighted up those dark eyes which Lucille had redeemed to- 
 day. 
 
 She saw him depart at the head of his troop ; she saw 
 his proud crest glancing in the sun ; she saw his steed wind- 
 ing through the narrow street ; she saw that his last glance 
 reverted to her, where she stood at the door ; and, as he 
 waved his adieu, she fancied that there was on his face that 
 look of deep and grateful tenderness, which reminded her of 
 the one bright epoch of her life. 
 
 She was right. St. Amand had long since in bitterness 
 repented of a tra»nsient infatuation, had long since distin- 
 guished the true Florimel from the false, and felt that, in 
 Julie, Lucille's wrongs were avenged. But in the hurry and 
 heat of war he plunged that regret — the keenest of all — • 
 which embodies the bitter words, " too late." 
 
 Years passed away ; and, in the resumed tranquillity of 
 Lucille's life, the brilliant apparition of St. Amand appeared 
 as something dreamed of, not seen. The star of Napoleon 
 had risen above the horizon ; the romance of his early career 
 had commenced ; and the campaign of Egypt had been the 
 herald of those brilliant and meteoric successes which flashed 
 forth from the ^loom of the Revolution of France. 
 
 You are aware, dear Gertrude, how many in the French 
 as well as the English troops returned home from Egypt 
 blinded with the ophthalmia of that arid soil. Some of the 
 young men in Lucille's town, who had joined Napoleon's 
 army, came back darkened by that fearful afifliction ; and 
 Lucille's alms, and Lucille's aid, and Lucille's sweet voice, 
 were ever at hand for those poor sufferers, whose common 
 misfortune touched so thrilling a chord of her heart. 
 
 Her father was now dead, and she had only her mother 
 to cheer amidst the ills of age. As one evening they sat at 
 work together, Madame le Tisseur said, after a pause — 
 
 " I wish, dear Lucille, thou couldst be persuaded to 
 many Justin ; he loves thee well ; and now that thou art yet 
 young, and hast many years before thee, thou shouldst re- 
 member that when I die thou wilt be alone." 
 
 " Ah, cease, dearest mother, I never can marry now ; and 
 as for love — once taught in the bitter school in which I have 
 learned the knowledge of myself — I cannot be deceived 
 again." 
 
 " My Lucille, you do not know yourself : never was 
 woman loved if Justin does not love you ; and never did 
 lover feel with more real warmth how worthily he loved."
 
 44 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 And this was true ; and not of Justin alone, for Lucille's 
 modest virtues, her kindly temper, and a certain undulating 
 and feminine grace, which accompanied all her movements, 
 had secured her as many conquests as if she had been beau- 
 tiful. ■ She had rejected all offers of marriage with a shud- 
 der ; without even the throb of a flattered vanity. One 
 memory, sadder, was also dearer to her than all things ; and 
 something sacred in its recollections made her deem it even 
 a crime to think of effacing the past by a new affection. 
 
 " I believe," continued Madame le Tisseur, angrily, " that 
 thou still thinkest fondly of him, from whom only in the world 
 thou couldst have experienced ingratitude." 
 
 " Nay, mother," said Lucille, with a blush and a slight 
 sigh, " Eugene is married to another." 
 
 While thus conversing, they heard a gentle and timid 
 knock at the door — the latch was lifted. " This," said the 
 rough voice of a commissionaire of the town, " this, monsieur, 
 is the house of AIada?)ie le Tisseur and voild mademoiselle!^'' 
 A tall figure, with a shade over his eyes, and wrapped in a 
 long military cloak, stood in the room. A thrill shot acros? 
 Lucille's heart. He stretched out his arms. " Lucille,' 
 said that melancholy voice, which had made the music of her 
 first youth, — " where art thou, Lucille ! Alas ! she does not 
 recognize St. Amand." 
 
 Thus it was, indeed. By a singular fatality, the burning 
 suns and the sharp dust of the plains of Egypt had smitten 
 the young soldier, in the flush of his career, with a second — ■ 
 and this time with an irremediable — blindness ! He had re- 
 turned to France to find his heart lonely : Julie was no more 
 — a sudden fever had cut her off in the midst of youth ; and 
 he had sought his way to Lucille's house, to see if one 
 hope yet remained to him in the world ! 
 
 And when, days afterwards, humbly and sadly he re-urged 
 a fonner suit, did Lucille shut her heart to its prayer ? Did 
 her pride remember its wound — did she revert to his deser- 
 tion — did she reply to the whisper of her yearning love, 
 '■'■ Thou hast been before forsaken !^^ That voice, and those 
 darkened eyes, pleaded to her with a pathos not to be re- 
 sisted. " I am once more necessarj^ to him," was all her 
 thought. " If I reject him, who will tend him ? " In that 
 thought was the motive of her conduct ; in that thought 
 gushed back upon her soul all the springs of checked, but 
 unconquered, unconquerable love ! In that thought, she
 
 HE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 45 
 
 Stood beside him at the altar, and pledged, with a yet hoher 
 devotion than she might have felt of yore, the vow of her 
 imperishable truth. 
 
 And Lucille found, in the future, a reward which the com- 
 mon world could never comprehend. With his blindness re- 
 turned all the feelings she had first awakened in St. Amand's 
 solitary heart ; again he yearned for her step — again he 
 missed even a moment's absence from his side — again her 
 voice chased the shadow from his brow — and in her presence 
 was a sense of shelter and of sunshine. He no longer sighed 
 for the blessing he had lost ; he reconciled himself to fate, 
 and entered into that serenity of mood which mostly charac- 
 terizes the blind. Perhaps after we have seen the actual 
 world, and experienced its hollow pleasures, we can resign 
 ourselves the better to its exclusion ; and as the cloister, 
 which repels the ardor of our hope, is sweet to our remem- 
 brance, so the darkness loses its terror, when experience has 
 wearied us with the glare and travail of the day. It was 
 something, too, as they advanced in life, to feel the chains 
 that bound him to Lucille strengthening daily, and to cherish 
 in his overflowing heart the sweetness of increasing grati- 
 nide ; it was something that he could not see years wrinkle 
 that open brow, or dim the tenderness of that touching smile ; 
 it was something that to him she was beyond the reach of 
 time, and preserved to the verge of a grave (which received 
 them both within a few days of each other) in all the bloom 
 of her unwithering affection — in all the freshness of a heart 
 that never could grow old ! 
 
 Gertrude, who had broken in upon Trevelvan's story by a 
 thousand anxious interruptions, and a thousand pretty apol- 
 ogies for interrupting, was charmed with a tale in which true 
 love was made happy at last, although she did not forgive 
 St. Amand his ingratitude, and although she declared, with a 
 critical shake of the head, that " it was very unnatural that 
 the mere beauty of Julie, or the mere want of it in Lucille, 
 should have produced such an effect upon him, if he had 
 ever really loved Lucille in his blindness." 
 
 As they passed through Malines, the town assumed an 
 interest in Gertrude's eyes, to which it scarcely of itself was 
 entitled. She looked wistfully at the broad market-place, at 
 a corner of which was one of those out-of-door groups of 
 quiet and noiseless revellers, which Dutch art has raised 
 from the Familiar to the Picturesque; and then, glancing to
 
 46 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 the tower of St. Rembauld, she fancied, amidst the silence <A 
 noon, that she yet heard the plaintive cry of the blind or 
 phan — " Fido, Fido, why hast thou deserted me ? " 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Rotterdam. — The character of tlie Dutch. — Their resemblance to the 
 Germans. — A dispute between Vane and Trevylyan, after the manner 
 of the ancient novelists, as to which is preferable, the life of action or 
 the life of repose. — Trevylyan's contrast between literary ambition 
 and the ambition of public life. 
 
 Our travellers arrived at Rotterdam on a bright and 
 sunny day. There is a cheerfulness about the operations of 
 commerce — a life — a bustle — an action which always exhil- 
 arate the spirits at the first glance. Afterwards they fatigue 
 us ; we get too soon behind the scenes, and find the base and 
 troublous passions which move the puppets and conduct the 
 drama. 
 
 But Gertrude, in whom ill health had not destroyed the 
 vividness of impression that belongs to the inexperienced, 
 was delighted at the cheeriness of all around her. As she 
 leaned lighdy on Trevylyan's arm, he listened with a forget- 
 ful joy to her questions and exclamations at the stir and live- 
 liness of a city, from which was to commence their pilgrim- 
 asre along the Rliine. And indeed the scene was rife with 
 the spirit of that people at once so active and so patient — so 
 daring on the sea — so cautious on the land. Industry was 
 visible everywhere, the vessels in the harbor — the crowded 
 boat, putting off to land — the throng on the quay, all looked 
 bustling and spoke of commerce. The city itself, on which 
 the skies shone fairly through light and fleecy clouds, wore a 
 cheerful aspect. The church of St. Lawrence rising above 
 the clean, neat houses, and on one side, trees thickly 
 grouped, gayly contrasted at once the waters and the city, 
 
 " I like this place," said Gertrude's father, quietly ; " it 
 has an air of comfort. 
 
 " And an absence of grandeur," said Trevylyan. 
 
 " A commercial people are one great middle class in their 
 habits and train of mind," replied Vane ; " and grandeui
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 47 
 
 belongs to the extremes, — an impoverished population, and a 
 wealthy despot." 
 
 They went to see the statue of Erasmus, and the house n 
 which he was born. Vane had a certain admiration for 
 Erasmus, which his companions did not share ; he liked the 
 quiet irony of the sage, and his knowledge of the world ; and, 
 besides, Vane was of that time of life wiien philosophers be- 
 come objects of interest. At first they are teachers ; secondly, 
 friends ; and it is only a few who arrive at the third stage, 
 and find them deceivers. The Dutch are a singular people. 
 Their literature is neglected, but it has some of the German 
 vein in its strata, — the patience, the learning, the homely 
 delineation, and even some traces of the mixture of the hu- 
 morous and the terrible, which form that genius for the gro- 
 tesque so especially German, — you find this in their legends 
 and ghost-stories. But in Holland activity destroys, in Ger- 
 many indolence nourishes, romance. 
 
 They stayed a day or two at Rotterdam, and then pro- 
 ceeded up the Rhine to Gorcum. The banks were flat and 
 tame, and nothing could be less impressive of its native ma- 
 jesty than this part of the course of the great River. 
 
 " I never felt before," whispered Gertrude,tenderly, " how 
 much there was of consolation in your presence ; for here I 
 am at last on the Rhine — the blue Rhine, and how disap- 
 pointed I should be if you were not by my side ! " 
 
 " But, my Gertrude, you must wait till we have passed 
 Cologne, before the glories of the Rhine burst upon you." 
 
 " It reverses life, my child," said the moralizing Vane , 
 " and the stream flows through dulness at first, reserving its 
 poetry for our perseverance." 
 
 " I will not allow your doctrine," said Trev)'lyan, as the 
 ambitious ardor of his native disposition stirred within him. 
 " Life has always action ; it is our own fault if it ever be dull : 
 youth has its enterprise, manhood its schemes ; and even if 
 infirmity creep upon age, the mind, the mind still triumphs 
 over the mortal clay,and in the quiet hermitage, among books, 
 and from thoughts, keeps the great wheel within everlastingly 
 m motion. No, the better class of spirits have always an 
 antidote to the insipidity of a common career, they have ever 
 energy at will-^ — " 
 
 " And never happiness ! " answered Vane, after a pause, 
 as he gazed on the proud countenance of Trevylyan, with that 
 kind of calm, half-pitying interest which belonged to a char 
 acter deeply imbued with the philosophy of a sad experienccj
 
 48 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 acting upon an unimpassioned heart. " And in truth, Tre- 
 vylyan, it would please me if I could but teach you the folly 
 of preferring the exercise of that energy, of which you speak, 
 to the golden luxuries of rest. What ambition can ever bring 
 an adequate reward t Not, surely, the ambition of letters — • 
 the desire of intellectual renown ! " 
 
 " True," said Trevylyan quietly ; " that dream I have long 
 renounced ; there is nothing palpable in literary fame — it 
 scarcely perhaps soothes the vain — it assuredly chafes the 
 proud. In my earlier years I attempted some works, which 
 gained what the world, perhaps rightly, deemed a sufficient 
 meed of reputation ; yet it was not sufficient to recompense 
 myself for the fresh hours I had consumed, for the sacrifices 
 of pleasure I had made. The subtle aims that had inspired 
 me were not perceived ; the thoughts that had seemed new 
 and beautiful to me, fell fiat and lustreless on the soul of 
 others. If I was approved, it was often for what I condemned 
 myself ! and I found that the trite commonplace and the 
 false wit charmed, while the truth fatigued, and the enthusiasm 
 revolted. For men of that genius to which I make no preten- 
 sion, who have dwelt apart in the obscurity of their own 
 thoughts, gazing upon stars that shine not for tlie dull sleepers 
 of the world, it must be a keen sting to find the product of 
 their labor confounded with a class, and to be mingled up in 
 men's judgment with the faults or merits of a tribe. Every 
 great genius must deem himself original and alone in his con- 
 ceptions. It is not enough for him that these coni;eplions 
 should be approved as good, unless they are admitted as in- 
 ventive, if they mix him with the herd he has shunned, not 
 separate him in fame as he has been separated in soul. Some 
 Frenchman, the oracle of his circle, said of the poet of the 
 Ph^dre, " Racine and the other imitators of Corneille ; " and 
 Racine, in his wrath, nearly forswore tragedy for ever. It is 
 in vain to tell the author that the public is the judge of his 
 works. The author believes himself above the public, or he 
 would never have written, and," continued Trevylyan, with 
 enthusiasm, " he is above them ; their fiat may crush his 
 glory, but never his self-esteem. He stands alone and 
 haughty amidst the wrecks of the temple he had imagined he 
 had raised ' to the future,' and retaliates neglect with scorn. 
 But is this, the life of scorn, a pleasurable state of existence / 
 Is it one to be cherished .? Does even the moment of famt 
 counterbalance the years of mortification ? And what is there 
 in literary fame itself present and palpable to its heir .? His
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 49 
 
 work is a pebble thrown into the deep ; the stir lasts for a 
 moment, and the wave closes up, to be susceptible no more 
 to the same impression. The circle may widen to other lands 
 and other ages, but around him it is weak and faint. The 
 trifles of the day, the low politics, the base intrigues, occupy 
 the tongue, and fill the thought of his contemporaries ; he is 
 less known than a mountebank, or a new dancer ; his glorji 
 comes not home to him ; it brings no present, no perpetual 
 reward, like the applauses that wait the actor, or the actor- 
 like mummer of the senate ; and this which vexes, also lowers 
 him ; his noble nature begins to nourish the base vices of 
 jealousy, and the unwillingness to admire. Goldsmith is for- 
 gotten in the presence of a puppet ; he feels it, and is mean ; 
 he expresses it, and is ludicrous. It is well to say that great 
 minds will not stoop to jealousy ; in the greatest minds it is 
 most frequent.* Few authors are ever so aware of the 
 admiration they excite, as to afford to be generous ; and this 
 melancholy truth revolts us with our own ambition. Shall 
 we be demigods in our closet, at the price of sinking below 
 mortality in the world t No ! it was from this deep senti- 
 ment of the unrealness of literary fame, of dissatisfaction at 
 the fruits it produced, of fear for the meanness it engendered, 
 that I resigned betimes all love for its career ; and if by the 
 restless desire that haunts men who think much, to write ever, 
 I should be urged hereafter to literature, I will sternly teach 
 myself to persevere in the indifference to its fame." 
 
 " You say as I would say," answered Vane, with his tran- 
 quil- smile ; " and your experience corroborates my theory. 
 Ambition, then, is not the root of happiness. Why more in 
 action than in letters ? " 
 
 " Because," said Trevylyan, " in action we commonly gain 
 in our life all the honor we deserve ; the public judge of men 
 better and more rapidly than of books. And he wlio takes 
 to h'mself in action a high and pure ambition, associates it 
 with so many objects, that, unlike literature, the failure of 
 one is balanced by the success of the other. He, the creator 
 of deeds, not resembling the creator of books, stands not 
 alone ; he is eminently social ; he has many comrades, and 
 without their aid he could not accomplish his designs. This 
 
 * See the long list of names furnished by D'Tsraeli, in that most ex- 
 quisite work, " The Literary Character," vol. ii. p. 76. Plato, Zenophon, 
 Chaucer, Corneille, Voltaire, Dryden, the Caracci, Domenico Vcnetiano, 
 murdered by his envious friend, and the gentle Castillo fainting away at 
 the genius of Murillo.
 
 50 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 divides and mitigates the impatient jealousy against others. 
 He works for a cause, and knows early that he cannot 
 monopolize its whole glory ; he shares what he is aware it is 
 impossible to engross. Besides, action leaves him no time 
 for brooding over disappointment. The author has consumed 
 his youth in a work — it fails in glor}^ Can he write another 
 work } Bid him call back another youth ! But in action the 
 labor of the mind is from day to day. A week replaces what 
 a week has lost, and all the aspirant's fame is of the present. 
 It is lipped by the Babel of the living world ; he is ever on 
 the stage, and the spectators are ever ready to applaud. 
 Thus perpetually in the service of others, self ceases to be 
 his world ; he has no leisure to brood over real or imaginary 
 wrongs, the excitement whirls on the machine till it is worn 
 out " 
 
 " And kicked aside," said Vane, " with the broken lumber 
 of men's other tools, in the chamber of their sons' forgetful- 
 ness. Your man of action lasts but for an hour ; the man of 
 letters lasts for ages." • 
 
 "We live not for ages," answered Trev}4yan ; "our life 
 is on earth, and not in the grave." 
 
 "But even grant," continued Vane, "audi for one will 
 concede the point, that posthumous fame is not worth the 
 living agonies that obtain it, how are you better off in your 
 poor and vulgar career of action ? Would you assist the 
 rulers ? — servility ! The people ? — folly ! If you take the 
 great philosophical view which the worshippers of the past 
 rarely take, but which, unknown to them, is their sole 
 excuse, viz. that the changes which 7nay benefit the future 
 unsettle the present ; and that it is not the wisdom of 
 practical legislation to risk the peace of our contemporaries 
 in the hope of obtaining happiness for their posterity — to 
 what suspicion, to what charges are you exposed ! You are 
 deemed the foe of all liberal opinion, and you read your 
 curses in the eyes of a nation. But take the side of the 
 people. What caprice — what ingratitude You have pro- 
 fessed so much in theory, that you can never accomplish 
 sufficient in practice. Moderation becomes a crime ; to be 
 prudent is to be perfidious. New demagogues, without 
 temperance, because without principle, outstrip you in the 
 moment of your greatest services. The public is the grave 
 of a great man's deeds ; it is never sated ; its maw is eternally 
 open ; it perpetually craves for more. Where, in the history 
 of the world, do you find the gratitude of a people ? You
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE KIIIXE. ^i 
 
 find fervor, it is true, but not gratitude ; the fervor that ex- 
 aggerates a benefit at one moment, but not the gratitude 
 that remembers it the next year. Once disappoint them, 
 and all your actions, all your sacrifices are swept from their 
 remembrance forever ; they break the windows of the very 
 house they have given you, and melt down their medals into 
 bullets. Who serves man, ruler or peasant, serves the ungrate- 
 ful ; and all the ambitious are but types of a Wolsey or a De 
 Witt." 
 
 " And what," said Trevylyan, " consoles a man in the 
 ills that fiesh is heir to, in that state of obscure repose, that 
 serene inactivity to which you would confine him ? Is it not 
 his self-acquittal, or his self-approval .-" " 
 
 " Doubtless," replifed Vane. 
 
 " Be it so," answered the high-souled Tre\7lyan ; " the 
 same consolation awaits us in action as in repose. We 
 sedulously pursue what we deem to be true glory. We are 
 maligned : but our soul acquits us. Could it do more in the 
 scandal and the prejudice that assail us in private life .-' You 
 are silent ; but note how much deeper should be the comfort, 
 how much loftier the self-esteem ; for if calumny attack us 
 in a wilful obscurity, what have we done to refute the cal- 
 umny ? How have we served our species ? Have we ' scorned 
 delight and loved laborious day t ' Have we made the 
 utmost of the ' talent' confided to our care .^ Have we done 
 those deeds to our race upon which we can retire, — an' Estate 
 of Beneficence,' — from the malice of the world, and feel 
 that our deeds are our defenders .-* This is the consolation 
 of virtuous actions ; is it so of — even a virtuous — indolence t " 
 
 " You speak as a preacher," said Vane ; " I merely as 
 a calculator. You of virtue in affliction, I of a life in ease." 
 
 " Well, then, if the consciousness of perpetual endeavor 
 to advance our race be not alone happier than the life of 
 ease, let us see what this vaunted ease really is. Tell me, 
 is it not another name for ennui? This state of quiescence, 
 this objectless, dreamless torpor, this transition dti lit a la 
 table, de la table au lit ; what more dreary and monotonous 
 existence can you devise ? Is it pleasure in this inglorious 
 existence to think that you are serving pleasure ? Is it free- 
 dom to be the slave to self ? For I hold," continued 
 Trevylyan, " that this jargon of ' consulting happiness,' this 
 cant of living for ourselves, is but a mean, as well as a false 
 philosophy. Why this eternal reference, to self ? Is self 
 lone to be consulted t Is even our happiness, did it truly
 
 52 
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 consist in repose, really the great end of life ? I doubt if we 
 cannot ascend higher. I doubt if we cannot say with a great 
 moralist. * If virtue be not estimable in itself, we can see 
 nothing estimable in following it for the sake of a bargain." 
 But, in fact, repose is the poorest of all delusions ; the very act 
 of recurring to self, brings about us all those ills of self from 
 which, in the turnoil of the world, we can escape. We 
 become hypochondriacs. Our very health grows an object 
 of painful possession. We are so desirous to be well ( for 
 what is retirement without health } ), that we are ever fancy- 
 ing ourselves ill ; and, like the man in the Spectator., we weigh 
 ourselves daily, and live but by grains and scruples. Retire- 
 ment is happy only for the poet, for to him it is ;/<?/ retirement. 
 He secedes from one world but to gain another, and he finds 
 not ennui in seclusion : why — not because seclusion hath 
 repose^ but because it hath occupatmi. In one word, then, I 
 say of action and of indolence, grant the same ills to both, 
 and to action there is the readier escape or the nobler 
 consolation." 
 
 Vane shrugged his shoulders. " Ah, my dear friend, 
 said he, tapping his snuff-box with benevolent superiority, 
 " you are much younger than I am ! " 
 
 But these conversations, which Trevylyan and Vane often 
 held together, dull as I fear this specimen must seem to the 
 reader, had an inexpressible charm for Gertrude. She loved 
 the lofty and generous vein of philosophy which Trevylyan 
 embraced, and which, while it suited his ardent nature, 
 contrasted a demeanor commonly hard and cold to all but 
 herself. And, young and tender as she was, his ambition in- 
 fused its spirit into her fine imagination, and that passion 
 for enterprise which belongs inseparately to romance. She 
 loved to muse over his future lot, and in fancy to share its 
 toils and to exult in its triumphs. And if sometimes she 
 asked herself whether a career of action might not estrange 
 him from her, she had but to turn her gaze upon his watchful 
 eye, — and lo, he was by her side or at her feet 1
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RJIINE. 53 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Corcum. — The Tour of the Virtues : A Philosopher's Tale 
 
 It was a bright and cheery morning as they glided by 
 Gorcum. The boats pulHng to tlie shore full of fishermen 
 and peasants in their national costume ; the breeze freshly rip- 
 pling the waters ; the lightness of the blue sky ; the loud 
 and laughing voices from the boats ; — all contributed to raise 
 the spirit, and fill it with that indescribable gladness which is 
 the physical sense of life. 
 
 The tower of the church, with its long windows and its 
 round dial, rose against the clear sky : and on a bench under 
 a green bush facing the water sat a jolly Hollander, refresh- 
 ing the breezes with the fumes of his national weed. 
 
 " How little it requires to make a journey pleasant, when 
 the companions are our friends !" said Gertrude, as they sailed 
 along. " Nothing can be duller than these banks ; nothing 
 more delightful than this voyage." 
 
 " Yet what tries the affections of people for each other so 
 severely as a journey together ?" said Vane. " That perpetual 
 companionship from which there is no escaping ; that confine- 
 ment, in all our moments of ill-humor and listlessness, with 
 persons who want us to look amused. — Ah, it is a severe 
 ordeal for friendship to pass through ! A post-chaise must 
 have jolted many an intimacy to death." 
 
 " You speak feelingly, dear father," said Gertrude, laugh- 
 ing ; " and, I suspect, with a slight desire to be sarcastic upon 
 us. Yet, seriously, I should think that travel must belike life, 
 and that good persons must be always agreeable companions 
 to each other," 
 
 " Good persons, my Gertrude I " answered Vane, with a 
 smile. " Alas ! I fear the good, weary each other quite as 
 much as the bad. What say you, Trevylyan, — would Virtue 
 be a pleasant companion from Paris to Petersburgh 1 Ah, I see 
 you intend to be on Gertrude's side of the question. Well 
 now, if I tell you a story, since stories are so much the fashion 
 with you, in which you shall find that the Virtues themselves
 
 lA 
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 actually made the experiment of a tour, will you promise t<? 
 attend to the moral?'' 
 
 " Oh, dear father, anything for a story," cried Gertrude; 
 " especially from you, who have not told us one all the way. 
 Come, listen, Albert ; nay, listen to your new rival." 
 
 And pleased to see the vivacity of the invalid. Vane, be- 
 gan as follows : — 
 
 The Tour of the Virtues : a Philosopher'' s Tale. 
 
 Once upon a time, several of the Virtues, weary of living 
 for ever with the Bishop of Norwich, resolved to make a 
 little excursion ; accordingly, though they knew everything on 
 earth was very ill prepared to receive them, they thought they 
 might safely venture on a tour from Westminster-bridge to 
 Richmond : the day was fine and the wind in their favor, and 
 as to entertainment, — there seemed, according to Gertrude to 
 be no possibility of any disagreement among the Virtues. 
 
 They took a boat at Westminster-stairs, and just as they 
 were about to push off, a poor woman, all in rags, with a 
 child in her arms, i^uplored their compassion. Charity put 
 her hand into her reticule, and took out a shilling. Justice, 
 turning round to look after the luggage, saw the folly which 
 Charity was about to commit. " Heavens !" cried Justice, 
 seizing poor Charity by the arm, " what are you doing ? 
 Have you never read Political Economy ? Don't you know 
 that indiscriminate almsgiving is only the encouragement to 
 Idleness, the mother of Vice ? You a Virtue, indeed ! — I'm 
 ashamed of you. Get along with you, good woman ; — yet 
 stay, there is a ticket for soup at the Mendicity Society : 
 they'll see if you are a proper object of compassion. But 
 Charity is quicker than Justice, and slipping her hand behind 
 her, the poor woman got the shilling and the ticket for soup 
 too. Economy and Generosity saw the double gift. " What 
 waste!" cried Economy, frowning; "what, a ticket and 
 a shilling ! — either would have sufficed." 
 
 " Either ! '' said Generosity ; " fie ! Charity should have 
 given the poor creature half-a-cro\vn, and Justice a dozen 
 tickets ! " So the next ten minutes were consumed in a 
 quarrel between the four Virtues, which would have lasted 
 all the way to Richmond, if Courage had not ad\ ised them 
 to get on shore and light it out. Upon this, the Virtues sud 
 dealy perceived they had a little forgotten themselves, and
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE, 
 
 55 
 
 Generosity ofTering the first apology, they made it up, and 
 went on very agreeably for the next mile or two. 
 
 The day now grew a little overcast, and a shower seemed at 
 hand. Prudence, who had on a new bonnet, suggested the 
 propriety of putting to shore for half an hour ; Courage was 
 for braving the rain ; but, as most of the Virtues are ladies, 
 Prudence carried it. Just as they were about to land, another 
 boat cut in before them very uncivilly, and gave theirs -such 
 a shake, that Charity was all but overboard. The company 
 on board the uncivil boat, who evidently thought the Virtues 
 extremely low persons, for they had nothing very fashionable 
 about their exterior, burst out laughing at Charity's discom- 
 posure, especially as a large basket full of buns, which 
 Charity carried with her for any hungry-looking children she 
 might encounter at Richmond, fell pounce into the water. 
 Courage was all on fire ; he twisted his moustache, and would 
 have made an onset on the enemy, if, to his great indignation 
 Meekness had not forstalled him, by stepping mildly into the 
 hostile boat and offering both cheeks to the foe. This was 
 too much even for the incivility of the boatmen ; they made 
 their excuses to the Virtues ; and Courage, who is no bully, 
 thought himself bound discontentedly to accept them. But 
 oh ! if you had seen how Courage used Meekness afterwards, 
 you could not have believed it possible that one Virtue could 
 be so enraged with another ! This quarrel between the two 
 threw a damp on the party ; and they proceeded on their 
 voyage, when the shower was over, with anything but cor- 
 diality. I spare j'ou the little squabbles that took place in 
 the general conversation — how Fxonomy found fault with all 
 the villas by the way ; and Temperance expressed becoming 
 indignation at the luxuries of the City barge. They arrived 
 at Richmond, and Temperance was appointed to order the 
 dinner ; meanwhile Hospitality, walking in the garden, fell 
 in with a large party of Irishmen, and asked them to join the 
 repast. 
 
 Imagine the long faces of Economy and Prudence, when 
 they saw the addition to the company. Hospitality was all 
 spirits ; he rubbed his hands and called for champagne with 
 the tone of a younger brother. Temperance soon grew scan- 
 dalized, and Modesty herself colored at some of the jokes ; 
 but Hospitality, who was now half-seas over, called the one a 
 milksop, and swore at the other as a prude. Away went the 
 hours ; it was time to return, and they made down to the 
 water-side, thoroughly out of temper with one another, Ecoiv
 
 ^6 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 omy and Generosity quarrelling all the way about the bili 
 and the waiters. To make up the sum of their mortirication_ 
 they passed a boat where all the company were in the best 
 possible spirits, laughing and whooping like mad ; and dis- 
 covered these jolly companions to be two or three agreeable 
 Vices, who had put themselves under the management ol 
 Good Temper. So you see, Gertrude, that even the Virtues 
 may fall at loggerheads with each other, and pass a very sad 
 time of it, if they happen to be of opposite dispositions, and 
 have forgotten to take Good Temper along with them." 
 
 "Ah!" said Gertrude, "but you have over-loaded your 
 boat ; too many Virtues might contradict one another, but 
 not a few." 
 
 " Voila ce que je vcnx dire,'" said Vane, " But listen to the 
 sequel of my tale, which now takes a new moral." 
 
 At the end of the voyage, and after a long, sulky silence, 
 Prudence said, with a thoughtful air, " My dear friends, I 
 have been thinking that as long as we keep so entirely to- 
 gether, never mixing with the rest of the world, we shall waste 
 our lives in quarrelling among ourselves, and run the risk of 
 being still less liked and sought after than we already are. You 
 know that we are none of us popular ; everyone is quite con- 
 tented to see us represented in a vaudeville, or described in 
 an essay. Charity, indeed, has her name often taken in vain 
 at a bazaar, or a subscription ; and the miser as often talks 
 of the duty he owes to me, when he sends the stranger from 
 his door, or his grandson to gaol : but still we only resemble 
 so many wild beasts, whom everybody likes to see, but no- 
 body cares to possess, Now, I propose that we should all 
 separate and take up our abode with some mortal or other 
 for a year, with the power of changing at the end of that time 
 should we not feel ourselves comfortable ; that is, should we 
 not find that we do all the good we intend : let us try the ex- 
 periment, and on this day twelvemonth let us all meet, under 
 the laigest oak in Windsor Forest, and recount what has be- 
 fallen us." Prudence ceased, as she always does when she 
 has said enough ; and, delighted at the project, the Virtues 
 asireed to adopt it on the spot. They were enchanted at the 
 id a of setting up for themselves, and each not doubting his 
 or her success ; for Economy, in her heart, thought Generos- 
 ity no Virtue at all, and Meekness looked on Courage as 
 little better than a heathen. 
 
 Generosity, being the most eager and active of all the Vir- 
 tues, set off first on his journey. Justice followed, and kept
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 57 
 
 up with him, though at a more even pace. Charity never 
 heard a sigh, or saw a squalid face, but she stayed to cheer 
 and console the sufferer — a kindness which somewhat retarded 
 her progress. 
 
 Courage espied a travelling-carriage, with a man and his 
 wife in it quarrelling most conjugally, and he civilly begged 
 he might be permitted to occupy the vacant seat opposite the 
 lady. Economy still lingered, inquiring for the cheapest inns. 
 Poor Modesty looked round and sighed, on finding herself so 
 near London, where she was almost unknown ; but resolved 
 to bend her course thither, for two reasons, first, for the nov- 
 elty of the thing ; and, secondly, not liking to expose her- 
 self to any risks by a journey on the Continent. Prudence, 
 though the first to project, was the last to execute ; and there- 
 fore resolved to remain where she was for that night, and 
 take daylight for her travels. 
 
 The year rolled on, and the Virtues, punctual to the ap- 
 pointment, met under the oak-tree ; they all came nearly at 
 the same time, excepting Economy, who had got into a return 
 post-chaise, the horses to which, having been forty miles in 
 the course of the morning, had foundered by the way, and 
 retarded her journey till tiight set in. The Virtues looked 
 sad and sorrowful, as people are wont to do after a long and 
 fruitless journey ; and, somehow or other, such was the wear- 
 ing effect of their intercourse with the world, that they ap- 
 peared wonderfully diminished in size. 
 
 " Ah I my dear Generosity," said Prudence, with a sigh, 
 " as you were the first to set out on your travels, pray let us 
 hear your adventures first." 
 
 " You must know, my dear sisters," said Generosity, " that 
 I had not gone many miles from you before I came to a small 
 country town, in which a marching regiment was quartered ; 
 and at an open window I beheld, leaning over a gentleman's 
 chair, the most beautiful creature imagination ever pictured ; 
 her eyes shone out like two suns of perfect happiness, and 
 she was almost cheerful enough to have passed for Good 
 Temper herself. The gentleman over whose chair she leaned, 
 was her husband ; they had been married six weeks ; he was 
 a lieutenant with a hundred pounds a year besides his pay 
 Greatly affected by their poverty, I instantly determined, 
 ■without a second thought, to ensconce myself in the heart ot 
 this channing girl. During the first hour in my new residence 
 I made many wise reflections, such as — Love never was so 
 perfect as when accompanied by Poverty ; what a vulgar er
 
 5 8 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHIA'E. 
 
 ror it was to call the unmarried state * Single Blessedness ! ' 
 how wrong it was of us Virtues never to have tried the mar 
 riage -bond ; and what a falsehood it was to say that Iiiis 
 bands neglected their wives, for never was there anything in 
 nature so devoted as the love of a husband — six weeks mar- 
 ried ! 
 
 " The next morning, before breakfast, as the charming 
 Fanny was waiting for her husband, who had not yet fin- 
 ished his toilette, a poor, wretched-looking object appeared 
 at the window, tearing her hair and wringing her hands ; 
 her husband had that morning been dragged to prison, 
 and her seven children had fought for the last mouldly crust. 
 Prompted by me, Fanny, without inquiring further into the 
 matter, drew from her silken purse a five-pound note, and 
 gave it to the beggar, who departed more amazed than grate- 
 ful. Soon after tlie lieutenant appeared; — ' What the d 1 
 
 another bill ! ' muttered he, as he tore the yellow wafer from 
 a large, square, folded, bluish piece of paper. ' Oh, ah ! 
 confound the fellow, he must be paid. I must trouble you, 
 Fanny, for fifteen pounds to pay this saddler's bill.' 
 
 " ' Fifteen pounds, love ? ' stammered Fanny, blushing. 
 
 " ' Yes, dearest, tlie fifteen poimds I gave you yesterday.' 
 
 " ' I have only ten pounds,' said Fanny, hesitatingly, ' for 
 such a poor wretched-looking creature was here just now, 
 that I was obliged to give her five pounds.' 
 
 " ' Five pounds .-" good Heavens ! ' exclaimed the aston- 
 ished husband ; ' I shall have no more money these three 
 weeks.' He frowned, he bit his lips, nay he even wrung his 
 hands, ana \valked up and down the room ; worse .still, he 
 broke forth — ' Surely, madam, you did not suppose, when 
 you married a lieutenant in a marching regiment, that he 
 could afford to indulge in the whim of giving five pounds to 
 every mendicant who held out her hand to you .'' You did 
 not, I say mad.am, imagine,' but the bridegroom was inter- 
 rupted by the convulsive sobs of his wife : it was their first 
 quarrel, they were but six weeks married ; he looked at 
 her for one moment sternly, the next he was at her feet. 
 ■ Forgive me, dearest Fanny ; forgive me, for I cannot for- 
 give myself. I was too great a wretch to say what I did ; 
 and do believe, my own Fanny, that while I may be too poor to 
 indulge you in it, I do from my heart admire so noble, so 
 disinterested, a generosity.' Not a little proud did I feel to 
 have been the cause of this exemplary husband's admiraf'on 
 for his amiable wife, and sincerely did I rejoice at having
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF TJ/E RHINE. 59 
 
 taken up my abode with these /^^ir people. But not to tire 
 you my dear sisters, with the minutioe of detail, I sliall 
 briefly say that things did not long remain in this delight- 
 ful position; for, before many months had elapsed, poor 
 Fanny had to bear with her husband's increased and more 
 frequent storms of passion, unfollovved by any halcyon and 
 honeymoon suings for forgiveness ; for at my instigation 
 every shilling went; and when there were no more to 
 go, her trinkets, and even her clothes followed. The 
 lieutenant became a complete brute, and even allowed his 
 unbridled tongue to call me — me, sisters, me! — heartless 
 Extravagance." His despicable brother-othcers, and their 
 gossiping wives, were no better; for they did nothing 
 but animadvert upon my Fanny's ostentation and absur- 
 dity, for by such names had they the impertinence to call me. 
 Thus grieved to the soul to find myself the cause of all my 
 poor Fanny's misfortunes, I resolved at the end of the year 
 to leave her, being thoroughly convinced, that, however ami- 
 able and praiseworthy I might be in myself, 1 was totally un- 
 fit to be bosom friend and ad^'iser to the wife of a lieutenant 
 in a marching regiment, with only a hundred pounds a year 
 besides his pay." 
 
 The Virtues groaned their sympathy with the unfortunate 
 Fanny : and Prudence, turning to Justice, said, " 1 long to 
 near what you have been doing, for I am certain you cannot 
 have occasioned harm to any one." 
 
 Justice shook her head and said, " Alas ! I find that there 
 are times and places when even I do better not to appear, as 
 a short account of my adventures will prove to you. No 
 sooner had I left you than I instantly repaired to India, 
 and took up my abode with a Brahmin. I was much shocked 
 by the dreadful inequalities of condition that reigned in the 
 several castes, and I longed to relieve the poor Pariah from 
 his ignominious destiny ; accordingly I set seriously to work 
 on reform. I insisted upon the iniquity of abandoning men 
 from their birth to an irremediable state of contemi.i, from 
 which no virtue could exalt them. The Brahmins looked upon 
 my Brahmin with ineffable horror. They called me the most 
 wicked of vices ; they saw no distinction between Justice and 
 Atheism. I uprooted their society — that was sufficient crime. 
 
 " But the worst was, that the Pariahs themselves regarded 
 me with suspicion ; they thought it unnatural in a Brahmin 
 to care for a Pariah ! And one called me ' Madness ; ' an 
 other, ' Ambition ; ' and a third, ' The Desire to innovate.
 
 6o THE PILGRIMS OF THE KIII.XE. 
 
 My poor Brahmin led a miserable life of it ; when one day 
 after observing, at my dictation, that he thought a Pariah's 
 life as much entitled to respect as a cow's, he was hurried 
 away by the priests and secretly broiled on the altar, as a 
 fitting reward for his sacrilege. I tied hither in great tribu- 
 lation, persuaded that in some countries even Justice may do 
 harm." 
 
 " As for me," said Charity, not waiting to be asked, " I 
 gr_eve to say that I was silly enough to take up my abode 
 with an old lady in Dublin, who never knew what discretion 
 was, and always acted from impulse ; my instigation was ir- 
 resistible, and the money she gave in her drives through the 
 suburbs of Dublin was so lavishly spent, that it kept all the 
 rascals of the city in idleness and whiskey. I found, to my 
 great horror, that I was a main cause of a terrible epi- 
 demic, and that to give alms without discretion was to spread 
 poverty without help. I left the city when my year was out, 
 and, as ill-luck would have it, just at the time when I was 
 most wanted." 
 
 " And, oh ! " cried Hospitalit}', " I went to Ireland also. 
 I fixed my abode with a squireen ; I ruined him in a year, 
 and only left him because he had no longer a hovel to keep 
 me in." 
 
 " As for myself," said Temperance, " I entered the breast 
 of an English legislator, and he brought in a bill against ale- 
 houses ; the consequence was, that the laborers took to gin, 
 and I have been forced to confess, that Temperance may be 
 too zealous when she dictates too vehemently to others." 
 
 " Well," said Courage, keeping more in the background 
 than he had ever done before, and looking rather ashamed 
 of himself, " that travelling carriage I got into belonged to a 
 German general and his wife, who were returning to their 
 own country. Growing very cold as we proceeded, she 
 wrapped me up in ?i polonaise ; but the cold increasing, I in- 
 advertently crept into her bosom ; once there I could not get 
 out, and from thenceforward the poor general had considera- 
 bly the worst of it. She became so provoking, that I won- 
 dered how he could refrain from an explosion. To do him 
 justice, he did at last threaten to get out of the carriage ; 
 upon which, roused by me, she collared him — and conquered. 
 When he got to his own district, things grew worse, for if any 
 aide-de-camp offended her, she insisted that he might be 
 publicly reprimanded ; and should the poor general refuse, 
 she would with her own hands confer a caning upon the do
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHIME. 6i 
 
 linqiient. The additional force she had gained in me was 
 too much odds against the poor general, and he died of a 
 broken heart, six months after my liaison with his wife. She 
 after this became so dreaded and detested, that a conspiracy 
 was formed to poison her ; this daunted even me, so I left her 
 without delay — et me void/''' 
 
 " Humph ! " said Meekness, with an air of triumph ; " I, 
 at least, have been more successful than you. On seeing 
 much in the papers of the cruelties practised by the Turks 
 on the Greeks, I thought my presence would enable the poor 
 sufferers to bear their misfortunes calmly. I went to Greece, 
 then, at a moment when a well-planned and practicable 
 scheme of emancipating themselves from the Turkish yoke 
 was arousing their youth. Without confining myself to one 
 individual, I flitted from breast to breast ; I meekened the 
 whole nation ; my remonstrances against the insurrection 
 succeeded, and I had the satisfaction of leaving a whole peo- 
 ple ready to be killed, or strangled, with the most Christian 
 resignation in the world." 
 
 The Virtues, who had been a little cheered by the open- 
 ing self-complacency of Meekness, would not, to her great 
 astonishment, allow that she had succeeded a whit more hap- 
 pily than her sisters, and called next upon Modesty for her 
 confession. 
 
 " You know," said the amiable young lady, " that I went 
 to London in search of a situation. I spent three months of 
 the twelve in going from house to house, but I could not get 
 a single person to receive me. The ladies declared they 
 never saw so old-fashioned a gawky, and civilly recommended 
 me to their abigails ; the abigails turned me round with a 
 stare, a;id then pushed me down to the kitchen and the fat 
 scullion-maids ; who assured me, that ' in the respectable 
 families they had the honor to live in, they had never even 
 heard of my name.' One young housemaid, just from the 
 country, did indeed receive me with some sort of civility ; but 
 she very soon lost me in the servants' hall. I now took 
 refuge with the other sex, as the least uncourteous. I was 
 fortunate enough to find a young gentleman of remarkable 
 talents, who welcomed me with open arms. He was full oi 
 learning, gentleness, and honesty. I had only one rival — 
 Ambition. We both contended for an absolute empire ovei 
 him. Whatever Ambition suggested, I damped. Did Am- 
 bition urge him to begin a book, I persuaded him it was not 
 worth publication. Did he get up, full of knowledge, and
 
 62 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 instigated by my rival to make a speech (for he was in par 
 liament), I shocked him with the sense of his assurance — I 
 made his voice droop and his accents falter. At last, with 
 an indignant sigh, my rival left him ; lie retired into the 
 countr}', took orders, and renounced a career he had fondly 
 hoped would be serviceable to others ; but finding I did not 
 suffice for his happiness, and piqued at his melancholy, I left 
 him before the end of the year, and he has since taken to 
 drinking ! " 
 
 I'he eyes of the Virtues were all turned to Prudence. She 
 was their last hope — "I am just where I set out," said that 
 discreet Virtue : " 1 have done neither good nor harm. To 
 avoid temptation, I went and lived with a hermit, to whom 1 
 soon found that I could be of no use beyond warning him 
 not to overboil his peas and lentils, not to leave his door 
 open when a storm threatened, and not to frll his pitcher too 
 full at the neighboring spring. I am thus the only one of 
 you that never did harm; but only because I am the only 
 one of you that never had an opportunity of doing it ! In a 
 word," continued Prudence, thoughtfully, — " in a word, my 
 friends, circumstances are necessary to the Virtues them- 
 selves. Had, for instance. Economy changed with Generosity, 
 and gone to the poor lieutenant's wife, and had I lodged 
 with the Irish squireen instead of Hospitality, what misfor- 
 tunes would have been saved to both ! Alas ! I perceive we 
 lose all our efficacy when we are misplaced ; and theti^ though 
 in reality Virtues, we operate as Vices. Circumstances must 
 be favorable to our exertions, and harmonious with our 
 nature ; and we lose our very divinity unless Wisdom direct 
 our footsteps to the home we should inhabit, and the disposi- 
 tions we should govern." 
 
 The story was ended, and the travellers began to dispute 
 about its moral. Here let us leave them.
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 63 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Cologne. — The trace of the Roman Yoke. — The Church of St. Maria. — 
 Trevylyan's reflections on the Monastic Life. — The Tomb of the Three 
 Kings — An Evening Excursion on the Rhine. 
 
 Rome — magnificent Rome ! wherever the pilgrim wends, 
 the traces of thy dominion greet his eyes. Still, in the heart 
 of the bold German race, is graven the print of the eagle's 
 claws ; and amidst the haunted regions of the Rhine we pause 
 to wonder at the great monuments of the Italian yoke. 
 
 At Cologne our travellers rested for some days. They 
 were in the city to which the camp of Marcus Agrippa had given 
 birth : that spot had resounded with the armed tread of the 
 legions of Trajan. In that city, Vitellius, Sylvanus, were pro- 
 claimed emperors. By that church, did the latter receive his 
 death. 
 
 As they passed round the door, they saw some peasants 
 loitering on the sacred ground ; and when they noted the 
 delicate cheek of Gertrude, they uttered their salutations 
 with more than common respect. Where they then were, the 
 building swept round in a circular form ; and at its base it 
 is supposed, by tradition, to retain something of the ancient 
 Roman masonry. Just before them rose the spire of a plain 
 and unadorned church — singularly contrasting the pomp of 
 the old, with the simplicity of the innovating, creed. 
 
 The church of St. Maria occupies the site of the Roman 
 Capitol ; and the place retains the Roman name ; and still 
 something in the aspect of the people betrays the hereditary 
 blood. 
 
 Gertrude, whose nature was strongly impressed with the 
 venerating character, was fond of visiting the old Gothic 
 churches, which, with so eloquent a moral, unite the living 
 with the dead. 
 
 " Pause for a moment," said Trevylyan, before they en- 
 tered the church of St, Mary. " What recollections crowd 
 upon us ! On the site of the Roman Capitol, a Christian 
 church and a convent are erected ! By whom 1 The mothei 
 of Charles Martel — the conqueror of the Saracen — the arch- 
 hero of Christendom itself ! And to these scenes and calm
 
 64 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHEVE. 
 
 retreats, to the cloisters of the convent once belonging to this 
 church, fled the bruised spirit of a royal sufferer — the victim 
 of Richelieu — the unfortunate and ambitious Mary de Medicis. 
 Alas ! the cell and the convent are but a vain emblem of thai 
 desire to fly to God which belongs to Distress ; the solitude 
 soothes, but the monotony recalls, regret. And for my own 
 part, in my frequent tours through Catholic countries, I nevei 
 saw the still walls in which monastic vanity hoped to shut out 
 the world, but a melancholy came over me ! What hearts at 
 war with themselves ! — what unceasing regrets ! — what pinings 
 after the past ! — what long and beautiful years devoted to a 
 moral grave, by a momentary rashness — an impulse — a disap- 
 pointment ! But in these churches the lesson is more impres- 
 sive and less sad. The weary heart has ceased to ache — the 
 burning pulses are still — the troubled spirit has flown to the 
 only rest which is not a deceit. Power and love — hope and 
 fear — avarice — ambition, they are quenched at last ! Death 
 is the only monastery — the tomb is the only cell." 
 
 " Your passion is ever for active life," said Gertrude. 
 " You allow no charm to solitude, and contemplation to you 
 seems torture. If any great sorrow ever comes upon you, you 
 will never retire to seclusion as its balm. You will plunge 
 into the world, and lose your individual existence in the 
 universal rush of life." 
 
 " Ah, talk not of sorrow ! " said Trevylyan, wildly, — " let 
 us enter the church." 
 
 They went afterwards to the celebrated cathedral, which 
 is considered one of the noblest of the architectural triumphs 
 of Germany ; but it is yet more worthy of notice from the 
 Pilgrim of Romance that the searcher after antiquity, for here, 
 behind the grand altar, is the Tomb of the Three Kings of 
 Cologne — the three worshippers, whom tradition humbled to 
 our Saviour. Legend is rife with a thousand tales of the relics 
 of this tomb. The three Kings of Cologne are the tute- 
 lary names of that golden superstition, which has often more 
 votaries than the religion itself from w-hich it springs : and to 
 Gertrude the simple story of Lucille sufficed to make her for 
 the moment credulous of the sanctity of the spot. Behind 
 the tomb tlrree Gothic windows cast their " dim, religious 
 light " over the tesselated pavement and along the Ionic 
 pillars. They found some of the more credulous believers in 
 the authenticity of the relics kneeling before the tomb, and 
 they arrested their steps, fearful to disturb the superstition 
 which is never without something of sanctity when contented
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RIIh\E. tf^ 
 
 with prayer, and forgetful of persecution. The bones of the 
 Magi are still supposed to consecrate the tomb, and on the 
 higher part of the monument the artist has delineated theii 
 adoration to the infant Saviour. 
 
 That evening came on with a still and tranquil beauty, 
 and as the sun hastened to its close they launched their boat 
 for an hour or two's excursion upon the Rhine. Gertrude 
 was in that happy mood when the quiet of nature is enjoyed 
 like a bath for the soul, and the presence of him she so idol 
 ized, deepened that stillness into a more delicious and subdu- 
 ing calm. Little did she dream as the boat glided over the 
 water, and the towers of Cologne rose in the blue air of even 
 ing, how few were those hours that divided her from the 
 tomb ! But, in looking back to the life of one we have loved, 
 how dear is the thought that the latter davs were the davs of 
 light, that the cloud never chilled the beauty of the setting 
 sun, and that if the years of existence were brief, all that ex- 
 istence has most tender, most sacred, was crowded into that 
 space ! Nothing dark, then, or bitter, rests with our remem- 
 brance of the lost, we are the mourners, but pity is not for 
 the mourned — our grief is purely selfish ; when we turn to its 
 object, the hues of happiness are round it, and that very love 
 which is the parent of our woe was the consolation — the tri- 
 umph — of the departed ! 
 
 The majestic Rhine was calm as a lake ; the splashing of 
 the oar only, broke the stillness, and after a long pause in 
 their conversation, Gertrude, putting her hand on Trevylyan's 
 arm, reminded him of a promised story ; for he too had moods 
 of abstraction, from which, in her turn, she loved to lure 
 him ; and his voice to her had become a sort of want. 
 
 " Let it be," said she, " a tale suited to the hour ; no 
 fierce tradition — nay, no grotesque fable, but of the tenderer 
 dye of superstition. Let it be of love, of woman's love — of 
 the love that defies the grave : for surely even after death it 
 lives ; and heaven would scarcely be heaven if memory were 
 banished from its blessing." 
 
 " I recollect," said Trevylyan, after a slight pause, " a 
 short German legend, the simplicity of which touched me 
 much when I heard it ; but," added he with a slight smile, 
 " so much more faithful appears in the legend the love of the 
 woman than that of the man, that / at least ought scarcely to 
 recite it." , 
 
 " Nay," said Gertrude tenderly, " the fault of the incoa- 
 stant only heightens our gratitude to the faithful." •
 
 66 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHIAE. 
 
 CHAPTER Vlir. 
 The Soul in Purgatory ; or, Love stronger than death. 
 
 The angels strung their harps m Heaven, and their music 
 went up like a stream of odors to the pavillions of the Most 
 High. But the harp of Seralim was sweeter than that of 
 his fellows, and the Voice of the Invisible One (for the angels 
 themselves know not the glories of Jehovah — only far in the 
 depths of Heaven they see one Unsleeping Eye watching for 
 ever over Creation) was heard saying, — 
 
 " Ask a gift for the love that burns in thy song, and it 
 shall be given thee." 
 
 And Seralim answered, — 
 
 " There are in that place which men call Purgator}% and 
 which is the escape from Hell, but the painful porch of 
 Heaven, many souls that adore Thee, and yet are punishec 
 justly for their sins ; grant me the boon to visit them at times, 
 and solace their sufferings by the hymns of the harp that is 
 consecrated to thee ! " 
 
 And the Voice answered, — 
 
 " Thy prayer is heard, O gentlest of the angels ! and it 
 seems good to Him who chastizes but from love. Go ! Thou 
 hast thy will." 
 
 Then the an^el sang the praises of God ; and when the 
 song was done, he rose from his azure throne at the right 
 hand of Gabriel, and spreading his rainbow wings, he fiew to 
 that melancholy orb which, nearest to earth, echoes with the 
 shrieks of souls that by torture become pure. There the un- 
 happy ones see from afar the bright courts they are hereafter 
 to obtain, and the shapes of glorious beings who, fresh from 
 the Fountains of Immortality, walk amidst the gardens of 
 Paradise, and feel that their happiness hath no morrow ; — 
 and this thought consoles amidst their torments, and makes 
 the true difference between Purgatory and Hell. 
 
 Then the angel folded his wings, and entering the crystal 
 gates, sat down upon a blasted rock and struck his divine 
 lyre, and a peace fell o\er the wretched ; the demon ceased 
 4o torture, and the victim to wail. As sleep to the mourners
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE REINE. 67 
 
 of earth was the song of the angel to the souls of the purify- 
 ing star : one only voice amidst the general stillness seemed 
 not lulled by the angel ; it was the voice of a woman, and it 
 continued to cry out with a sharp cry, — 
 
 " Oh, Adenheim, Adenheim ! mourn not for the lost ! " 
 
 The angel struck chord af'er chord, till his most skilful 
 melodies were exhausted ; but still the solitary voice, unheed- 
 ing unconscious of, the sweetest harp of the angel choir, 
 cried out, — 
 
 " Oh, Adenheim, Adenheim ! mourn not for the lost ! " 
 
 Then Seralim's interest was aroused, and approaching 
 the spot whence the voice cav.ie, he saw the spirit of a young 
 and beautiful girl chained to a rock, and the demons lying 
 idly by. And Seralim said to the demons, " Doth the song 
 lull ye thus to rest ? " 
 
 And they answered, " Her care for another is bitterer 
 than all our torments ; therefore are we idle." 
 
 Then the angel approached the spirit, and said in a voice 
 which stilled her cry — for in what state do we outlive sym- 
 pathy ? " Wherefore, O daughter of earth ! w^herefore wailcst 
 thou' with the same plaintive wail ? and why doth the harp 
 that soothes the most guilty of thy companions, fail in its 
 melody with thee ? " 
 
 " Oh, radiant stranger," answered the poor spirit, " thou 
 speakest to one who on earth loved God's creature more than 
 God ; therefore is she thus justly sentenced. But I know 
 that my poor Adenheim mourns ceaselessly for me, and the 
 thought of his sorrow is more intolerable to me than all that 
 the demons can inflict." 
 
 " And how knowest thou that he laments thee ? " asked 
 the angel. 
 
 " Because I know with what agony T should have mourned 
 for >^/w," replied the spirit, simply. 
 
 The divine nature of the angel was touched ; for love is 
 the nature of the sons of heaven. " And how," said he, " can 
 I minister to thy sorrow? !' 
 
 A transport seemed to agitate the spirit, and she lifted up 
 her mist-like and impalpable arms, and cried, — 
 
 " Give me — oh, give me to return to earth, but for one 
 little hour, that I may visit my Adenheim"; and that, conceal- 
 ing from him my present sufferings, I may comfort him in his 
 
 own." 
 
 " Alas ! " said the angel, turning away his eyes — for angels 
 may not weep in the sight of others — " I could, indeed, grant
 
 68 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 thee this boon, but thou knowest not the penalty. For the 
 souls in Purgatory may return to Earth, but heavy is the sen- 
 tence that awaits their return. In a word, for one hour on 
 earth, thou must add a thousand years to the tortures of thy 
 confinement here !" 
 
 " Is that all ? " cried the spirit ; " willingly then will I brave 
 the doom. Ah, surely they love not in heaven, or thou 
 wouldst know, O Celestial Visitant, that one hour of conso- 
 lation to the one we love is worth a thousand ages of torture 
 to ourselves ! Let me comfort and convince my Adenheim ; 
 no matter what becomes of me." 
 
 Then the angel looked on high, and he saw in far-distant re- 
 gions, which in that orb none else could discern, the rays 
 that parted from the all-guarding Eye ; and heard the Voice 
 of the Eternal One bidding him act as his pity whispered. 
 He looked on the spirit, and her shadowy arms stretched 
 pleadingly towards him ; he uttered the word that loosened 
 the bars of the gate of Purgatory ; and lo, the spirit had re- 
 entered the human world. 
 
 It was night in the halls of the Lord of Adenheim, and 
 he sat at the head of his glittering board ; loud and long was 
 the laugh, and merry the jest that echoed round ; and the 
 laugh and the jest of the Lord of Adenheim were louder 
 and merrier than all. 
 
 And by his right side sat a beautiful lady ; and ever and 
 anon he turned from others to whisper soft vows in her ear. 
 
 "And oh," said the bright dame of Falkenberg, "thy 
 words what ladye can believe ? — Didst thou not utter the 
 same oaths, and promise the same love, to Ida, the fair 
 daughter of Loden ; and now but three little months have 
 closed over her grave ? " 
 
 "By my halidom," quoth the young Lord of Adenheim, 
 " thou dost thy beauty marvellous injustice. Ida ! Nay, thou 
 mockest me ; / love the daughter of Loden ? why, how then 
 should I be worthy of thee.'' A few gay words, a few passing 
 smiles — behold all the love Adenheim ever bore to Ida. Was 
 it my fault if the poor fool misconstrued such common cour- 
 tesy ? Nay, dearest lady, this heart is virgin to thee." 
 
 " And what ! " said the Lady of Falkenberg, as she suf 
 fered the arm of Adenheim to encircle her slender waist, 
 "didst thou not grieve for her loss.-" " 
 
 " Why, verily, yes, for the first week ; but in thy bright 
 eyes I found ready consolation." 
 
 At this moment the Lord of Adenheim thought he heard
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE KHIXE. 69 
 
 a deep sigh behind him ■ he turned, but saw nothing, save a 
 
 slight mist that gradually faded away, and vanished in tlie 
 
 distance. Where was the necessitv for Ida to reveal herselt: ? 
 ****** 
 
 ****** 
 
 " And thou didst not, then, do thine errand to thy lover ! " 
 said Seralim, as the spirit of the wronged Ida returned to 
 Purgatory. 
 
 " Bid the demons recommence their torture," was poor 
 Ida's answer. 
 
 " And was it for this that thou added a thousand years to 
 thy doom ? " 
 
 " Alas ! " answered Ida, " after the single hour I have 
 endured on earth, there seems to be but little terrible in a 
 thousand fresh years of Purgatory."* 
 
 " What ! is the story ended ? " asked Gertrude. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Nay, surely a thousand years were not added to poor 
 Ida's doom ; and Seralim bore her back with him to 
 Heaven ! " 
 
 " The legend saith no more. The writer was contented 
 to show us the perpetuity of woman's love ; — 
 
 "And its reward," added Vane. 
 
 " It was not /who drew that last conclusion, Albeit," 
 whispered Gertrude. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The scenery of the Rhine analogous to the German literary genius. 
 
 — The Drachcnfels. 
 
 On leaving Cologne, the stream winds round among 
 banks that do not yet fufil the promise of the Rhine ; but 
 they increase in interest as you leave Surdt and Godorf. The 
 peculiar character of the river does not, however, really ap- 
 pear, until by degrees the Seven Mountains, and "The 
 
 *This story is principally borrowed from a foreign soil. It seemed to 
 the author worthy of being transferred to an English one, although he 
 fears that much of its singular beauty in the original has been lust by 
 the 'A'ay
 
 70 
 
 THE riLGRIMS OF THE KIIIN'E. 
 
 Castled Crag of Drachenfels " above tliem all, break 
 upon the eye. Around Neider Cassel and Rheidt, the vuTes 
 lie thick and clustering ; and, by the shore, you see from 
 place to place the islands stretching their green length along, 
 and breaking the exulting tide. Village rises upon village, 
 and viewed from the distance as you sail, the pastoral errors 
 that enamoured us of the village life, crowd thick and fast 
 upon us. So still do these hamlets seem, so sheltered from 
 the passions of the world ; as if the passions were not like 
 winds — only felt where they breathe, and invisible save by 
 their effects ! Leaping into the broad bosom of the Rhine 
 come many a stream and rivulet upon either side. Spire 
 upon spire rises and sinks as you sail on. Mountain and 
 city — *Jie solitary island — the castled steep — like the dreams 
 of ambinon, suddenly appear, proudly swell, and dimly fade 
 away. 
 
 "You begin now," said Trevylyan "to understand the 
 character of the German literature. The Rhine is an em- 
 blem of its luxuriance, its fertility, its romance. The best 
 commentary to the German genius is a visit to the German 
 scenery. The mighty gloom of the Hartz, the feudal towers 
 that look over vines and deep valleys on the legendary Rhine ; 
 the gigantic remains of antique power, profusely scattered 
 over plain, mount, and forest ; the thousand mixed recoUect- 
 tions that hallow the ground ; the stately Roman, the stalwart 
 Goth, the chivalry of the feudal age, and the dim brother- 
 hood of the ideal world, have here alike their record and 
 their remembrance. And over such scenes wanders the 
 young German student. Instead of the pomp and luxury of 
 the English traveller, the thousand devices to cheat the way. 
 he has but his volume in his hand, his knapsack at his back. 
 Trcm such scenes he diaws and hives all that various store 
 which after years ripen to invention. Hence the liorid mix- 
 ture of the German muse — the classic, the romantic, the con- 
 templative, the philosophic, and the superstitious. Each the 
 result of actual meditation over different scenes. Each the 
 product of separate but confused recollections. As the Rhine 
 Hows, so flows the national genius, by mountain and valley 
 — the wildest solitude — the sudden spires of ancient cities — 
 (he mouldered castle — the stately monastery — the humble 
 cot. Grandeur and homeliness, history and superstition, 
 iTuth and fable, succeeding one another so as to blend into 
 a whole. 
 
 " But," added Trevylyan a moment afterwards, " the Ideal
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE KIIIXE. 
 
 71 
 
 is passing slowly away from the German mind, a spirit foi 
 the more active and the more material literature is springing 
 up amongst them. The revolution of mind gathers on, pre- 
 ceding stormy events ; and the memories that led their 
 grandsires to contemplate, will urge the youth of the next 
 generation to dare and to act." * 
 
 Thus conversing, they continued their voyage, with a fait 
 wave and beneath a lucid sky. 
 
 The vessel now glided beside the Seven Mountains and 
 the Drachenfels. 
 
 The sun slowly setting cast his yellow beams over the 
 smooth waters. At the foot of the mountains lay a village' 
 deeply sequestered in shade ; and above, the Ruin of the Dra- 
 chenfels caught the richest beams of the sun. Yet thus alone, 
 though lofty, the ray cheered not the gloom that hung over 
 the giant rock ; it stood on high, like some great name on 
 which the light of glory may shine, but which it associated 
 with a certain melancholy, from the solitude to which its very 
 height above the level of the herd condemned its owner ! 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Legend of Roland. — The Adventures of Nymphalin on the Island 
 of Nonnewerth. — Her Song. — The decay of the Fairy-faith in England. 
 
 On the shore opposite the Dranchenfels stand the Ruins 
 of Rolandseck, — they are the shattered crown of a lofty, and 
 perpendicular mountain, consecrated to the memory of the 
 brave Roland ; below, the trees of an island to which the 
 lady of Roland retired rise thick and verdant from the smooth 
 tide. 
 
 Nothing can exceed the eloquent and wild grandeur of 
 the whole scene. That spot is the pride and beauty of the 
 Rhine. 
 
 The legend that consecrates the tower and the island is 
 briefly told ; it belongs to a class so common to the Romaunts 
 of Germany. Roland goes to the wars. A false report of 
 his death reaches his betrothed. She retires to the convent 
 in the isle of Nonnewerth, and takes the irrevocable veil 
 
 » Is not this prediction already fulfilled ? — 1849.
 
 72 
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 Roland returns home, flushed with glory and hope to find that 
 the very fidelity of his affianced had placed an eternal barrier 
 between them. He built the castle that bears his name, and 
 which overlooks the monastery, and dwelt there till his death : 
 happy in the power at least to gaze, even to the last, upon 
 those walls which held the treasure he had lost. 
 
 The willows droop in mournful luxuriance along the island, 
 and harmonize with the memory that, through the desert of a 
 thousand years, love still keeps green and fresh. Nor hath 
 it permitted even those additions of fiction which, like mosses, 
 gather by time over the truth that they adorn, yet adornino 
 conceal, to mar the simple tenderness of the legend. 
 
 All was still in the island of Nonnewerth ; the lights shone 
 through the trees from the house that contained our travellers. 
 On one smooth spot where the islet shelves into the Rhine, 
 met the wandering fairies. 
 
 " Oh, Pipalee ! how beautiful ! " cried Nymphalin, as she 
 stood enraptured by the wave ; a star-beam shining on her, 
 with her yellow hair " dancing its ringlets in the whistling 
 wind." " For the first time since our departure I do not miss 
 the green fields of England." 
 
 " Hist ! " said Pipalee under her breath ; " I hear fairy 
 steps — they must be the steps of strangers." 
 
 " Let us retreat into this thicket of weeds," said Nym- 
 phalin, somewhat alarmed ; " the good lord treasurer is al- 
 ready asleep there." They whisked into what to them was a 
 forest, for the reeds were two feet high, and there, sure 
 enough, they found the lord treasurer stretched beneath a 
 bulrush, with his pipe beside him : for since he had been in 
 Germany he had taken to smoking : and indeed wild thyme, 
 properly dried, makes very good tobacco for a fairy. They 
 also found Nip and Trip sitting very close together. Nip 
 playing with her hair, which was exceedingly beautiful. 
 
 " What do you do here ? " said Pipalee, shortly ; for she 
 was rather an old maid, and did not like fairies to be too 
 close to each other. 
 
 " Watching my lord's slumber," said Nip. 
 
 " Pshaw ! " said Pipalee. 
 
 " Nay," quoth Trip, blushing like a sea-shell ; " there is 
 no harm in that., I'm sure." 
 
 " Hush ! " said the queen, peeping through the reeds. 
 
 And now forth from the green bosom of the earth came a 
 tiny train ; slowly, two by two, hand in hand, they swept from 
 a small aperture, shadowed with fragrant herbs, and formed
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 73 
 
 themselves into a ring : then came other fairies, laden with 
 dainties, and presently two beautiful white mushroows sprang 
 up, on which their viands were placed, and lo, there was a 
 banquet ! Oh, how merry they were ! what gentle peals of 
 laughter, loud as a virgin's sigh ! what jests, what songs ! 
 Happy race ! if mortals could see you as often as I do, in 
 the soft nights of summer, they would never be at a loss for 
 entertainment. But as our English fairies looked on, they 
 saw that these foreign elves were of a different race from 
 themselves ; they were taller and less handsome, their hair 
 was darker, they wore mustaches, and had something of a 
 fiercer air. Poor Nymphalin was a little frightened ; but 
 presently soft music was heard floating along, something like 
 the sound we suddenly hear of a still night, when a light 
 breeze steals through rushes, or w^akes a ripple in some 
 shallow brook dancing over pebbles. And lo ! from the 
 aperture of the earth came forth a fay, superbly dressed, and 
 of a noble presence. The queen started back, Pipalee 
 rubbed her eyes. Trip looked over Pipalee's shoulder, and 
 Nip, pinching her arm, cried out amazed, " By the last new 
 star, that is Prince von Fayzenheim ! " 
 
 Poor Nymphalin gazed again, and her little heart beat 
 under her bees'-wing bodice as if it would break. The 
 prince had a melancholy air, and he sat apart from the ban- 
 quet, gazing abstractly on the Rhine. 
 
 " Ah ! " whispered Nymphalin to herself, " does he think 
 of me ? " 
 
 Presently the prince drew forth a little flute, hollowed 
 from a small reed, and began to play a mournful air, Nymph- 
 alin listened with delight ; it was one he had learned in her 
 dominions. 
 
 When the air was over, the prince rose, and, approaching 
 the banqueters, despatched them on different errands ; one 
 to visit the dwarf of the Drachenfels, another to look after 
 the grave of Musa^us, and a whole detachment to puzzle the 
 students of Heidelberg. A few launched themselves up- 
 on willow leaves on the Rhine, to cruise about in the star- 
 light, and another band set out a-hunting after the gray- 
 legged moth. The prince was left alone ; and now Nymph- 
 alin, seeing the coast clear, wrapped herself up in a cloak 
 made out of a withered leaf ; — and only letting her eyes glow 
 out from the hood, she glided from the reeds, and the prince, 
 turning round, saw a dark fairy figure by his side. He drew
 
 y4 THE riLGRIMS OF THE RIIINR. 
 
 back, a little startled, and placed his hand on his sword, when 
 Nymphalin circling round him, sang the following words : — 
 
 THE FAIRY'S REPROACH. 
 
 By the glowworm's lamp in the dewy brake ; 
 
 ]5y the gossamer's airy net ; 
 By the shifting skin of the faithless snake ; 
 Oh, teach me to forget : 
 For none, ah none, 
 Can teach so well that human spell 
 As Thou, false one ! 
 
 H. 
 
 By the fairy dance on the greensward smooth; 
 
 By the winds of the gentle west ; 
 By the loving stars, when their soft looks sooths 
 The waves on their mother's breast; 
 Teach me thy lore ! 
 By which, like withered flowers, 
 The lea\es of buried Hours 
 Blossom no more 
 
 III. 
 
 By the tent in the violet's bell; 
 
 By the may on the scented bough , 
 By the lone green isle where my sisters dwell ; 
 And thine own forgotten vow ; 
 Teach me to live. 
 Nor feed on thoughts that pine 
 For love so false as thine 1 
 Teach me thy lore. 
 And one thou lov'st no more 
 
 Will bless thee and forgive ! 
 
 " Surely," said Fayzenheim, faltering, " surely I know 
 that voice ! " 
 
 And Nymphalin's cloak' dropped off her shoulder. " My 
 English fairy ! " and Fayzenheim knelt beside her. 
 
 I wish you had seen the fay kneel, for you Avould have 
 sworn it was so like a human lo\'er, that you would never 
 have sneered at love afterwards. Love is so fair}-like a part 
 of us, that even a fairy cannot make it differently from us 
 — that is to say, when we love truly. 
 
 There was great joy in the island that night among the 
 elves. They conducted Nymphalin to their palace within
 
 THE riLGRIMS OF THE KFTINE. 75 
 
 the earth, and feasted her sumptuously ; and Nip told then 
 adventures with so much spirit, that he enchanted the merry 
 foreigners. Ikit Fayzenheim talked apart to Nymphalin, and 
 told her how he was lord of that island, and how he had been 
 obliged to return to his dominions by the law of his tribe, 
 which allowed him to be absent only a certain time in every 
 year ; " But, my queen, I always intended to revisit thee next 
 spring." 
 
 " Thou needest not have left us so abruptly," said Nym- 
 phalin, blushing. 
 
 "But do i/iou never leave me!" said the ardent fair}-; 
 " be mine, and let our nuptials be celebrated on these shores. 
 Wouldst thou sigh for thy green island 1 No ! for t/tere the 
 fairy altars are deserted, the faith is gone from the land ; thou 
 art among Che last of an unhonored and expiring race. Thy 
 mortal poets are dumb, and Fancy, which was thy priestess, 
 sleeps hushed in her last repose. New and hard creeds have 
 succeeded to the fairy lore. Who steals through the starlit 
 boughs on the nights of June to watch the roundels of thy 
 tribe ? The wheels of commerce, the din of trade, have 
 silenced to mortal ear the music of thy subjects' harps 1 And 
 the noisy habitations of men, harsher than their dreaming 
 sires, are gathering round the dell and vale where thy co- 
 mates linger ; — a few years, and where will be the green soli- 
 tudes of England ? " 
 
 The queen sighed, and the prince, perceiving that he was 
 listened to, continued : — 
 
 " Who, in thy native shores, among the children of men, 
 now claim the fairy's care ? What cradle wouldst thou 
 tend "i On what maid wouldst thou shower thy rosy gifts ? 
 What bard wouldst thou haunt in his dreams ? Poesy is fled 
 the island, why shouldst thou linger behind ? Time hath 
 brought dull customs, that laugh at thy gentle being. Puck 
 is buried in the harebell ; he has left no offspring, and none 
 mourn for his loss ; for night, which is the fairy season, is 
 busy and garish as the day. What hearth is desolate after 
 the curfew ? What house bathed in stillness at the hour in 
 which thy revels commence ? Thine empire among men has 
 passed from thee, and thy race are vanishing from the 
 crowded soil. For, despite our diviner nature, our existence 
 is linked with man's. Their neglect is our disease, their for- 
 getfulness our death. Leave, then, those dull, yet troubled 
 scenes, that are closing round the fairy rings of thy native 
 isle. These, mountains, this herbage, these gliding waves
 
 76 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 these mouldering ruins, these starred rivulets, be they, O 
 beautiful fairy, thy new domain. Yet in these lands our wor 
 ship lingers ; still can we fill the thought of the young bard, 
 and mingle with his yearnings after the Beautiful, the Un- 
 seen, Hither come the pilgrims of the world, anxious only 
 to gather from these scenes the legends of Us ; ages will pass 
 away ere the Rhine shall be desecrated of our haunting 
 presence. Come, then, my queen, let this palace be thine 
 own, and the moon that glances over the shattered towers of 
 the Dragon Rock witness our nuptials and our vows ! " 
 
 In such words the fairy prince courted the young queen, 
 and while she sighed at their truth, she yielded to their 
 charm. Oh ! still may there be one spot on the earth where 
 the fairy feet may press the legendary soil — still be there one 
 land where the faith of the Bright Invisible hallows and in- 
 spires ! Still glide thou, O majestic and solemn Rhine, 
 among shades and valleys, from which the wisdom of belief 
 can call the creations of the younger world ! 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Wherein the reader is made spectator, with the English Fairies, of the 
 Scenes and Beings that are beneath the Earth. 
 
 During the heat of next day's noon, Fayzenheim took the 
 English visitors through the cool caverns that wind amidst 
 the mountains of the Rhine. There a thousand wonders 
 awaited the eyes of the fairy queen. I speak not of the 
 Gothic arch and aisle into which the hollow earth forms it- 
 self, or the stream that rushes with a mighty voice through 
 the dark chasm, or the silver columns that shoot aloft, 
 worked by the gnomes from the mines of the mountains of 
 Taunus ; but of the strange inhabitants that from time to 
 time they came upon. They found in one solitary cell, lined 
 with dry moss, two misshapen elves, of a larger size than 
 common, with a plebeian working-day aspect, who were chat- 
 ting noisily together, and making a pair of boots : these were 
 the Hausmannen or domestic elves, that dance into trades- 
 men's houses of a night, and play all sorts of undignified 
 tricks. They were very civil to the queen, for they are good-
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE PHINE. j-j 
 
 natured creatures on the whole, and once had many relations 
 in Scotland. I'hey then, followhig the course of a noisy 
 rivulet, came to a hole, from which the sharp head of a fox 
 peeped out. The queen was frightened, " Oh, come on," 
 said the fox, encouragingly, " I am one of the fairy race, and 
 many are the gambols we of the brute-elves play in the Ger- 
 man world of romance." " Indeed, Mr, Fox," said the 
 piince, " you only speak the truth ; and how is Mr. Bruin ? " 
 " Quite well, my prince, but tired of his seclusion ; for in- 
 deed our race can do little or nothing now in the world, and 
 lie here, in our old age, telling stories of the past, and re- 
 calling the exploits we did in our youth, which, madam, you 
 may see in all the fairy histories in the prince's library." 
 
 " Your own love adventures, for instance, Master Fox," 
 said the prince. 
 
 The fox snarled angrily, and drew in his head. 
 
 " You have displeased your friend," said Nymphalin, 
 
 " Yes — he likes no allusions to the amorous follies of his 
 youth. Did you ever hear of his rivalry with the dog for the 
 
 cat's good graces .-" " 
 
 " No — that must be very amusing." 
 
 " Well, my queen, when we rest by and by, I will relate 
 to you the history of the fox's wooing." 
 
 The next place they came to was a vast Runic cavern, 
 covered with dark inscriptions of a forgotten tongue ; and, 
 sitting on a huge stone, they found a chvarf with long yellow 
 hair, his head leaning on his breast, and absorbed in medita- 
 tion. 
 
 " This is a spirit of a wise and powerful race," whispered 
 Fayzenheim, " that has often battled with the fairies ; but he 
 is of the kindly tribe." 
 
 Then the dwarf lifted his head with a mournful air, and 
 gazed upon the bright shapes before him, lighted by the pine- 
 torches that the prince's attendants carried. 
 
 " And what dost thou muse upon ? O descendant of the 
 race of Laurin ! " said the prince. 
 
 " Upon Time," answered the dwarf, gloomily, " I see a 
 River, and its waves are black, flowing from the clouds, and 
 none knoweth its source. It rolls deeply on, aye and ever- 
 more, through a green valley, which it slowly swallows up, 
 washing away tower and town, and vanquishing all things; 
 and the name of the River is Time," 
 
 Then the dwarf's head sank on his bosom, and he spoke 
 no more.
 
 ^8 'J IJE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 The fairies proceeded : — " Above us," said the prince, 
 " rises one of the loftiest mountains of the Rhine ; for 
 mountains are the dwarf's home. When the Great Spirit 
 of all made earth, he saw that the hollows of the rocks and 
 hills were tenantless, and yet that a mighty kingdom and 
 great palaces were hid within them ; a dread an-d dark soli- 
 tude ; "but lighted at times from the starry eyes of many 
 jewels ; and there was the treasure of the human world— 
 gold and silver — and great heaps of gems, and a soil of 
 metals. So God made a race for this vast empire, and 
 gifted them with the power of thought and the soul of ex- 
 ceeding wisdom ; so that they want not the merriment and 
 enterprise of the outer world : but musing in these^ dark 
 caves is their delight. Their existence rolls away in the 
 luxury of thought ; only from time to time they appear in the 
 world, and betoken woe or weal to men ; according to their 
 nature — for they are divided into two tribes, the benevolent 
 and the wrathful." While the prince spoke, they saw glar- 
 ing upon them, from a ledge in the upper rock, a grisly face 
 with a long matted beard. The prince gathered himself up, 
 and frowned at the evil dwarf, for such it was ; but with a 
 wild laugh the face abruptly disappeared, and the echo of 
 the laugh rang with a ghastly sound through the long hol- 
 lows of the earth. 
 
 The queen clung to Fayzenheim's arm. Fear not, my 
 queen," said he ; " the evil race have no power over our light 
 and aerial nature ; with men only they war ; and he whom 
 we have seen was, in the old ages of the world, one of the 
 deadliest visitors to mankind." 
 
 But now they came winding by a passage to a beautiful re- 
 cess in the mountain empire ; it was of a circular shape of 
 amazing height ; in the midst of it played a natural fountain 
 of sparkling waters, and around it were columns of massive 
 granite, rising in countless vistas, till lost in the distant shade. 
 Jewels were scattered round, and brightly played the fairy 
 torches on the gem, the fountain, and the pale silver, that 
 gleamed at frequent intervals from the rocks. " Here let us 
 rest," said the gallant fairy, clapping his hands—" what, ho ! 
 music and the feast ! " 
 
 So the feast was spread by the fountain's side ; and tlifi 
 
 courtiers scattered rose-leaves', which they had brought with 
 
 - them, for the prince and his \-isitor ; and amidst the dark 
 
 kingdom of the dwarfs broke the delicate sound of fairy lutes. 
 
 " We have not those evil beings in England," said the auecn.
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 'j^ 
 
 as low as she could speak ; " they rouse my fear, but my in- 
 terest also. Tell me, clear prince, ot what nature was the in- 
 tercourse of the evil dwarf with man ? " 
 
 " You know," answered the prince, " that to every species 
 of living thing there is something in common ; the vast chain 
 of sympathy runs through all creation. By that which they 
 have in common with the beast of the field or the bird of 
 the air, men govern the inferior tribes ; they appeal to the 
 common passions of fear and emulation when they tame the 
 wild steed ; to the common desire of greed and gain when 
 they snare the fishes of the stream, or allure the wolves to 
 the pitfall by the bleating of the lamb. In their turn, in the 
 older ages of the world, it was by the passions which men 
 had in common with the demon race, that the fiends com 
 manded or allured them. The dwarf whom you saw, being 
 of that race which is characterized by the ambition of 
 power and the desire of hoarding, appealed then in liis 
 intercourse with men to the same characteristics in their 
 own bosoms ; to ambition or to avarice. And thus were his 
 victims made ! But, not now, dearest Nymphalin," continued 
 the prince, with a more lively air — " not now will we speak of 
 those gloomy beings. Ho, there ! cease the music, and come 
 hither all of ye — to listen to a faithful and homely history of 
 the Dog, the Cat, the Griffin, and the Fox." 
 
 CHAPTER XH. 
 
 The Wooincr of Master Fox.* 
 
 You are aware, my dear Nymphalin, that in the time of 
 which I am about to speak there was no particular enmity 
 between the various species of brutes ; the dog and the hare 
 
 * In the excursions of the fairies, it is the object of the author to 
 bring before the rea-tier a rapid phantasmagoria of the various beings 
 that belong to the German superstitions, so that the work may tlius de- 
 scril^e the outer and the inner world of the land of the Rhine. The tale 
 of the Fox's Wooing has been composed to give the English reader an 
 idea of a species of novel not naturalized amongst us, though frequent 
 among the legends of our Irish neighbors ; in which the brutes are the 
 only characters drawn — drawn too, with shades of distinction as nice 
 and subtle as if they were the creatures of a civilized world.
 
 So THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 chatted very agreeably together, and all the world knows that 
 the wolf, unacquainted with mutton, had a particular affection 
 for the lamb. In these happy days, two most respectable 
 cats, of very old family, had an only daughter ; never wa? 
 kitten more amiable or more seducing ; as she grew up she 
 manifested so many charms, that in a little while she became 
 noted as the greatest beauty in the neighborhood ; need I tc 
 you, dearest Nymphalin, describe her perfections ? Suffice 
 it to say that her skin was of the most delicate tortoiseshell, 
 that her paws were smoother than velvet, that her whiskers 
 were twelve inches long at the least, and that her eyes had 
 a gentleness altogether astonishing in a cat. But if the young 
 beauty had suitors in plenty during the lives of monsieur and 
 madame, you may suppose the number was not diminished 
 when, at the age of two years and a half she was left an or- 
 phan, and sole heiress to all the hereditary property. In 
 fine, she was the richest marriage in the whole country. With- 
 out troubling you, dearest queen, with the adventures of the 
 rest of her lovers ; with their suit, and their rejection, I come 
 at once to the two rivals most sanguine of success — the dog 
 and the fox. 
 
 Now the dog was a handsome, honest, straightforward, af- 
 fectionate fellow. " For my part," said he, " I don't wonder 
 at my cousin's refusing Bruin the bear, and Gauntgrim the 
 wolf: to be sure they give themselves great airs, and call 
 themselves ' noble,'' but what then .'' Bruin is always in the 
 sulks, and Gauntgrim always in a passion ; a cat of any sen- 
 sibility would lead a miserable life with them : as for me, I 
 am very good-tempered when I'm not put out ; and I have 
 no fault except that of being angry if disturbed at my meals. 
 I am young and good looking, fond of play and amusement, 
 and altogether as agreeable a husband as a cat could find in a 
 summer's day. If she marries me, well and good ; she may 
 have her property settled on herself : — if not, I shall bear her 
 no malice ; and I hope I shan't be too much in love to forget 
 that there are other cats in the world." 
 
 With that the dog threw his tail over his back, and set 
 off to his mistress with a gay face on the matter. 
 
 Now the fox heard the dog talking thus to himself — for 
 the fox was always peeping about in holes and corners, and 
 he burst out a-laughing when the dog was oiit of sight. 
 
 " Ho, ho, my fine fellow! " said he ; "not so fast, if you 
 please : you've got the fox for a rival, let me tell you." 
 
 The fox, as you very well know, is a beast that can never
 
 THE riLGRIAIS OF THE RHINE. 8 1 
 
 do anything without a mancEuvre ; and as, from his cunning, 
 he was generally very lucky in anything he undertook, he did 
 not doubt for a moment that he should put the dog's nose out 
 of joint. Reynard was aware that in love one should always, 
 if possible, be the first in the field, and he therefore resolved 
 to get the start of the dog and arrive before him at the cat's 
 residence. But this was no easy matter ; for though Rey- 
 nard could run faster than the dog for a little way, he was no 
 match for him in a journey of some distance. "However," 
 said Reynard, " those good-natured creatures are never very 
 wise ; and I think I know already what will make him bait 
 on his way." 
 
 With that the fox trotted pretty fast by a short cut in the 
 woods, and getting before the dog, laid himself down by a 
 holf^ in the earth, and began to howl most piteously. 
 
 The dog, hearing the noise, was very much alarmed ; 
 " See now," said he, " if the poor fox has not got himself into 
 some scrape ! Those cunning creatures are always in mis- 
 chief ; thank Heaven, it never comes into my head to be 
 cunning !" And the good-natured animal ran off as hard as 
 he could to see what was the matter with the fox. 
 
 " Oh dear ! " cried Reynard ; " what shall I do, what 
 shall 1 do ! my poor little sister has fallen into this hole, and 
 I can't get her out — she'll certainly be smothered." And 
 the fox burst out a-howling more piteously than before. 
 
 " But, my dear Reynard," quoth the dog, very simply ; 
 " why don't you go in after your sister ? " 
 
 " Ah, you may well ask that," said the fox ; " but, in try- 
 ing to get in, don't you perceive that I have sprained my 
 back, and can't stir } Oh dear ! what shall I do if my poor 
 little sister is smothered ! " 
 
 "Pray don't vex yourself," said the dog; "I'll get her 
 out in an instant ; " and with that he forced himself with 
 great difficulty into the hole. 
 
 Now, no sooner did the fox see that the dog was fairly in, 
 than he rolled a great stone to the mouth of the hole, and 
 fitted it so tight, that the dog, not being able to turn round 
 and scratch against it with his fore-paws, was made a close 
 prisoner. 
 
 " Ha, ha ! " cried Reyrard, laughing outside ; " amuse 
 yourself with my poor little sister, while I go and make your 
 compliments to Mademoiselle the Cat." 
 
 Witli that Reynard set off at an easy pace, never troub- 
 ling his head what became of the poor dog. When he ar-
 
 82 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 rived in the neighborhood of the beautiful cat's mansion, he 
 resolved to pay a visit to a friend of liis, an old magpie that 
 lived in a tree, and was well acquainted with all the news of 
 the place. " For," thought Reynard, " I may as well know 
 the blind side of my mistress that is to be, and get round it 
 at once." 
 
 The magpie received the fox with great cordiality, and in- 
 quired fv'hat brought him so great a distance from home, 
 
 " T.pon my v>ord," said the fox, " nothing so much as the 
 pleasure of seeing your ladyship, and hearing those agreea- 
 ble anecdotes you tell with so charming a grace : but, to let 
 you into a secret — be sure it don't go farther " 
 
 " On the word of a magpie," interrupted the bird. 
 
 " Pardon me for doubting you," continued the fox ; " I 
 should have recollected that a pie was a proverb for discre- 
 tion. But, as I was saying, you know her majesty, the 
 lioness .-' " 
 
 " Surely," said the magpie, bridling. 
 
 "Well ; she was pleased to fall in— that is to say — to — 
 to— take a caprice to your humble servant, and the lion grew 
 so jealous that I thought it prudent to decamp. A jealous 
 lion is no joke, let me assure your ladyship. But mum's the 
 word." 
 
 So great a piece of news delighted the magpie. She 
 could not but repay it in kind, by all the news in her budget. 
 She told the fox all the scandal about Bruin and Gauntgrim, 
 and she then fell to work on the poor young cat. She did 
 not spare her foibles, you may be quite sure. The fox lis- 
 tened with great attention, and he learned enough to con- 
 vince him that, however much the magpie might exaggerate, 
 the cat was very susceptible to flattery, and had a great deal 
 of imagination. 
 
 When the magpie had finished, she said, " But it must be 
 <&xy unfortunate for you to be banished from so magnificent 
 a court as that of the lion ! " 
 
 " As to that," answered the fox, " I consoled myself foi 
 my exile with a present his majesty made me on parting, as a 
 reward for my anxiety for his honor and domestic tranquillity ; 
 namely, three hairs from the fifth leg of the amoronthologos- 
 phorus. Only think of that, ma'am ! " 
 
 " The what ? " cried the pie, cocking down her left ear. 
 
 " The amorontbologosphorus." 
 
 " La ! " said the magpie ; " and what is that ver}' long 
 word, my dear Reynard ? "
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE R II I. YE. 83 
 
 " The amoronthologosphorus is a beast that lives on the 
 other side of the river Cylinx ; it has five legs, and on the 
 fifth leg there are three hairs, and whoever has those three 
 hairs can be young and beautiful forever." 
 
 " Bless me ! I wish you would let me see them," said the 
 pie, holding out her paw. 
 
 " Would that I could oblige )ou ma'am ; but it's as much 
 as my life's worth to show them to any but the lady I marry. 
 In fact, they only have an effect on the fair sex, as you may 
 see by myself, whose poor person they utterly fail to improve : 
 they are, therefore, intended for a marriage-present, and his 
 majesty tlT£ lion thus generously atoned to me for relinquish- 
 ing the tenderness of his queen. One must confess that there 
 was a great deal of delicacy in the gift. But you'll be sure 
 not to mention it." 
 
 " A magpie gossip, indeed ! " quoth the old blab. 
 
 The fox then wished the magpie good night, and retired 
 to a hole to sleep off the fatigues of the day, before he pre- 
 sented himself to the beautiful young cat. 
 
 The next morning, Heaven knows how ! it was all over 
 the place that Reynard the fox had been banished from court 
 for the favor shown him by her majesty, and that the lion 
 had bribed his departure with three hairs that would make 
 any lady whom the fox married young and beautiful for ever. 
 
 The cat was the first to learn the news, and she became 
 all curiosity to see so interesting a stranger, possessed of 
 " qualifications " which, in the language of the day, " would 
 render any animal happy ! " She was not long without ob- 
 taining her wish. As she was taking a walk in the wood, the 
 fox contrived to encounter her. You may be sure that he 
 made her his best bow ; and he flattered the poor cat with 
 so courtly an air that she saw nothing surprising in the love 
 of the lioness. 
 
 Meanwhile, let us see what became of his rival, the dog. 
 
 " Ah, the poor creature ! said Nymphalin ; " it is easy 
 to guess that he need not be buried alive to lose all chance of 
 marr}-ing the heiress." 
 
 " Wait till the end," answered Fayzenheim. When the 
 dog found that he was thus entrapped, he gave himself up for 
 lost. In vain he kicked with his hind le^s against the stone 
 — he only succeeded in bruising his paws ; and at length he 
 was forced to lie down with his tongue out of his mouth, and 
 quite exhausted. " However," said he, after he had taken 
 breath, " it won't do to be starved here, without doing my
 
 84 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 best to escape ; and if I can't get out one way, let me see ii 
 there is not a hole at the other end." Thus saying, his cour- 
 age, which stood him in Heu of cunning, returned, and he 
 proceeded on in the same straightforward way in which he 
 always conducted himself. At tirst the path was exceedingly 
 narrow, and he hurt his sides very much against the rough 
 stones that projected from the earth. But by degrees the 
 way became broader, and he now went on with considerable 
 ease to himself, till he arrived in a large cavern, where he saw 
 an immense griffin sitting on his tail, and smoking a huge 
 pipe. 
 
 The clog was by no means pleased at meeting so suddenly 
 a creature that had only to open his mouth to swallow him up 
 at a morsel ; however, he put a bold face on the danger, and 
 walking respectfully up to the grffin, said, " Sir, I should be 
 very much obliged to you if you would inform me the way out 
 of these holes into the upper world." 
 
 The griffin took the pipe out of his mouth, and looked at 
 the dog very sternly, 
 
 " Ho, wretch ! " said he, " how camest thou hither ? I 
 suppose thou wantest to steal my treasure : but I know how 
 to treat such vagabonds as you, and I shall certainly eat you 
 up." 
 
 " You can do that if you choose," said the dog ; " but it 
 would be very unhandsome conduct in an animal so much 
 bigger than myself. For my own part, I never attack any 
 dog that is not of equal size ; I should be ashamed of myself 
 if I did. And as to your treasure, the character T bear for 
 honesty is too well known to merit such a suspicion. 
 
 " Upon my word," said the griffin, who could not help 
 smiling for the life of him, "you have a singularly free mode 
 of expressing yourself ; — and how, I say, came you hither ? " 
 
 Then the dog, who did not know what a lie was, told the 
 griffin his whole history, — how he had set off to pay his court 
 to the cat, and how Reynard the fox had entrapped him into 
 the hole. 
 
 When he had finished, the griffin said to him, " I see, my 
 triend, that you know how to speak the truth ; I am in want 
 of just such a servant as you will make me, therefore stay with 
 me and keep watch over my treasure when I sleep." 
 
 " Two words to that," said the dog. 
 
 " You have hurt my feelings very much by suspecting my 
 honesty, and I would much sooner go back into the wood and 
 be avenged on that scoundrel the fox, than serve a master
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 8q 
 
 who has so ill an opinion of me. I pray you, therefore, to 
 dismiss me, and to put me in the right way to my cousin the 
 cat." 
 
 " I am not a griffin of many words," answered the master 
 of the cavern, " and I give you your clioice — be my servant, 
 or be my breakfast ; it is just the same to me, I give you 
 time to decide till I have smoked out my pipe." 
 
 The poor dog did not take so long to consider. " It is true," 
 thought he, " that it is a great misfortune to live in a cave 
 with a griffin of so unpleasant a countenance ; but, probably, 
 if I serve him well and faithfully, he'll take pity on me some 
 day, and let me go back to eartli, and prove to my cousin 
 what a rogue the fox is ; and as to the rest, though I would 
 sell my life as dear as I could, it is impossible to fight a griffin 
 with a mouth of so monstrous a size," — In short, he decided 
 to stay with the griffin. 
 
 " Shake a paw on it." quoth the grim smoker; and the 
 dog shook paws. 
 
 " And now," said the griffin, " I will tell you what you 
 are to do — look here ; " ancl moving his tail, he showed the 
 dog a great heap of gold and silver, in a hole in the ground, 
 that he had covered with the folds of his tail ; and also, what 
 the dog thought more valuable, a great heap of bones of very 
 tempting appearance. 
 
 " Now," said the griffin, " during the day, I can take very 
 good care of these myself ; but at night it is very necessary 
 that I should go to sleep ; so when I sleep, you must watch 
 over them instead of me." 
 
 •'Very well," satd the dog. "As to the gold and silver, 
 I have no objection ; but I would much rather that you would 
 lock up the bones, for I'm often hungry of a night, and " 
 
 " Hold your tongue," said the griffin. 
 
 *' But, sir," said the dog, after a short silence, " surely no- 
 body ever comes into so retired a situation ! Who are the 
 thieves, if I may make bold to ask ? " 
 
 " Know," answered the griffin, " that there are a great 
 many serpents in this neighborhood ; they are always trying 
 to steal my treasure ; and if they catch me napping, they, not 
 contented with theft, would do their best to sting me to death. 
 So that I am almost worn out for want of sleep." 
 
 " Ah ! " quoth the dog, who was fond of a good night's rest, 
 " I don't envy you your treasure, sir." 
 
 At night, the griffin, who had a great deal of penetra- 
 tion, and saw that he might depend on the dog, lay down to
 
 86 THE PILGRIMS OP THE RHINE. 
 
 sleep in another corner of the cave ; and the dog, shaking 
 himself well, so as to be quite awake, took watch over the 
 treasure. His mouth watered exceedingly at the bones, and 
 he could not help smelling them now and then ; but he said 
 to himself, — " a bargain's a bargain, and since I have prom- 
 ised to serve the gritiin, I must serve him as an honest dog 
 ought to serve." 
 
 In the middle of the night he saw a great snake creeping 
 in by the side of the cave, but the dog set up so loud a bark 
 that the grifhn awoke, and the snake crept away as fast as he 
 could. Then the griffin was very much pleased, and he gave 
 the dog one of the bones to amuse himself with ; and every 
 night the dog watched the treasure, and acquitted himself so 
 well, that not a snake, at last, dared to make its appearance ; 
 — so the griffin enjoyed an excellent night's rest. 
 
 The dog now found himself much more comfortable than 
 he expected. The griffin regularly gave him one of the bones 
 for supper ; and, pleased with his fidelity, made himself as 
 agreeable a master as a griffin could be. Still, however, the 
 dog was secretly very anxious to return to earth ; for having 
 nothing to do during the day but to doze on the ground, he 
 dreamed perpetually of his cousin the cat's charms ; and, in 
 fancy, he gave the rascal Reynard as hearty a worry as a fox 
 may well have the honor of receiving from a dog's paws. He 
 awoke panting — alas ! he could not realize his dreams. 
 
 One night as he was watching as usual over the treasure, 
 he was greatly surprised to see a beautiful little black and 
 white dog enter the cave ; and it came fawning to our honest 
 friend, wagging its tail with pleasure. 
 
 " Ah ! little one," said our dog, whom, to distinguish, I 
 will call the watch-dog, " you had better make the best of 
 your way back again. See, there is a great griffin asleep in 
 the other corner of the cave, and if he wakes, he will either 
 eat you up or make you his servant, as he has made me." 
 
 " I know what you would tell me," says the little dog ; 
 " and I have come down here to deliver you. The stone is 
 now gone from the mouth of the cave, and you have nothing 
 to do but to go back with me. Come, brother come." 
 
 The dog was very much excited by this address. " Don't 
 ask me, my dear little friend," said he ; " you must be aware 
 that I should be too happy to escape out of this cold cave, 
 and roll on the soft turf once more : but if I leave my master, 
 the griffin, those cursed serpents, who are always on the 
 watch, will come in and steal his treasure — nay, perhaps.
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 87 
 
 Sting him to death." Then the little dog came up to the 
 waich-dog, and remonstrated with him greatly, and licked 
 him caressingly on both sides of his face; and, taking him 
 by the ear endeav^ored to draw him from the treasure : but 
 the dog would not stir a stej^, though his heart sorely pressed 
 him. At length the little dog, findin'^ it all in vain, said, 
 *' Well then, if I must leave, good-by ; but I have become so 
 hungry in coming down all this way after you, that I wish you 
 would give me one of those bones i they smell very pleasant- 
 ly, and one out of so many could never be missed." 
 
 " Alas!" said the watch-dog, with tears in his eyes, "how 
 unlucky I am to have eaten up the bone my master gave me, 
 otherwise you should have had it and welcome. But I can't 
 give you one of these, because my master has made me prom- 
 ise to watch over them all, and I have given him my paw on 
 it. I am sure a dog of your respectable appearance will say 
 nothing further on the subject." 
 
 Then the little dog answered pettishly, " Pooh, what non- 
 sense you talk ! Surely a great griffin can't miss a little bone 
 fit for me ; " and nestling his nose under the watch-dog, he 
 tried forthwith to bring up one of the bones. 
 
 On this the watch-dog grew angry, and, though with much 
 reluctance, he seized the Tttle dog by the nape of the 
 neck ard threw him off, but without hurting him. Suddenly 
 the little dog changed into a monstrous serpent, bigger even 
 than the griffin himself, and the watch-dog barked with all 
 his might. The griffin rose in a great hurry, and the serpent 
 s|jrang upon him ere he was well awake. I wish dearest 
 N\mphalin, you could have seen the battle between the 
 griffin and the serpent, how they coiled and twisted, and bit 
 and darted their fiery tongues at each other. At length, the 
 ser])ent got uppermost, and was about to plunge his tongue 
 iiuo that part of the griffin which is unprotected by his scales, 
 wJ^.en the dog, seizing him by the tail, bit him so sharply, that 
 lie could not help turning round to kill his new assailant, and 
 the griffin, taking advantage of the opportunity, caught the 
 serpent by the throat with both claws, and fairly strangled 
 him. As soon as the griffin had recovered from the ner- 
 vousness of the conflict, he heaped all manner of caresses 
 on the dog for saving his life. The dog told him the whole 
 story, and the griffin then explained, that the dead snake was 
 the king of the serpents, who had the power to change him- 
 self into any shape he pleased. " If he had tempted you," 
 said he, " to leave the treasure but for one moment, or to
 
 88 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 have given him any part of it, ay, but a single bone, he would 
 have crushed you in an instant, and stung me to death ere I 
 could hav^e waited ; but none, no not the most venomous 
 thing in creation, has power to hurt the honest ! " 
 
 " That has always been my belief," answered the dog ; 
 " and now, sir, you had better go to sleep again, and leave 
 the rest to me." 
 
 " Nay," answered the griffin, " I have no longer need of 
 a servant ; for now that the king of the serpents is dead, the 
 rest will never molest me. It was only to satisfy his avarice 
 that his subjects dared to brave the den of the griffin." 
 
 Upon hearing this, the dog was exceedingly delighted ; 
 and raising himself on his hind paws, he begged the griffin 
 most movingly to let him return to earth, to visit his mis- 
 tress the cat, and worry his rival the fox. 
 
 " You do not serve an ungrateful master," answered the 
 griffin. " You shall return, and I will teach you all the craft 
 of our race, which is much craftier than the race of that pet 
 tifogger the fox, so that you may be able to cope with your 
 rival." 
 
 " Ah, excuse me," said the dog, hastily, " I am equally 
 obliged to you : but 1 fancy honesty is a match for cunning 
 any day ; and I think myself a great deal safer in being a 
 dog of honor than if I knew all the tricks in the world." 
 
 " Well," said the griffin, a little piqued at the dog's blunt- 
 ness, " do as you please : I wish you all possible success." 
 
 Then the griffin opened a secret door in the side of the 
 cavern, and the dog saw a broad path that led at once into 
 the wood. He thanked the griffin with all his heart, and ran 
 wagging his tail into the open moonlight. "Ah, ah! master 
 fox," said he, " there's no trap for an honest dog that has not 
 two doors to it, cunning as you think yourself." 
 
 With that he curled his tail gallantly over his left leg, and 
 set off on a long trot to the cat's house. When he was within 
 sight of it, he stopped to refresh himself by a pool of water, 
 and who should be there but our friend the magpie. 
 
 " And what do you want, friend .'' " said she, rather dis- 
 dainfully, for the dog looked somewhat out of case after his 
 journe3^ 
 
 •' I am going to see my cousin the cat," answered he. 
 
 " Your cousin ! marry come up," said the magpie ; " don't 
 you know she is going to be married to Reynard the fox ? 
 This is not a time for her to receive the visits of a brute like 
 you."
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 89 
 
 These words put the clog in such a passion, that he very 
 nearly bit the magpie for her uncivil mode of communicating 
 such bad news. However, he curbed his temper, and, with- 
 out answering her, went at once to the cat's residence. 
 
 The cat was sitting at the window, and no sooner did the 
 dog see her than he fairly lost his heart ; never had he seen 
 so charming a cat before : he advanced, wagging his tail, 
 and with his most insinuating air ; when the cat, getting up, 
 clapped the window in his face — and lo ! Reynard the fox- 
 appeared in her stead. 
 
 " Come out, thou rascal ! " said the dog, showing his 
 teeth : " come out, I challenge thee to single combat ; I have 
 not forgiven thy malice, and thou seest that I am no longer 
 shut up in the cave, and unable to punish thee for thy wick 
 edness." 
 
 " Go home, silly one ! " answered the fox. sneering ; " thou 
 hast no business here, and as for fighting thee — bah ! " Then 
 the fox left the window, and disappeared. But the dog, 
 thoroughly enraged, scratched lustily at the door, and made 
 such a noise, that presently the cat herself came to the 
 window. 
 
 " How now ! " said she, angrily ; " what means all this 
 rudeness ? Who are you, and what do you want at my 
 house .'' " 
 
 " O, my dear cousin," said the dog, " do not speak so 
 severely. Know that I am come here on purpose to pay you 
 a visit ; and, whatever you do, let me beseech you not to listen 
 to that villain Reynard — you have no conception what a 
 rogue he is ! " 
 
 " What ! " said the cat, blushing ; " do you dare to abuse 
 your betters in this fashion ? I see you have a design on 
 me. Go, this instant, or " 
 
 " Enough, madam," said the dog, proudly ; " you need 
 not speak twice to me — farewell." 
 
 And he turned away ver}- slowl}^, and went under a tree, 
 where he took up his lodgings for the night. But the next 
 morning there was an amazing commotion in the neighbor- 
 hood ; a stranger, of a very different style of travelling from 
 that of the dog, had arrived at the dead of night, and fixed 
 his abode in a large cavern, hollowed out of a steep rock. 
 The noise he had made in flying through the air was so great, 
 that it had awakened every bird and beast in the parish ; and 
 Reynard, whose bad conscience never suffered him to sleep 
 very soundly, putting his head out of the window, perceived,
 
 90 
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 to his great alarm, that the stranger was nothing less than a 
 monstrous griffin. 
 
 Now the griffins are the richest beasts in the world ; and 
 that's the reason they keep so close under ground. When- 
 ever it does happen that they pay a visit above, it is not a 
 thing to be easily forgotten. 
 
 The magpie was all agitation — what could the griffin pos- 
 sibly want there ? She resolved to take a peep at the cavern, 
 and accordingly, she hopped timorously up the rock, and pre- 
 tended to be picking up sticks for her nest. 
 
 " Holla, ma'am ! " cried a very rough voice, and she saw 
 the griffin putting his head out of the cavern. " Holla ! you 
 are the very lady I want to see ; you know all the people 
 about here — eh ? " 
 
 " All the best company, your lordship, I certainly do," 
 answered the magpie, dropping a courtesy. 
 
 Upon this the griffin walked out ; and smoking his pipe 
 leisurely in the open air, in order to set the pie at her ease, 
 continued — 
 
 " Are there any respectable beasts of good families settled 
 in this neighborhood ? " 
 
 " O, most elegant society, I assure your lordship," cried 
 the pie. " I have lived here myself these ten years, and the 
 great heiress, the cat yonder, attracts a vast number of 
 strangers." 
 
 " Humph — heiress, indeed ! much you know about heir- 
 esses ! " said the griffin. " There is only one heiress in the 
 world and that is my daughter." 
 
 " Bless me ! has your lordship a family } I beg you a 
 thousand pardons. But I only saw your lordship's own 
 equipage last night, and did not know you brought any one 
 with you." 
 
 " My daughter went first, and was safely lodged before I 
 arrived. She did not disturb you, I daresay, as I did ; foi 
 she sails along like a swan : but I have the gout in my left 
 claw, and that's the reason I puff and groan so in taking a 
 journey." 
 
 " Shall I drop in upon Miss Griffin, and see how she is 
 after her journey .'' " said the pie, advancing. 
 
 " I thank you, no. I don't intend her to be seen while I 
 stay here — it unsettles her ; and I'm afraid of the young 
 beasts running away with her if they once heard how hand- 
 some she was : she is the living picture of me, but she is 
 monstrous giddy ! Not that I should care much if she did
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. gi 
 
 go off with a beast of degree, were I not obliged to pay hei 
 portion, which is prodigious ; and I don't hke parting with 
 money, ma'am, when I've once got it. Ho, ho, ho ! " 
 
 " You are too witty, my lord. But if you refused your 
 consent ?" said the pie, anxious to know the whole family 
 history of so grand a seigneur. 
 
 " I should have to pay the dowry all the same. It was 
 left her by her uncle the dragon. But don't let this go any 
 farther." 
 
 " Your lordship may depend on my secrecy. I wish your 
 lordship a very good morning." 
 
 Away flew the pie, and she did not stop till she got to the 
 cat's house. The cat and the fox were at breakfast, and the 
 fox had his hand on his heart. " Beautiful scene ! " cried 
 the pie : the cat colored, and bade the pie take a seat. 
 
 I'hen off went the pie's tongue, glib, glib, glib, chatter, 
 chatter, chatter. She related to them the whole story of the 
 grilhn and his daughter, and a great deal more besides, that 
 the grifhn had never told her. 
 
 The cat listened attentively. Another young heiress in 
 the neighborhood might be a formidable rival. " But is the 
 grififiness handsome ? " said she. 
 
 " Handsome ! " cried the pie ; " oh ! if you could have 
 seen the father ! — such a mouth, such eyes, such a complexion 
 and he declares she's the living picture of himself ! But what 
 do you say, Mr. Reynard 1 you, who have been so much in 
 the world, have, perhaps, seen the young lady ! " 
 
 " Why, I can't say I have, " answered the fox, waking 
 from a reverie ; " but she must be wonderfully rich. 1 dare- 
 say that fool, the dog, will be making up to her. " 
 
 " Ah ! by the way, " said the pie; " what a fuss he made 
 at your door yesterday ; why would you not admit him, my 
 dear ! " 
 
 " Oh ! " said the cat, demurely, " Mr. Reynard says that 
 he is a dog of very bad character, quite a fortune-hunter ; and 
 hiding the most dangerous disposition to bite under an ap- 
 pearance of good-nature. I hope he won't be quarrelsome 
 with you, dear Reynard ! " 
 
 " With me ? O the poor wretch, no ! — he might bluster a 
 little ; but he knows that if I'm once angry I'm a devil at bit- 
 ing ; — but one should not boast of oneself. " 
 
 In the evening Reynard felt a strange desire to go and 
 see the griffin smoking his pipe ; but what could he do ? There 
 was the dog under the opposite tree evidently watching for
 
 ^2 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 him, and Reynard had no wish to prove himself that devil al 
 biting which he declared he was. At last he resolved to have 
 recourse to stratagem to get rid of the dog. 
 
 A young buck of a rabbit, a sort of provincial fop, had 
 looked in upon his cousin the cat, to pay her his respects, 
 and Reynard, taking him aside, said, " You see that shabby- 
 looking dog under the tree ? He has behaved very ill to 
 your cousin the cat, and you certainly ought to challenge him. 
 Forgive my boldness — nothing but respect for your character 
 induces me to take so great a liberty ; you know I would 
 chastise the rascal myself, but what a scandal it would make ! 
 If I were already married to your cousin, it would be a dif- 
 ferent thing. But you know what a story that cursed magpie 
 would hatch out of it ! " 
 
 The rabbit looked very foolish : he assured the fox that he 
 was no match for the dog ; that he was very fond of his cousin, 
 to be sure ; but he saw no necessity to interfere with her domes- 
 tic affairs ; — and, in short, he tried all he possibly could to 
 get out of the scrape : but the fox so artfully played on his 
 vanity — so earnestly assured him that the dog was the big- 
 gest coward in the world, and would make a humble apology, 
 and so eloquently represented to him the glory he would ob- 
 tain for manifesting so much spirit, that at length that rabbit 
 was persuaded to go out and deliver the challenge. 
 
 " I'll be your secoud, " said the fox; "and the great 
 field on the other side the wood, two miles hence, shall be 
 the place of battle : there we shall be out of observation. 
 You go first, I'll follow in half an hour — and I say — hark ! — 
 in case he does accept the challenge, and you feel the 1. ast 
 afraid, I'll be in the field, and take it off your paws with he 
 utmost pleasure ; rely on vie, my dear sir ! " 
 
 Away went the rabbit. The dog was a little astonished 
 at the temerity of the poor creature ; but on hearing that the 
 fox was to be present, willingly consented to repair to the place 
 of conflict. This readiness the rabbit did not at all relish ; 
 he went very slowly to the field, and seeing no fox there, his 
 heart misgave him, and while the dog was putting his nose 
 to the ground to try if he could track the coming of the ^ox, 
 the rabbit slipped into a burrow, and left the dog to \ alk 
 back again. 
 
 Meanwhile the fox was already at the rock ; he walked 
 very soft-footedly, and looked about with extreme caution, 
 for he had a vague notion that a griffin-papa would not be 
 very civil to foxes.
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 93 
 
 Now there were two holes in the rock — one below, one 
 above, an upper stoiy and an under ; and while the fox was 
 peering about, he saw a great claw from the upper rock 
 beckoning to him. 
 
 " Ah, ah ! " said the fox, " that's the wanton young grifhn' 
 ess, I'll swear." 
 
 He approached, and a voice said, — 
 
 " Charming Mr. Reynard ! Do you not think you could 
 deliver an unfortunate griffiness from a barbarous confine- 
 ment in this rock ? " 
 
 '• Oh heavens ! " cried the fox, tenderly, " what a beauti- 
 ful voice ! and, ah, my poor heart, what a lovely claw ! Is it 
 possible that I hear the daughter of my lord, the great 
 griffin ? " 
 
 " Hush, flatterer ! not so loud, if you please. My father 
 is taking an evening stroll, and is very quick of hearing. He 
 has tied me up by my poor wings in the cavern, for he is 
 mightily afraid of some beast running away with me. You 
 know I have all my fortune settled on myself." 
 
 " Talk not of fortune," said the fox ; " but how can I de- 
 liver you } Shall I enter and gnaw the cord ? " 
 
 " Alas ! " answered the griffiness, " it is an immense chain 
 I am bound with. However, you may come in, and talk 
 more at your ease." 
 
 The fox peeped cautiously all round, and seeing no sign 
 of the griffin, he entered the lower cave and stole upstairs to 
 the upper stor}^ ; but as he went on, he saw immense piles of 
 jewels and gold, and all sorts of treasure, so that the old 
 griffin might well have laughed at the poor cat being called 
 an heiress. The fox was greatly pleased at such indisputable 
 signs of wealth, and he entered the upper cave, resolved to 
 be transported with the charms of the griffiness. 
 
 There was, however, a great chasm between the landing- 
 place and the spot where the young lady was chained, and he 
 found it impossible to pass ; the cavern was very dark, but 
 he saw enough of the figure of the griffiness to perceive, in 
 spite of her petticoat, that she was the image of her father, 
 and the most hideous heiress that the earth ever saw ! 
 
 However, he swallowed his disgust, and poured forth such 
 a heap of compliments that the griffiness appeared entirely 
 won. He implored her to fly with him the first moment she 
 was unchained. 
 
 " That is impossible," said she " for my father never
 
 Q^ THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 unchains me except in his presence, and then I cannot stii 
 out of his sight." 
 
 " The wretch ! " cried Reynard, " what is to be done ? " 
 
 " Why, there is only one thing I know of," answered the 
 griffiness, " which is this — I always make his soup for 
 him, and if I could mix something in it that would put 
 him fast asleep before he had time to chain me up again, I 
 might slip down and carry off all the treasure below on my 
 back." 
 
 " Chawning ! " exclaimed Reynard ; " what invention 1 
 what wit ! I will go and get some poppies directly." 
 
 "Alas!" said the griffiness, "poppies have no effect 
 upon griffins. The only thing that can ever put my father 
 fast to sleep is a nice young cat boiled up in his soup ; it is 
 astonishing what a charm that has upon him ! But where to 
 get a cat ? — it must be a maiden cat too ! " 
 
 Reynard was a little startled at so singular an opiate.. 
 " But," thought he, " griffins are not like the rest of the 
 world, and so rich an heiress is not to be won by ordinary 
 
 means." 
 
 " I do know a cat — a maiden cat," said he, after a 
 short pause ; " but I feel a little repugnance at the thought 
 of having her boiled in the griffin's soup. Would not a dog 
 do as V ell ? " 
 
 " Ah, base thing ! " said the griffiness, appearing to 
 weep, " you are in love with the cat, I see it ; go _ and 
 marry her, poor dwarf that she is, and leave me to die of 
 grief." 
 
 In vain the fox protested that he did not care a straw for 
 the cat ; nothing could now appease the griffiness, but his 
 positive assurance that, come what would, poor puss 
 should be brought to the cave and boiled for the griffin's 
 soup. 
 
 " But how will you get her here ? " said the griffiness. 
 
 " Ah, leave that to me," said Reynard. *' Only put a 
 basket out of the window, and draw it up by a cord ; the 
 moment it arrives at the window, be sure to clap your claw 
 on the cat at once, for she is terribly active." 
 
 " Tush ! " answered the heiress ; " a pretty griffiness I 
 should be if I did not know how to catch a cat ! " 
 
 " But this must be when your father is out ? " said 
 Reynard. 
 
 " Certainly, he takes a stroll every evening at sui> 
 set."
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 9S 
 
 " Let it be to-morrow, then," said Reynard, impatient for 
 the treasure. 
 
 This being arranged, Reynard thought it time to decamp 
 He stole down the stairs again, and tried to filch some of the 
 treasure by the way : but it was too heavy for him to carry, 
 and he was forced to acknowledge to himself that it 
 was impossible to get the treasure without taking the 
 griffiness (whose back seemed prodigiously strong) into the 
 bargain. 
 
 He returned home to the cat, and when he entered her 
 house, and saw how ordinary everything looked after the 
 jewels in the griffin's cave, he quite wondered how he 
 had ever thought the cat had the least pretensions to good 
 looks. 
 
 However, he concealed his wicked design, and his mis- 
 tress thought he had never appeared so amiable. 
 
 " Only guess," said he, " where I have been ? — to our 
 new neighbor, the griffin ; a most charming person, thorough- 
 ly affable, and quite the air of the court. As for that silly 
 magpie, the griffin saw her character at once ; and it was all 
 a hoax about his daughter : he' has no daughter at all. You 
 know, my dear, hoaxing is a fashionable amusement among 
 the great. He says he has heard of nothing but your beauty, 
 and on my telling him we were going to be married, he has 
 insisted upon giving a great ball and supper in honor of the 
 event. In fact, he is a gallant old fellow, and dying to see 
 you. Of course, I was obliged to accept the invitation." 
 
 " Yo\i could not do otherwise," said the unsuspecting 
 young creature, who, as I before said, was very susceptible 
 to flattery. 
 
 " And only think how delicate his attentions are," said 
 the fox. " As he is very badly lodged for a beast of his 
 rank, and his treasure takes up the whole of the ground-floor, 
 he is forced to give the fete in the upper story, so he hangs 
 out a basket for his guests, and draws them up with his own 
 claw. How condescending ! But the great are so amiable ! " 
 
 The cat, brought up in seclusion, was all delight at the 
 idea of seeing such high life, and the lovers talked of nothing 
 else all the next day ; — when Reynard, towards evening, put- 
 ting his head out of the window, saw his old friend, the dog, 
 lying as usual and watching him very grimly. " Ah, that 
 cursed creature ! I had quite forgotten him ; what is to be 
 done now ? He would make no bones of me if he once saw 
 me set foot out of doors."
 
 ^6 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 With that, the fox began to cast in his head how he 
 should get rid of his rival, and at length, he resolved on a 
 very notable project : he desired the cat to set out first, 
 and wait for him at a turn in the road, a little way off. " For," 
 said he, " if we go together, we shall certainly be insulted by 
 the dog ; and he will know that, in the presence of a lady, 
 the custom of a beast of my fashion v/ill not suffer me to 
 avenge the affront. But when I am alone, the creature is 
 such a coward that he would not dare say his soul's his own ; 
 leave the door open, and I'll follow immediately." 
 
 The cat's mind was so completely poisoned against her 
 cousin, that she implicitly believed this account of his char- 
 acter, and accordingly, with many recommendations to lier 
 lover not to sully his dignity by getting into any sort of quar- 
 rel with the dog, she set oft' first. 
 
 The dog went up to her very humbly, and begged her to 
 allow him to say a few words to her ; but she received him 
 so haughtily that his spirit was up, and he walked back to 
 the tree more than ever enraged against his rival. But what 
 was his joy when he saw that the cat had left the door open ! 
 " Now, wretch," thought he, "you cannot escape me ! " So 
 he walked briskly in at the back door. He was greatly sur- 
 prised to see Reynard lying down in the straw, panting as if 
 his heart would break, and rolling his eyes in the pangs of 
 death. 
 
 " Ah, friend," said the fox, with a faltering voice, " you 
 are avenged ; my hour is come ! I am just going to give up 
 the ghost ; put your paw upon mine, and say you forgive me." 
 
 Despite his anger, the generous dog could not set tooth 
 on a dying foe. 
 
 " You have served me a shabby trick," said he ; " you 
 have left me to starve in a hole, and you have evidently 
 maligned me with my cousin : certainly I meant to be 
 avenged on vou ; but if you are really dying, that alters the 
 affair." 
 
 " Oh, oh ! " groaned the fox very bitterjy; " I am past 
 help ; the poor cat is gone for Doctor Ape, but he'll never 
 come in time. What a thing it is to have a bad conscience 
 on one's deathbed ! But, wait till the cat returns, and I'D 
 do you full justice with her before I die." 
 
 The good-natured dog was much moved at seeing his 
 mortal enemy in such a state, and endeavored as well as he 
 could to console him. 
 
 " Oh, oh ! " said the fox ; " I am so parched in the throat
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 97 
 
 — I am burning ; " and he hung his tongue out of his mouth, 
 and rolled his eyes more fearfully than ever. 
 
 " Is there no water here ? " said the dog, looking round. 
 
 *' Alas, no ! — yet stay — yes, now I think of it, there is 
 some in that little hole in the wall ; but how to get at it ? It 
 is so high that I can't, in my poor weak state, climb up to it ; 
 and I dare not ask such a favor of one I have injured so 
 much." 
 
 " Don't talk of it," said the dog : " but the hole's very 
 small ; I could not put my nose through it." 
 
 " No ; but if you just climb up on that stone, and thrust 
 your paw into the hole — you can dip it into the water, and so 
 cool my poor parched mouth. Oh, what a thing it is to have 
 a bad conscience ! " 
 
 The dog sprang upon the stone, and, getting on his hind 
 legs, thrust his front paw into the hole, when suddenly Rey- 
 nard pulled a string that he had concealed under the straw, 
 and the dog found his paw caught tight to the wall in a run- 
 
 nmg noose. 
 
 Ah, rascal ! " said he, turning round ; but the fox 
 leaped up gayly from the straw, and fastening the string with 
 his teeth to a nail in the other end of the wall, walked out, 
 crying, " Good-bye, my dear friend : have a care how you 
 believe hereafter in sudden conversions 1 " So he left the 
 dog on his hind legs to take care of the house. 
 
 Reynard found the cat waiting for him where he had ap- 
 pointed, and they walked lovingly together till they came to 
 the cave. It was now dark, and they saw the basket w-aiting 
 below ; the fox assisted the poor cat into it. " There is only 
 room for one," said he, " you must go first." Up rose the 
 basket ; the fox heard a piteous mew, and no more. 
 
 " So much for the griffin's soup ! " thought he. 
 
 He waited patiently for some time, when the griffiness, 
 waving her claw from the window, said cheerfully, "All's 
 right, my dear Reynard ; my papa has finished his soup, and 
 sleeps as sound as a rock. All the noise in the world would 
 not wake him now, till he has slept off the boiled cat, which 
 won't be these twelve hours. Come and assist me in packing 
 up the treasure ; I should be sorrv to leave a single diamond 
 behind." 
 
 " So should I," quoth the fox. " Stay, I'll come around 
 by the lower hole : why, the door's shut I Pray, beautiful 
 griffiness, open it to thy impatient adorer." 
 
 '* Alas I my father has hid the key. I never know where
 
 ^8 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 he places it : 5'ou must come up by the basket ; see, I will 
 lower it for you." 
 
 The fox was a little loth to trust himself in the same con 
 veyance that had taken his mistress to be boiled ; but the 
 most cautious grow rash when money's to be gained, and ava- 
 rice can trap even a fox. So he put himself as comfortably 
 as he could in the basket, and up he went in an instant. It 
 rested, however, just before he reached the window, and the 
 fox felt, with a slight shudder, the claw of the griffiness strok- 
 ing his back. 
 
 " Oh, what a beautiful coat ! " quoth she, caressingly. 
 
 " You are too kind," said the fox ; " but you can feel it 
 more at your leisure when I am once up. Make haste, I be- 
 seech you." 
 
 " Oh, what a beautiful bushy tail ! Never did I feel such 
 a tail ! " 
 
 " It is entirely at your service, sweet griffiness," said the 
 fox ; ** but pray let me in. Why lose an instant ? " 
 
 " No, never did I feel such a tail ! No wonder you are so 
 successful with the ladies." 
 
 " Ah, beloved grifhness, my tail is yours to eternity, but 
 you pinch it a little too hard." 
 
 Scarcely had he said this, when down dropped the basket, 
 but not with the fox in it ; he found himself caught by the 
 tail, and dangling half-way down the rock, by the help of the 
 very same sort of pulley wherewith he had snared the dog. I 
 leave you to guess his consternation ; he yelped out as loud 
 as he could, — for it hurts a fox exceedingly to be hanged by 
 his tail with his head downwards, — when the door of the 
 rock opened, and out stalked the griffin himself, smoking his 
 pipe, with a vast crowd of all the fashionable beasts in the 
 neighborhood. 
 
 " O ho, brother," said the bear, laughing fit to kill himself ; 
 " who ever saw a fox hanged by the tail before ? " 
 
 " You'll have need of a physician," quoth Doctor Ape. 
 
 " A pretty match, indeed ; a griffiness for such a creature 
 as you ! " said the goat, strutting by him. 
 
 The fox grinned with pain, and said nothing. But that 
 which hurt him most was the compassion of a dull fool of a 
 donkey, who assured him with great gravity that he saw noth- 
 ing at all to laugh at in his situation ! 
 
 " At all events," said the fox, at last, " cheated, gulled, 
 betrayed as I am, I have played the same trick to the dog
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 99 
 
 Go, and laugh at him, gentlemen ; he deserves it as much as 
 I can, I assure you." 
 
 " Pardon me," said the griffin, taking the pipe out of his 
 mouth ; " one never laughs at the honest," 
 
 " And see," said the bear, " here he is." 
 
 And indeed the dog had, after much effort, gnawed the 
 string in two, and extricated his paw : the scent of the fox 
 had enabled him to track his footsteps, and here he arrived, 
 burning for vengeance, and finding himself already avenged. 
 
 But his first thought was for his dear cousin. " Ah, where 
 is she ? " he cried movingly ; " without doubt that villain 
 Reynard has served her some scur\'y trick." 
 
 " I fear so indeed, my old friend," answered the griffin. 
 " but don't grieve ; after all, she was nothing particular. You 
 shall marry my daughter the griffiness, and succeed to all the 
 treasure ; ay, and all the bones that you once guarded so 
 faithfully." 
 
 " Talk not to me," said the faithful dog. " I want none 
 of your treasure ; and, though I don't mean to be rude, your 
 griffiness may go to the devil. I will run over the world but 
 I will find my dear cousin." 
 
 " See her then," said the griffin ; and the beautiful cat, 
 more beautiful than ever, rushed out of the cavern and threw 
 herself into the dog's paws. 
 
 A pleasant scene this for the fox ! — he had skill enough 
 in the female heart to know that it may excuse many little 
 infidelities — but to be boiled alive for a griffin's soup ! — no, 
 the offence was inexpiable ! 
 
 " You understand me, Mr. Reynard," said the griffin, " I 
 have no daughter, and it was me you made love to. Knowing 
 what sort of a creature a magpie is, I amused myself with 
 hoaxing her — the fashionable amusement at court, you know." 
 
 The fox made a mighty struggle, and leaped on the 
 ground, leaving his tail behind him. It did not grow again 
 in a hurry. 
 
 " See," said the griffin, as the beasts all laughed at the 
 figure Reynard made running into the wood, " the dog beats 
 the fox, with the ladies, after all ; and cunning as he is in 
 everything else, the fox is the last creature that should ever 
 think of making love ! " 
 
 " Charming ! " cried Nymphalin, clasping her hands ; " it 
 is just the sort of story I like." 
 
 " And I suppose," said Nip, pertly, " that the dog and
 
 lOO THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 cat lived very happily ever afterwards ? Indeed the nuptial 
 felicity of a dog and cat is proverbial ! " 
 
 " I dare say they lived much the same as any other mar 
 ried couple," answered the prince. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE TOMB OF A FATHER OF MANY CHILDREIf. 
 
 The feast being now ended, as well as the story, the fai- 
 ries wound their way homeward by a different path, till at 
 length a red steady light glowed through the long basaltic 
 arches upon them, like the Demon Hunter's fires in the For- 
 est of Pines. 
 
 The prince sobered in his pace. " You approach." said 
 he, in a grave tone, " the greatest of our temples ; you will 
 witness the tomb of a mighty founder of our race ! " An awe 
 crept over the queen, in spite of herself. Tracking the fires 
 in silence, they came to a vast space, in the midst of which 
 was a lone grey block of stone, such as the traveller finds 
 amidst the dread silence of Egyptian Thebes. 
 
 And on this stone lay the gigantic figure of a man — dead, 
 but not deathlike, for invisible spells had preserved the flesh 
 and the long hair for untold ages ; and beside him lay a rude in- 
 strument of music, and at his feet were a sword and hunter's 
 spear; and above, the rock wound, hollowed and roofless, to 
 the upper air, and daylight came through, sickened and pale, 
 beneath red fires, that burned everlastingly round him, on 
 such simple altars as belonged to a savage race. But the 
 place was not solitary, for many motionless, but not lifeless, 
 shapes sat on large blocks of stone beside the tomb. There 
 was the wizard, wrapped in his long black mantle, and his face 
 covered with his hands — there was the uncouth and deformed 
 dwarf, gibbering to himself — there sat the household elf- 
 there glowered from a gloomy rent in the wall, with glittering 
 eyes and shining scale, the enormous dragon of the North, 
 An aged crone in rags, leaning on a staff, and gazing malig- 
 nantly on the visitors, with bleared but fiery eyes, stood op- 
 posite the tomb of the gigantic dead. And now the fairies 
 themselves completed the group 1 But all was dumb and
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. loi 
 
 unatterably silent ; the silence that floats over some antique 
 city of the desert, when, for the first time for a hundred cen- 
 turies, a living foot enters its desolate remains ; the silence 
 that belongs to the dust of eld — deep, solemn, palpable and 
 sinking into the heart with a leaden and deathlike weight. 
 Even the English fairy spoke not; she held her breath, and, 
 gazing on the tomb, she saw, in rude vast characters, J 
 
 THE TEUTON. 
 
 " We are all that remain of his religion ! " said the prince, 
 as they turned from the dread temple. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 The Fairy's Cave and the Fairy's Wish. 
 
 It was evening ; and the fairies were dancing beneath the 
 twilight star. 
 
 " And why art thou sad, my violet ? " said the prince, 
 " for thine eyes seek the ground ! " 
 
 " Now that I have found thee," answered the queen, " and 
 now that I feel what happy love is to a fairy, I sigh over 
 that love which I have lately witnessed among mortals, but 
 the bud of whose happiness already conceals the worm. For 
 well didst thou say, my prince, that we are linked with a 
 mysterious affinity to mankind, and whatever is pure and 
 gentle among them speaks at once to our sympathy, and 
 commands our vigils." 
 
 " And most of all," said the German fairy, "are they who 
 love under our watch ; for love is the golden chain that binds 
 all in the universe : love lights up alike the star and the 
 glo\vworm ; and, wherever there is love in men's lot, lies the 
 secret affinity with men, and with things divine." 
 
 " But with the human race," said Nymphalin, " there is 
 no love that outlasts the hour, for either death ends, or cus- 
 tom alters : when the blossom comes to fruit, it is plucked, 
 and seen no more ; and therefore, when I behold true love 
 sentenced to an early grave, I comfort myself that I shall 
 not at least behold the beauty dimmed, and the softness of
 
 I02 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 the heart hardened into stone. Yet, my prince, while still 
 the pulse can beat, and the warm blood flow, in that beauti- 
 ful form, which I have watched over of late, let me not de- 
 sert her ; still let my influence keep the sky fair, and the 
 breezes pure ; still let me drive the vapor from the moon, 
 and the clouds from the faces of the stars ; still let me fill 
 her dreams with tender and brilliant images, and glass in the 
 mirror of sleep, the happiest visions of fairyland ; still let 
 me pour over her eyes that magic, which suffers them to see 
 no fault in one in whom she has garnered up her soul ! And 
 as death comes slowly on, still let me rob the spectre of its 
 terror, and the grave of its sting ; — so that, all gently and un- 
 conscious to herself, life may glide into the Great Ocean 
 where the shadows lie ; and the spirit without guile, may be 
 severed from its mansion without pain ! " 
 The wish of the fairy was fulfilled. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 The Banks of the Rhine. — From the Drachenfels to Brohl ; an Incidenl 
 that suffices in this Tale for an Epoch . 
 
 From the Drachenfels commences the true glory of the 
 Rhine ; and, once more, Gertrude's eyes conquered the lan- 
 guor that crept gradually over them, as she gazed on the 
 banks around. 
 
 Fair blew the breeze, and freshly curled the waters, and 
 Gertrude did not see the vulture that had fixed its talons 
 within her breast. The Rhine widens, like a broad lake, be- 
 tween the Drachenfels and Unkel ; villages are scattered 
 over the extended plain on the left ; on the right is the Isle 
 of Werth and the houses of Oberwinter ; the hills are cov- 
 ered with vines ; and still Gertrude turned back with a lin- 
 gering gaze to the lofty crest of the Seven Hills. 
 
 On, on — and the spires of Unkel rose above a curve in 
 the banks, and on the opposite shore stretched those won- 
 drous basaltic columns which extend to the middle of the 
 river, and when the Rhine runs low, you may see them like 
 an engulfed city beneath the waves. You then view the 
 ruins of Okkenfels, and hear the voice of the pastoral Gas-
 
 THE riLCrRIMS OF THE RHINE. 103 
 
 bach pouring its waters into the Rhine. From amidst the 
 clefts of the roclis the vine peeps hixuriantly forth, and gives 
 a richness and coloring to what Nature, left to herself, in- 
 tended for the stern, 
 
 " But turn your eye backward to the right," said Trevylyan ; 
 *' those banks were formerly the special haunt of the bold 
 robbers of the Rhine, and from amidst the entangled brakes 
 that then covered the ragged cliffs, they rushed upon their 
 prey. In the gloomy canvas of those feudal days what vigor- 
 ous and mighty images were crowded ! A robber's life 
 amidst these mountains, and beside this mountain stream, 
 must have been the very poetry of the spot carried into 
 action." 
 
 They rested atBrohl, a small town between two mouritains. 
 On the summit of one you see the gray remains of Rheinech. 
 There is something weird and preternatural about the aspect 
 of this place ; its soil betrays signs that, in the former ages 
 (from which even tradition is fast fading away), some volcano 
 here exhausted its fires. The stratum of the earth is black 
 and pitchy, and the springs beneath it are of a dark and 
 graveolent water. Here the stream of the Brohlbach falls 
 into the Rhine, and in a valley rich with oak and pine, and 
 full of caverns; which are not without their traditionary in- 
 mates, stands the castle of Schweppenbourg, which our party 
 failed not to visit. 
 
 Gertrude felt fatigued on their return, and Trevylyan sat 
 by her in the little inn, while Vane went forth, with the 
 curiosity of science, to examine the strata of the soil. 
 
 They' conversed in the frankness of their plighted troth 
 upon those topics which are only for lovers : upon the bright 
 chapter in the history of their love ; their first meeting ; their 
 first iinpressions ; the little incidents in their present journey 
 — incidents noticed by themselves alone ; that life within 
 life which two persons know together, — which one knows not 
 without the other, — which ceases to both the instant they are 
 divided. 
 
 " I know not what the love of others may be," said Ger 
 trude, " but ours seems different from all of which I have 
 read. Books tell us of jealousies and misconstructions, and 
 the necessity of an absence, the sweetness of a quarrel ; but 
 we, dearest Albert, have had no experience of these passages 
 in love. We have never misunderstood each other ; we have 
 no reconciliation to look back to. When was there ever oc- 
 casion for me to ask forgiveness from you ? Our love is
 
 104 ^-^^ riLGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 made up only of one memory — unceasing kindness ! A harsh 
 ■word, a wronging thought, never broke in upon the happiness 
 we have felt and feel." 
 
 "Dearest Gertrude," said Trevylyan, "that character of 
 our love is caught from you ; you, the soft, the gentle, 
 have been its pervading genius ; and the well has been 
 smooth and pure, for you were the spirit that lived within its 
 depths." 
 
 And to such talk succeeded silence still more sweet — the 
 silence of the hushed and overflowing heart. The last 
 voices of the birds — the sun slowly sinking in the west — ■ 
 the fragrance of descending dews — filled them with that 
 deep and mysterious sympathy which exists between Love 
 and Nature. 
 
 It was after such a silence — a long silence, that seemed 
 but as a moment — that Trevylyan spoke, but Gertrude an- 
 swered not ; and, yearning once more for her sweet voice, he 
 turned and saw that she had fainted awav. 
 
 This was the first indication of the point to which her in- 
 creasing debility had arrived. Trevylyan's heart stood still, 
 and then beat violently ; a thousand fears crept over him, he 
 clasped her in his arms, and bore her to the open window. 
 The setting sun fell upon her countenance, from which the 
 play of the young heart and warm fancy had fled, and in its 
 deep and still repose the ravages of disease were darkly 
 visible. What were then his emotions ! his heart was like 
 stone ; but he felt a rush as of a torrent to his temples : his 
 eyes grew dizzy — he was stunned by the greatness of his 
 despair. For the last week he had taken hope for his com- 
 panion ; Gertrude had seemed so much stronger, for her hap- 
 piness had given her a false support ; and though there had 
 been moments when, watching the bright hectic come and 
 go, and her step linger, and the breath heave short, he had 
 felt the hope suddenly cease, yet never had he known till 
 now that fulness of anguish, that dread certainty of the worst, 
 which the calm, fair face before him struck into his soul : 
 and mixed with his agony as he gazed was all the passion of 
 the most ardent love. For there she lay in his arms, the 
 gentle breath rising from lips where the rose yet lingered, 
 and the long, rich hair, soft and silken as an infant's, steal- 
 ing from its confinement : everything that belonged to Ger- 
 trude's beaut}' was so inexpressibly soft, and pure, and youth- 
 ful ! Scarcely seventeen, she seemed much younger than 
 she was ; her figure had sunken from its roundness, but still
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 105 
 
 how light, how lovely were its wrecks ! the neck whiter than 
 snow, — the fair small hand! Her weight was scarcely tel( 
 in the arms of her lover,— and he — what a contrast ! — was in 
 all the pride and flower of glorious manhood ! his was the 
 lofty brow, the wreathing hair, the haughty eye, the elastic 
 form ; and upon this frail, perishable thing had he fixed all 
 his heart, all the hopes of his youth, the pride of his man- 
 hood, his schemes, his energies, his ambition ! 
 
 " Oh, Gertrude ! " cried he, " is it — is it thus — is there 
 indeed no hope ? " 
 
 And Gertrude now slowly recovering, and opening her 
 eyes upon Trevylyan's face, the revulsion was so great, his 
 emotions so overpowering, that, clasping her to his bosom, 
 as if even death should not tear her away from him, he wept 
 over her in an agony of tears ; not those tears that relieve 
 the heart, but the fierj' rain of the internal storm, a sign of 
 the fierce tumult that shook the very core of his existence, 
 not a relief. 
 
 Awakened to herself, Gertrude, in amazement and alarm, 
 threw her arms around his neck, and looking wistfully into 
 his face, implored him to speak to her. 
 
 " Was it my illness, love ? " said she ; and the music ol 
 her voice only conveyed to him the thought of how soon it 
 would be dumb to him for ever. " Nay," she continued, 
 winningly, " it was but the heat of the day ; I am better now 
 — I am well ; there is no cause to be alarmed for me ; " and, 
 with all the innocent fondness of extreme youth, she kissed 
 the burning tears from his eyes. 
 
 There was a playfulness, an innocence in this poor girl, 
 so unconscious as yet of her destiny, which rendered her fate 
 doubly touching ; and which to the stern Trevylyan, hack- 
 neyed by the world, made her irresistible charm ; and now as 
 she put aside her hair, and looked up gratefully, yet plead- 
 ingly, into his face, he could scarce refrain from pouring out 
 to her the confession of his anguish and despair. But the 
 necessity of self-control — the necessity of concealing from 
 her a knowledge which might only, by impressing her imagi- 
 nation, expedite her doom, while it would embitter to her 
 mind the unconscious enjoyment of the hour, nerved and 
 manned him. He checked by those violent efforts which 
 only men can make, the evidence of his emotions ; and en- 
 deavored, by a rapid torrent of words, to divert her attention 
 from a weakness, the causes of which he could not explain,
 
 ! o6 THE PIL GKIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 Fortunately Vane soon returned, and Trevylyan, consigning 
 Gertrude to his care, hastily left the room. . 
 
 Gertrude sank into a reverie. 
 
 " Ah, dear father ! " said she, suddenly, and after a pause, 
 " If I indeed were worse than I have thought myself of late 
 — if I were to die now, what would Trevylyan feel ? Pray 
 God, I may live for his sake ! " 
 
 " My child, do not talk thus : you are better, much better 
 than you were. Ere the autumn ends, Trevylyan's happiness 
 will be your lawful care. Do not think so despondently of 
 yourself." 
 
 " I thought not of myself," sighed Gertrude, " but of 
 him ! " 
 
 CHAPTER XVr. 
 Gertrude. — The Excursion to Hammerstein. — Thoughts. 
 
 The next day they visited the environs of Brohl. Ger- 
 trude was unusually silent ; for her temper, naturally sunny 
 and enthusiastic, was accustomed to light up everything she 
 saw. Ah, once how bounding was that step ! how undulating 
 the young graces of that form ! how playfully once danced 
 the ringlets on that laughing cheek ! But she clung to Tre- 
 v)'lyan's proud form with a yet more endearing tenderness than 
 was her wont, and hung yet more eagerly on his words ; her 
 hand sought his, and she often pressed it to her lips, and 
 sighed as she did so. Something that she would not teil 
 seemed passing within her, and sobered her playful mood. But 
 there was this noticeable in Gertrude : whatever took away 
 from her gayety, increased her tenderness. The infirmities 
 of her frame never touched her temper. She was kind — 
 gentle — loving to the last. 
 
 They had crossed to the opposite banks, to visit the 
 castle of Hammerstein. The evening was transparently 
 serene and clear ; and the warmth of the sun yet lingered 
 upon the air, even though the twilight had passed and 
 the moon risen, as their boat returned by a lengthened pas- 
 sage to the village. Broad and straight flows the Rhine in 
 this part of its career. On one side lay the wooded village
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 107 
 
 of Namedy, the hamlet of Fornech, backed by the blue rock 
 of Kruezborner Ley, the mountains that shield the mysteri- 
 ous Brohl : and, on the opposite shore, they saw the mighty 
 rock of Hammerstein, with the green and livid ruins sleeping 
 in the melancholy moonlight. Two towers rose haughtily 
 above the more dismantled wrecks. How changed since the 
 alternate banners of the Spaniard and the Swede waved from 
 their ramparts, in that great war in which the gorgeous Wal- 
 lenstein won his laurels ! And in its might\' calm, flowed on 
 the ancestral Rhine, the vessel reflected on its smooth ex- 
 panse ; and above, girded by thin and shadowy clouds, the 
 moon cast her shadows upon rocks covered with verdure, 
 and brought into a dim light the twin spires of Andernach, 
 tranquil in the distance. 
 
 " How beautiful is this hour ! " said Gertrvide, with a low 
 voice : "surely we do not live enough in the night; one half 
 the beauty of the world is slept away. What in the day can 
 equal the' holy calm, the loveliness, and the stillness which 
 the moon now casts over the earth ? These," she continued, 
 pressing Trevylyan's hand, " are hours to remember ; and jv//, 
 — will you ever forget them ? " 
 
 Something there is in recollections of such times and 
 scenes that seem not to belong to the real life, but are rather 
 an episode in its history ; they are like some wandering into 
 a more ideal world ; they refuse to blend with our ruder as- 
 sociations ; they live in us, apart and alone, to be treasured 
 ever, but not lightly to be recalled. There are none living to 
 whom we can confide them, — who can sympathize with what 
 then we felt ? It is this that makes poetry, and that page 
 which we create as a confidant to ourselves, necessary to the 
 thoughts that weigh upon the breast. We write, for our 
 writing is our friend, the inanimate paper is our confessional ; 
 we pour forth on it the thoughts that we could tell to no 
 private ear, and are relieved — are consoled. And, if genius 
 has one prerogative dearer than the rest, it is that which en- 
 ables it to do honor to the dead — to revive the beauty, the 
 virtue that are no more ; to wreathe chaplets that outlive the 
 day round the urn which were else forgotten by the world ! 
 
 When the poet mourns, in his immortal verse, for the 
 dead, tell me not that fame is in his mind ! it is filled by 
 thoughts, by emotions that shut out the living. He is breath- 
 ing to his genius — to that sole and constant friend, which has 
 grov/n up with him from his cradle — the sorrows too delicate
 
 lo8 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 for human sympathy ; and M'hen afterwards he consigns the 
 confession to the crowd, it is indeed from the hope of honor, 
 — honor not for himself, but for the being that is no more 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 Letter from Trevylyan to * * * *. 
 
 Coblentz. 
 
 "I AM obliged to you, my dear friend, for your letter; 
 which, indeed, I have not, in the course of our rapid journey, 
 had the leisure, perhaps the heart, to answer before. But 
 we are staying in this town for some days, and I write now in 
 the early morning, ere any one else in the hotel is awake. 
 Do not tell me of adventure, of politics, of intrigues ; my 
 nature is altered. I threw down your letter animated and 
 brilliant as it was, with a sick and revolted heart. But I am 
 now in somewhat less dejected spirits. Gertrude is better — 
 yes really better ; there is a physician here who gives me hope, 
 my care is perpetually to amuse, and never fatigue her — never 
 to permit her thoughts to rest upon herself. For I have im- 
 agined that illness cannot, at least in the unexhausted vigor 
 of our years, fasten upon us irremediably, unless we feed it 
 with our own belief in its existence. You see men of the 
 most delicate frames engaged in active and professional pur- 
 suits, who literally have no time for illness. Let them be- 
 come idle — let them take care of themselves — let them think 
 of their health — and they die ! The rust rots the steel which 
 use preserves ; and, thank Heaven, although Gertrude, once 
 during our voyage, seemed roused, by an inexcusable impru- 
 dence of emotion on my part, into some suspicion of her state, 
 yet it passed away ; for she thinks rarely of herself — I am 
 ever in her thoughts and seldom from her side, and you know, 
 toe, the sanguine and credulous nature of her disease. But, 
 indeed, I now hope more than I have done since I knew 
 her. 
 
 " When, after an excited and adventurous life, which had 
 comprised so many changes in so few years, I found myself at 
 rest in the bosom of a retired and remote part of the country, 
 and Gertrude and her father were my only neighbors, I wa?
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 109 
 
 in that state of mind in which the passions, recruited by soU- 
 tude, are accessible to the purer and more divine emotions. 
 I was struck by Gertrude's beauty ; I was charmed by her 
 simphcity. Worn in the usages and fashions of the world, the 
 inexperience, the trustfulness, the exceeding youth of her 
 mind, charmed and touched me ; but when I saw the stamp 
 of our national disease in her bright eye and transparent 
 cheek, I felt my love chilled while my interest was increased. 
 I fancied myself safe, and I went daily into the danger ; I 
 nnagined so pure a light could not burn, and I was consumed. 
 Not till my anxiety grew into pain, my interest into terror, did 
 I know the secret of my own heart ; and at the moment 
 that I discovered this secret, I discovered also that Gertrude 
 loved me ! What a destiny was mine ! what happiness, 
 yet what misery ! Gertrude was my own — but for what period ? 
 I might touch that soft hand — I might listen to the tenderest 
 confession from that silver voice — but all the while my heart 
 spoke of passion, my reason whispered of death. You know 
 that I am considered of a cold and almost callous nature, that 
 I am not easily moved to affection, but my very pride bowed 
 me here into weakness. There was so soft a demand upon 
 my protection, so constant an appeal to my anxiety. You 
 know that my father's quick temper burns within me, that I 
 am hot, and stern, and exacting ; but one hasty word, one 
 thought of myself, here were inexcusable. So brief a time 
 might be left for her earthly happiness — could I embitter one 
 moment ? All that feeling of uncertainty which should in 
 prudence have prevented my love, increased it almost to a 
 preternatural excess. That which it is said mothers feel for 
 an only child in sickness, I feel for Gertrude. My existence 
 is not ! — I exist in her ! 
 
 " Her illness increased upon her at home ; they have 
 recommended travel. She chose the course we were to 
 pursue, and, fortunately, it was so familiar to me, that I 
 have been enabled to brighten the way. I am ever on the watch 
 that she shall not know a weary hour ; you would almost 
 smile to see how I have roused myself from my habitual 
 silence ; and to find me — me, the scheming and the worldly 
 actor of real life, plunged back into the early romance of my 
 boyhood, and charming the childish delight of Gertrude with 
 the invention of fables and the traditions of the Rhine. 
 
 " But I believe I have succeeded in my object ; if not, 
 what is left to me ? Gertrude is better ! In that sentence what 
 visions of hope dawn upon me ! I wish you could have seen
 
 no THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 Gertrude before we left England ; you might then have un 
 derstood my love for her. Not that we have not, in the gay 
 capitals of Europe, paid our brief vows to forms more richly 
 beautiful ; not that we have not been charmed by a more brii 
 liant genius,— by a more tutored grace. But there is that irr 
 Gertrude which I never saw before ; the union of the childish and 
 intellectual, an ethereal simplicity, a temper that is nevet 
 dimmed, a tenderness — oh God ! let me not speak of her vir- 
 tues, for they only tell me how little she is suited to the earth. 
 " You will direct to me at Mayence, whither our course 
 now leads us, and your friendship will find indulgence for a 
 letter that is so little a reply to yours. 
 
 " Your sincere friend, 
 
 A. G. Trevylyan." 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Coblentz. — Excursion to the Mountains of Taunus ; Roman Tower in 
 
 the Valley of Ehrenbreitstein. — Travel: its pleasures estimated dif- 
 ferently by the young and the old. — The Student of Heidelberg ; his 
 Criticisms on German Literature. 
 
 Gertrude had, indeed, apparently rallied during their 
 stay at Coblentz ; and a French physician established in the 
 town (who adopted a peculiar treatment for consumption, 
 which had been attended with no ordinary success), gave her 
 father and Trevylyan a sanguine assurance of her ultimate 
 recovery. The time they passed within the white walls of 
 Coblentz was, therefore the happiest and most cheerful part 
 of their pilgrimage. They visited the various places in its 
 vicinity ; but the excursion which most delighted Gertrude 
 was one to the mountains of Taunus. 
 
 They took advantage of a beautiful September day ; and, 
 crossing the river, connnenced their tour from the Thai, or 
 valley of Ehrenbreitstein. They stopped on their way to view 
 the remains of a Roman tower in the valley ; for the whole of 
 that district bears frequent witness of the ancient conquerors 
 of the world. The mountains of Taunus are still intersected 
 with the roads which the Romans cut to the mines that sup- 
 plied them with silver. Roman urns, and inscribed stones, 
 are often found in these ancient places. The stones, inscribed 
 with names utterly unknown — a tyoe of the uncertaintv of
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 1 1 1 
 
 fame !— the urns, from which the dust is gone — a very satire 
 upon Hfe ! 
 
 Lone, gray, and mouldering, this tower stands aloft in the 
 valley ; and the quiet Vane smiled to see the uniform of a 
 modern Prussian, with hi? white belt and lifted bayonet, by 
 the spot which had once echoed to the clang of the Roman 
 arms. The soldier was paying a momentary court to a 
 countr}^ damsel, whose straw hat and rustic dress did not 
 stifle the vanit)^ of the sex ; and this rude and humble gal- 
 lantry, in that spot, was another moral in the histoiy of human 
 passions. Above, the rampart of a modern rule frowned down 
 upon the solitary tower, as if in the vain insolence with which 
 present power looks upon past decay ; the living race upon 
 ancestral greatness. And indeed, in this respect, rightly ! 
 • — for modern times have no parallel to that degradation of 
 human dignity stamped upon the ancient world by the long 
 sway of the Imperial Harlot, all slavery herself, yet all tyran- 
 ny to earth : — and, like her own Messalina, at once a prosti- 
 tute and an empress ! 
 
 They continued their course by the ancient baths of Ems, 
 and keeping by the banks of the romantic Lahn, arrived at 
 Holzapfel. 
 
 "Ah," said Gertrude, one day, as they proceeded to the 
 springs of the Carlovingian Wisbaden, " surely perpetual 
 travel with those we love must be the happiest state of exist- 
 ence. If home has its comforts, it also has its cares ; but 
 here we are at home with nature, and the minor evils vanish 
 almost before they are felt." 
 
 " True," said Trevylyan, " we escape from 'the little,' 
 which is the curse of life ; the small cares that devour us up, 
 the grievance of the day. We are feeding the divinest part 
 of our nature, — the appetite to admire." 
 
 " But of all things wearisome," said Vane, " a succession 
 of changes is the most. There can be a monotony in variety 
 itself. As the eye aches in gazing long at the new shades of 
 the kaleidscope, the mind aches at the fatigue of a constant 
 alternation of objects ; and we delightedly return to rest, 
 which is to life what green is to the earth." 
 
 In the course of their sojourn among the various baths of 
 Taunus, they fell in, by accident, with a German student of 
 Heidelberg, who was pursuing the pedestrian excursions so 
 peculiarly favored by his tribe. He was tamer and gentler 
 than the general herd of those young wanderers, and our party 
 were much pleased with his enthusiasm, because it was un-
 
 ,12 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 affected. He had been in England, and spoke its language 
 almost as a native. 
 
 " Our literature," said he, one day, conversing with Vane^ 
 " has two faults — we are too subtle and too homely. We do 
 not speak enough to the broad comprehension of mankind ; 
 we are forever making abstract qualities of flesh and blood. 
 Our critics have turned your Hamlet into an allegory ; they 
 will not even allow Shakspeare to paint mankind, but insist on 
 his embodying qualities. They turn poetry into metaphysics, 
 and truth seems to them shallow, unless an allegory, which is 
 false, can be seen at the bottom. Again, too, with our most 
 imaginative works we mix a homeliness that we fancy touch- 
 ing, but which in reality is ludicrous. We eternally step 
 from the sublime to the ridiculous — we want taste," 
 
 " But not, I hope, French taste. Do not govern a Goethe, 
 or even a Richter, by a Boileau 1 " said Trevylyan, 
 
 " No, but Boileau's taste was false. Men, who have the 
 reputation for good taste, often acquire it solely because of 
 the want of genius. By taste, I mean a quick tact into the 
 harmony of composition, the art of making the whole consis- 
 tent with its parts, the concinnitas — Schiller alone of our 
 authors has it ; — but we are fast mending ; and, by following 
 shadows so long, we have been led at last to the substance. 
 Our past literature is to us what astrology was to science — ■ 
 false but ennobling, and conducting us to the true language 
 of the intellectual heaven." 
 
 Another time the scenes they passed, interspersed with 
 the ruins of frequent monasteries, leading them to converse 
 on the monastic life, and the various additions time makes 
 to religion, the German said : " Perhaps one of the works 
 most wanted in the world is the history of religion. We have 
 several books, it is true, on the subject, but none that supply 
 the want I allude to, A German ought to write it ; for it is, 
 probably, only a German that would have the requisite learn- 
 ing. A German only, too, is likely to treat the mighty sub- 
 ject with boldness, and yet with veneration ; without the 
 shallow flippancy of the Frenchman, without the timid sec- 
 tarianism of the English. It would be a noble task, to trace 
 the winding mazes of antique falsehood ; to clear up the first 
 glimmerings of divine truth : to separate Jehovah's word 
 from man's invention ; to vindicate the All-merciful from the 
 dread creeds of bloodshed and of fear : and watching in the 
 great Heaven of Truth the dawning of the True Star, follow 
 it — like the Magi of the East — till it rested above the real
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE, 
 
 "3 
 
 God. Not indeed presuming to such a task," continued the 
 German, with a slight blush, " I have about me an humble 
 essay, which treats only of one part of that august subject ; 
 which, leaving to a loftier genius the history of the true re- 
 ligion, may be considered as the history of a false one ; — of 
 such a creed as Christianity supplanted in the North ; or 
 such as may perhaps be found among the fiercest of the sav- 
 age tribes. It is a fiction — as you may conceive ; but yet, 
 by a constant reference to the early records of human learn- 
 ing, I have studied to weave it up from truths. If you would 
 like to hear it — it is very short " 
 
 " Above all things," said Vane ; and the German drew a 
 manuscript, neatly bound, from his pocket. 
 
 " After having myself criticised so insolently the faults 
 of our national literature," said he, smiling, " you will have a 
 right to criticise the faults that belong to so humble a dis 
 ciple of it. But you will see that, though I commenced with, 
 the allegorical or the supernatural, I have endeavored to avoid 
 the subtlety of conceit, and the obscurity of design, which I 
 blame in the wilder of our authors. As to the style, I wished 
 to suit it to the subject ; it ought to be, unless I err, rugged 
 and massive, hewn, as it were, out of the rock of primaeval 
 language. But you, madam ; — doubtless you do not under- 
 stand German ? " 
 
 " Her mother was an Austrian," said Vane ; " and she 
 knows at least enough of the tongue to understand you ; so 
 pray begin." 
 
 Without further preface, the German then commenced 
 the story which the reader will find translated* in the next 
 chapter. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 The Fallen Star ; or the history of a false Religon. 
 
 And the Stars sat, each on his ruby throne, and watched 
 with sleepless eyes upon the world. It was the night usher- 
 ing in the new year, a night on which every star receives 
 
 * Nevertheless I beg to state seriously, that the German student is an 
 impostor ', and that he has no right to wrest the parentage of the fictioB 
 from the true author.
 
 114 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 -from the archangel that then visits the universal galaxy, its 
 peculiar charge. The destinies of men and empires are then 
 portioned forth for the coming year, and, unconsciously to 
 ourselves, our fates become minioned to the stars. A hushed 
 and solemn night is that in which the dark Gates of Time 
 open to receive the ghost of the Dead Year, and the young 
 and radiant Stranger rushes forth from the clouded chasms 
 of Eternity. On that night, it is said, that there are given to the 
 spirits that we see not, a privilege and a power : the dead 
 are troubled in their forgotten graves, and men feast and 
 laugh, while demon and angel are contending for their doom. 
 
 It was night in heaven ; all was unutterably silent, the 
 music of the spheres had paused, and not a sound came from 
 the angels of the stars ; and they who sat upon those shining 
 thrones were three thousand and ten, each resembling each. 
 Eternal youth clothed their radiant limbs with celestial beauty, 
 and on their faces was written the dread of calm, that fearful 
 stillness which feels not, sympathizes not, with the dooms over 
 which it broods. War, tempest, pestilence, the rise of em- 
 pires, and their fall, they ordain, they compass, unexultant 
 and uncompassionate. The fell and thrilling crimes that 
 stalk abroad when the world sleeps, the parricide with his 
 stealthy step, and horrent brow, and lifted knife ; the un- 
 wifed mother that glides out and looks behind, and behind, 
 and shudders, and casts her babe upon the river, and hears 
 the wail, and pities not — the splash, and does not tremble ; — 
 these the starred kings behold — to these they lead the uncon- 
 scious step ; but the guilt blanches not their lustre, neither 
 doth remorse wither their unwrinkled youth. Each star wore 
 a kingly diadem ; round the loins of each was a graven belt, 
 graven with many and mighty signs ; and the foot of each 
 was on a burning ball, and the right arm drooped over the 
 knee as they bent down from their thrones ; they moved not 
 a limb or feature, save the finger of the right hand, which 
 ever and anon moved, slowly pointing, and regulating the 
 fates of men as the hand of the dial speaks the career of 
 time. 
 
 One only of the three thousand and ten wore not the 
 same aspect as his crowned brethren, a star smaller than the 
 rest, and less luminous : the countenance of this star was not 
 impressed with the awful calmness of the others ; but there 
 were suUenness and discontent upon his mighty brow. 
 
 And this star said to himself, — " Behold ! I am created 
 less glorious than my fellows, and the archangel apportions
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE, 115 
 
 not to me the same lordly destinies. Not for me are the 
 dooms of kings and bards, the rulers of empires, _ or, yet 
 nobler, the swayers and harmonists of soul. Sluggish are 
 the spirits and base the lot of the men I am ordained to lead 
 through a dull life to a fameless grave. And wherefore? — 
 is it mine own fault, or is it the fault which is not mine, 
 that I was woven of beams less glorious than my brethren ? 
 Lo ! when the archangel comes, I will bow not my crowned 
 head to his decrees. I will speak, as the ancestral Lucifer 
 before me : he rebelled because of his glory, /because of rny 
 obscurity ; he from the ambition of pride, and / from its dis- 
 content." 
 
 And while the star was thus communing with himself, the 
 upward heavens were parted as by a long river of light 
 and adown that stream swiftly, and without sound, sped the 
 archangel visitor of the stars ; his vast limbs floated in the 
 liquid lustre, and his outspread wings, each plume the glory 
 of a sun, bore him noiselessly along ; but thick clouds veiled 
 his lustre from the eyes of mortals, and while above all was 
 bathed in the serenity of his splendor, tempest and storm 
 broke below over the children of the earth : " He bowed the 
 heavens and came down, and darkness was under his feet." 
 
 And the stillness on the faces of the stars became yet 
 more still, and the awfulness was humbled into awe. Right 
 above their thrones paused the course of the archangel ; and 
 his wings stretched from east to west, overshadowing with 
 the shadow of light the immensity of space. Then forth, in 
 the shining stillness, rolled the dread music of his voice : 
 and, fulfilling the heraldr\' of God, to each star he appointed 
 the duty and the charge, and each star bowed his head yet 
 lower as he heard the fiat, while his throne rocked and trem- 
 bled at the Majesty of the World. But at last, when each of 
 the brighter stars had, in succession, received the mandate, 
 and the vice-royalty over the nations of the earth, the purple 
 and diadems of kings, the archangel addressed the lesser star 
 as he sat apart from his fellows: 
 
 "Behold," said the archangel, " the rude tribes of the 
 north, the fishermen of the river that flows beneath, and the 
 hunters of the forests that darken the mountain-tops with ver- 
 dure I these be thy charge, and their destinies thy care. Noi 
 deem thou, O star of the sullen beams, that thy duties are 
 less glorious than the duties of thy brethren : for the peasant 
 is not less to thy master and mine than the monarch ; nor 
 doth the doom of empires rest more upon the sovereign than
 
 IK 
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE 
 
 on the herd. The passions and the heart are the dominion 
 of the stars, — a mighty realm ; nor less mighty beneath the 
 hide that garbs the shepherd, than under the jewelled robes 
 of the eastern kings." 
 
 Then the star lifted his pale front from his breast, and 
 answered the archangel : — 
 
 " Lo ! " he said, " ages have passed, and each year thou 
 hast appointed me to the same ignoble charge. Release me 
 I pray thee, from the duties that I scorn ; or, if thou wilt that 
 the lowlier race of men be my charge, give unto me the 
 charge not of many, but of one, and suffer me to breathe in- 
 to him the desire that spurns the valleys of life, and ascends 
 its steeps. If the humble are given to me, let there be 
 amongst them one whom I may lead on the mission that shall 
 abase the proud ; for, behold, O Appointer of the Stars, as I 
 have sat for uncounted years upon my solitary throne, brood- 
 ing over the things beneath, my spirit hath gathered wisdom 
 from the changes that shift below. Looking upon the tribes 
 of earth, I have seen how the multitude are swayed,and tracked 
 the steps that lead weakness into power ; and fain would I be 
 the ruler of one who, if abased, shall aspire to rule." 
 
 As a sudden cloud over the face of noon, was the change 
 on the brow of the archangel. 
 
 " Proud and melancholy star," said the herald, " thy wish 
 would war with the courses of the mvisible destiny, that, 
 throned far above, sways and harmonizes all ; the source from 
 which the lesser rivers of fate are eternally gushing through 
 the heart of the universe of things. Thinkest thou that thy 
 wisdom, of itself, can lead the peasant to become a king ? " 
 
 And the crowned star gazed undauntedly on the face of 
 the archangel, and answered, — 
 
 " Yea ! — grant me but one trial ! " 
 
 Ere the archangel could reply, the farthest centre of the 
 heaven was rent as by a thunderbolt ; and the divine herald 
 covered his face with his hands, and a voice low and sweet, 
 and mild with the consciousness of unquestionable power, 
 spoke forth to the repining star. 
 
 " The time has arrived when thou mayest have thy wish. 
 Below thee, upon yon solitary plain, sits a mortal, gloomy as 
 thyself, who, born under thy influence, may be moulded to 
 thy will." 
 
 The voice ceased as the voice of a dream. Silence was 
 over the seas of space, and the archangel, once more borne 
 aloft, slowly soared away into the farther heavens to promul
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 117 
 
 gate the divine bidding to the stars of far-distant worlds. 
 But the soul of the discontented star exulted within itself ; 
 and it said, " I will call forth a king from the valley of the 
 herdsmen, that shall trample on the kings subject to my fel- 
 lows, and render the charge of the contemned star more glo- 
 rious than the minions of its favored brethren ; thus shall I 
 revenge neglect — thus shall I prove my claim hereafter to the 
 heritage of the great of earth ! " 
 
 TV "ff ^ nv W •% 
 
 'ff * ^ W "flr 'BF 
 
 At that time, though the world has rolled on for ages, and 
 the pilgrimage of man had passed through various states of 
 existence, which our dim traditionary knowledge has not 
 preserved, yet the condition of our race in the northern hem- 
 isphere was then what we, in our imperfect lore, have con- 
 ceived to be among the earliest. 
 
 ****** 
 
 ****** 
 ****** 
 
 By a rude and vast pile of stones, the masonr}' of art for 
 gotten, a lonely man sat at midnight, gazing upon the heavens ; 
 a storm had just passed from the earth — the clouds had rolled 
 away, and the high stars looked down upon the rapid waters 
 of the Rhine ; and no sound save the roar of the waves and 
 the dripping of the rain from the mighty trees was heard 
 around the ruined pile ; the white sheep lay scattered on the 
 plain, and slumber with them. He sat watching over the 
 herd, lest the foes of a neighboring tribe seized them una- 
 wares, and thus he communed with himself : " The king sits 
 upon his throne, and is honored by a warrior race, and the 
 warrior exults in the trophies he has won ; the step of the 
 huntsman is bold upon the mountain-top, and his name is 
 sung at night round the pine-fires, by the lips of the bard ; and 
 the bard himself hath honor in the hall. But I, who belong 
 not to the race of kings, and whose limbs can bound not to 
 the rapture of war, nor scale the eyries of the eagle and the 
 haunts of the swift stag ; whose hand cannot string the harp_ 
 and whose voice is harsh in the song ; / have neither honor 
 nor command, and men bow not the head as I pass along ; 
 yet do I feel within me the consciousness of a great powei 
 that should rule my species — not obey. My eye pierces the 
 secret hearts of men — I see their thoughts ere their lips pro- 
 claim them ; and I scorn, while I see, the weakness and the
 
 Ii8 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 vices which I never shared — I laugh at the madness of the 
 warrior — I mock witliin my soul at the tyranny of kings. 
 Surely there is someihing in man's nature more fitted to 
 command — more worthv of renown, than the sinews of the 
 arm, or the swiftness of the feet, or the accident of birth ! " 
 
 As Morven, the son of Osslah, thus mused within himself, 
 still looking at the heavens, the solitary man beheld a stai 
 suddenly shooting from itg place, and speeding through tlie 
 silent air, till it suddenly paused right over the midlight 
 river, and facing the inmate of the pile of stones. 
 
 As he gazed upon the star, strange thoughts grew slowly 
 over him. He drank, as it were, from its solemn aspect, the 
 spirit of a great design. A dark cloud rapidly passing over the 
 earth, snatched the star from his sight, but left to his awak- 
 ened mind the thoughts and the dim scheme that had come 
 to him as he gazed. 
 
 When the sun arose, one of his brethren relieved him 
 from his charge over the herd, and he went away, but not to 
 his father's home. Musingly he plunged into the dark and 
 leafless recesses of the winter forest, and shaped out of his 
 wild thoughts, more palpably and clearly, the outline of his 
 daring hope. While thus absorbed, he heard a great noise in 
 the forest, and, fearful lest the hostile tribe of the Alrich 
 might pierce that way, he ascended one of the loftiest pine- 
 trees, to whose perpetual verdure the winter had not denied 
 the shelter he sought, and, concealed by its branches, he 
 looked anxiouslv forth in the direction whence the noise had 
 proceeded. And it came — it came with a tramp and a crash, 
 and a crushing tread upon the crunched boughs and matted 
 leaves that strewed the soil — it came — it came, the monster 
 that the world now holds no more — the mighty Mammoth of 
 the North ! Slowly it moved in its huge strength along, and its 
 burning eyes glittered through the gloomy shade ; its jaws, 
 falling apart, showed the grinders with which it snapped 
 asunder the young oaks of the forest ; and the vast tusks, 
 which curved downward to the midst of its massive limbs, 
 glistened white and ghastly, curdling the blood of one destined 
 hereafter to be the dreadest ruler of the men of that distant 
 age. 
 
 The livid eyes of the monster fastened on the form of the 
 herdsman, even amidst the thick darkness of the pine. It 
 paused — it glared upon him — its jaws opened, and a low deep 
 sound, as of gathering thimder, seemed to the son of Osslah 
 as the knell of a dreadful grave. But after glaring on him
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RIIIAE. ng 
 
 for some moments, it again, and calmly, pursued its terrible 
 way, crushing the boughs as it marched along, till the last 
 sound of its heavy tread died away upon his ear.* 
 
 Ere yet, liowever, Morven summoned the courage to de- 
 scend the tree, he saw the shining of arms through the bare 
 branches of the wood, and presently a small band of the hos- 
 tile Alrich came into sight. He was perfectly hidden from 
 them ; and, listening as they passed him, he heard one say to 
 another, — " 
 
 " The night covers all things ; why attack them by day ? " 
 
 And he who seemed the chief of the band, answered, — 
 
 " Right. To-night, when they sleep in their city, we will 
 upon them. Lo ! they will be drenched in wine, and fall like 
 sheep into our hands." 
 
 " But where, O chief," said a third of the band, " shall 
 our men hide during the day ? for there are many hunters 
 among the youth of the Oestrich tribe, and they might see us 
 in the forest unawares, and arm their race against our 
 coming." 
 
 " I have prepared for that," answered the chief. " Is not 
 the dark cavern of Oderlin at hand .'' Will it not shelter us 
 from the eyes of the victims .-' " 
 
 Then the men laughed, and, shouting, they went their way 
 adown the forest. 
 
 When they were gone, Morven cautiously descended, and 
 striking into a broad path, hastened to a vale that lay be- 
 tween the forest and the river in which was the city where 
 the chief of his countiy dwelt. As he passed by the warlike 
 men, giants in that day, who thronged the streets (if streets 
 they might be called), their half garments parting from their 
 huge limbs, the quiver at their backs, and the hunting-spear 
 in their hands, they laughed and shouted out, and, pointing 
 to him, cried, " Morven, the woman ! Morven, the cripple ! 
 what dost thou among men .-' " 
 
 For the son of Osslah was small in stature and of slender 
 strength, and his step had halted from his birth ; but he passed 
 ihrough the warriors unheedingly. At the outskirts of the 
 city he came upon a tall pile in which some old men dwelt 
 by themselves, and counselled the king when times of danger, 
 or when the failure of season, the famine or the drought, per- 
 
 * The critic will perceive that this sketcl of the beast, whose rsce has 
 perished, is mainly intended to designate the remote period of the world 
 in which the tale is cast.
 
 I20 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 plexed the ruler, and clouded the savage fronts of his war- 
 rior tribe. 
 
 They gave the counsels of experience, and when experi- 
 ence failed, they drew in their believing ignorance, assur- 
 ances and omens from the winds of heaven, the changes of the 
 moon, and the flights of the wandering birds. Filled (by the 
 voices of the elements, and the variety of mysteries which 
 ever shift along the face of things, unsolved by the wonder 
 which pauses not, the fear which believes, and that eternal 
 reasoning of all experience, which assigns causes to effect) with 
 the notion of superior powers, they assisted their ignorance 
 by the conjectures of their superstition. But as yet they knew 
 no craft and practised no voluntary delusion, they trembled 
 too much at the mysteries which had created their faith to 
 seek to belie them. They counselled as they believed, and 
 the bold dream of governing their warriors and their kings by 
 the wisdom of deceit had never dared to cross men thus worn 
 and gray with age. 
 
 The son of Osslah entered the vast pile with a fearless 
 step, and approached the place at the upper end of the hall 
 where the old men sat in conclave. 
 
 " How, baseborn and craven-limbed ! " cried the eldest, 
 who had been a noted warrior in his day ; '* darest thou enter 
 unsummoned amidst the secret councils of the wise men ? 
 Knowest thou not, scatterling ! that the penalty is death ? " 
 
 " Slay me, if thou wilt," answered Morven, " but hear ! 
 As I sat last night in the ruined palace of our ancient kings, 
 tending, as my father bade me, the sheep that grazed around, 
 lest the fierce tribe of Alrich should descend unseen from the 
 mountains upon the herd, a storm came darkly on ; and when 
 the storm had ceased and I looked above on the sky, I saw 
 a star descend from its height towards me, and a voice from 
 the star said, ' Son of Osslah, leave thy herd and seek the 
 council of the wise men, and say unto them, that they take 
 thee as one of their number, or that sudden will be the de- 
 struction of them and theirs.' But I had courage to answer 
 the voice, and I said, ' Mock not the poor son of the herds- 
 man. Behold they will kill me if I utter so rash a word, foi 
 I am poor and valueless in the eyes of the tribe of Oestrich, 
 and the great in deeds, and the gray of hair, alone sit in the 
 council of the wise man." 
 
 " Then the voice said, ' Do my bidding, and I will give 
 thee a token that thou comest from the Powers that sway the 
 seasons and sail upon the eagles of the winds. Say unto the
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 12 1 
 
 wise men that this very night, if they refuse to receive thee 
 of their band, evil shall fall upon them, and the morrow shall 
 dawn in blood. 
 
 " Then the voice ceased, and the cloud passed over the 
 star ; and I communed with myself, and came, O dread 
 fathers, mourntullv unto you. For I feared that ye would 
 smite me because of my bold tongue, and that ye would sen- 
 tence me to ihe death, in that I asked what may scarce be 
 given to the sons of kings." 
 
 Then the grim elders looked one at the other, and mar- 
 velled much, nor knew they what answer they should make 
 to the herdsman's son. 
 
 At length one of the wise men said, " Surely there must 
 be truth in the son of Osslah, for he would not dare to falsify 
 the great lights of Heaven. If he had given unto men the 
 words of the star, verily we might doubt the truth. But who 
 would brave the vengeance of the gods of night ? " 
 
 Then the elders shook their heads approvingly ; but one 
 answered and said, — 
 
 " Shall we take the herdsman's son as our equal ? No ! " 
 The name of the man who thus answered was Darvan, and 
 his words were pleasing to the elders. 
 
 But Morven spoke out : " Of a truth, O councillors of 
 kings ! I look not to be an equal with yourselves. Enough 
 if I tend the gates of your palace, and sei-ve you as the son of 
 Osslah may serve ; " and he bowed his head humbly as he 
 spoke. 
 
 Then said the chief of the elders, for he was wiser than the 
 others, " But how wilt thou deliver us from the evil that is to 
 come .-* Doubtless the star has informed thee of the service 
 thou canst render to us if we take thee into our palace, as 
 well as the ill that will fall on us if we refuse. 
 
 Morven answered meekly, ' Surely, if thou acceptest thy 
 servant, the star will teach him that which may requite thee ; 
 but as yet he knows only what he has uttered." 
 
 Then the sages bade him withdraw, and they communed 
 with themselves, and they differed much ; but though fierce 
 men, and bold at the war-cry of a human foe, they shuddered 
 at the prophecy of a star. So they resolved to take the son 
 of Osslah, and suffer him to keep the gate of the council- 
 hall. 
 
 He heard their decree and bowed his head, and went 
 to the gate, and sat down by it in silence. 
 
 And the sun went down in the west, and the first stars
 
 122 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 of the twilight began to glimmer, when Morven started from 
 his seat, and a trembling appeared to seize his limbs. His lips 
 foamed ; an agony and a fear possessed him ; he writhed as 
 a man whom the spear of a foeinan has pierced with a mortal 
 wound, and suddenly fell upon his face on the stony earth. 
 
 The elders approached him ; wondering, they lifted him 
 up. He slowly recovered as from a swoon ; his eyes rolled 
 wildly. 
 
 " Heard ye not the voice of the star ? " he said. 
 
 And the chief of the elders answered, " Nay, we heard 
 no sound." 
 
 Then Morven sighed heavily. 
 
 " To me only the word was given. Summon instantly, 
 O councillors of the king! summon the armed men, and all 
 the youth of the tribe, and let them take the sword and the 
 spear, and follow thy servant. For lo ! the star hath an- 
 nounced to him that the foe shall fall into our hands as the 
 wild beast of the forests." 
 
 The son of Osslah spoke with the voice of command, and 
 the elders were amazed. " Why pause ye ? " he cried. 
 " Do the gods of the night lie ? On my head rest the peril 
 if I deceive ye." 
 
 Then the elders communed together ; and they went forth 
 and summoned the men of arms, and all the young of the 
 tribe ; and each man took the sword and the spear, and 
 Morven also. And the son of Osslah walked first, still look- 
 ing up at the star ; and he motioned them to be silent, and 
 move with a stealthy step. 
 
 So they went through the thickest of the forest, till they 
 came to the mouth of a great cave, overgrown with aged and 
 matted trees, and it was called the cave of Oderlin ; and he 
 bade the leaders place the armed men on either side of the 
 cave, to the right and to the left, among the bushes. 
 
 So they watched silently till the night deepened, when 
 they heard a noise in the cave and the sound of feet, and 
 forth came an armed man : and the spear of Morven pierced 
 him, and he fell dead at the mouth of the cave. Another 
 and another, and both fell ! Then loud and long was heard 
 the war-cry of Alrich, and forth poured, as a stream over a 
 narrow bed, the river of armed men. And the sons of 
 Oestrich fell upon them, and the foe were sorely perplexed 
 and terrified by the suddenness of the battle and the dark- 
 ness of the night ; and there was a great slaughter. 
 
 And when the morning came, the children of Oestrich,
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 123 
 
 counted the slain, and found the leader of Alrich and the 
 chief men of the tribe amongst them, and great was the joy 
 thereof. So they went back in triumph to the city, and they 
 carried the brave son of Osslah on their shoulders, and 
 shouted forth, " Glory to the servant of the star," 
 And Morven dwelt in the council of the wise men. 
 Now tlie king of the tribe had one daughter, and she was 
 stately amongst the women of the tribe, and fair to look upon. 
 And Morven gazed upon her with the eyes of love, but he 
 did not dare to speak. 
 
 Now the son of Osslah laughed secretly at the foolishness 
 of men ; he loved them not, for they had mocked him ; he 
 honored them not, for he had blinded the wisest of their 
 elders. He shunned their feasts and merriment, and lived 
 apart and solitary. The austerity of his life increased the mys- 
 terous homage which his commune with the stars had won 
 him and the boldest of the warriors bowed his head to the 
 favorite of the gods. 
 
 One day he was wandering by the side of the river, and 
 he saw a large bird of prey rise from the waters, and give 
 chase to a hawk that had not yet gained the full strength of 
 its wings. From his 3'outh the solitary Morven had loved to 
 watch, in the great forests and by the banks of the mighty 
 stream, the habit of the things which nature has submitted to 
 man ; and looking now on the birds, he said to himself, " Thus 
 is it ever ; by cunning or by strength each thing wishes to 
 master its kind." While thus moralizing, the larger bird had 
 stricken down the hawk, and it fell terrified and panting at 
 his feet. Morven took the hawk in his hands, and the vul- 
 ture shrieked above him, wheeling nearer and nearer to its 
 protected prey ; but Morven scared away the vulture, and 
 placing the hawk in his bosom he carried it home, and tended 
 it carefully, and fed it from his hand until it had regained its 
 strength ; and the hawk knew him, and followed him as a 
 dog. And Morven said smiling to himself, '' Behold, the 
 credulous fools around me put faith in the flight and motion 
 of 1 irds. I will teach this poor hawk to minister to my ends." 
 So he tamed the bird, and tutored it according to its nature ; 
 but he concealed it carefully from others, and cherished it in 
 secret. 
 
 The king of the country was old and like to die, and the 
 eyes of the tribe were turned to his two sons, nor knew they 
 which was the worthier to reign. And Mor\'en passing through 
 the forest one evening saw Jiie younger of the two, who was
 
 124 "^HE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 a gieat hunter, sitting mournfully under an oak, and looking 
 with musing eyes upon the ground. 
 
 " Wherefore musest thou, O swift-footed Siror ? " said the 
 son of Osslah : " and wherefore art thou sad ? " 
 
 " Thou canst not assist me," answered the prince, sterAly ; 
 " take thy way." 
 
 " Nay," answered Morven, " thou knowest not what thou 
 sayest ; am I not the favorite of the stars ? " 
 
 *' Away ! — I am no graybeard whom the approach of death 
 makes doting : talk not to' me of the stars ; I know only the 
 things that my eye sees and my ear drinks in." 
 
 " Hush," said Morven, i;oIemnly, and covering his face; 
 " hush ! lest the heavens avenge thy rashness. But, behold, 
 the stars have given unto me to pierce the secret hearts of 
 others ; and I can tell thee the thoughts of thine." 
 
 " Speak out, baseborn ! " 
 
 " Thou art the younger of two, and thy name is less 
 known in w^ar than the name of thy brother ; yet wouldst thou 
 desire to be set over his head, and to sit on the high seat of 
 thy father t " 
 
 The young man turned pale. " Thou hast truth in thy 
 lips," said he, with a faltering voice. 
 
 " Not from me, but from the stars, descends the truth." 
 
 " Can the stars grant my wish t " 
 
 " They can ; let us meet to-morrow." Thus saying, Mor- 
 ven passed into the forest. 
 
 The next day, at noon, they met again. 
 
 I have consulted the gods of night, and they have given 
 me the power that I prayed for, but on one condition." 
 
 " Name it." 
 
 " That thou sacrifice thy sister on their altars ; thou must 
 build up a heap of stones, and take thy sister into the wood, 
 and lay her on the pile, and plunge thy sword into her heart ; 
 so only shalt thou reign." 
 
 TTie prince shuddered, and started to his feet, and shook 
 his spear at the pale front of Morven. 
 
 " Tremble," said the son of Osslah, with a loud voice. 
 " Hark to the gods, who threaten thee with death that thou 
 hast dared to lift thine arm against their servant ! " 
 
 As he spoke, the thunder rolled above ; for one of the 
 frequent storms of the early summer was about to break. 
 The spear dropped from the prince's hand, he sat down and 
 cast his eyes on the ground.
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 "S 
 
 " Wilt thou do the bidding of the stars, and reign ? " said 
 Morven. 
 
 " I will ! " cried Siror, with a desperate voice, 
 
 " This evening, then, when the sun sets, thou wilt lead 
 her hither, alone ; I may not attend thee. Now, let us pile 
 the stones." 
 
 Silently the huntsman bent his vast strength to the frag- 
 ments of rock that Morven pointed to him, and they built the 
 altar, and went their way. 
 
 And beautiful is the dying of the great sun, when the last 
 song of the birds fades into the lap of silence ; when the 
 islands of the cloud are bathed in light, and the first star 
 springs up over the grave of day ! 
 
 " Whither leadest thou my steps, my brother ? " said 
 Orna ; " and why doth thy lip quiver ? and why dost thou 
 turn away thy fact. ? " 
 
 " Is not the forest beautiful ? does it not tempt us forth, 
 my sister ?" 
 
 " And wherefore are those heaps of stone piled to- 
 gether ? " 
 
 " Let others answer ; /piled them not." 
 
 " Thou tremblest, brother : we will return." 
 
 " Not so : by those stones is a bird that my shaft pierced 
 to-day ; a bird of beautiful plumage that I slew for thee." 
 
 "We are by the pile ; where hast thou laid the bird .'' " 
 
 " Here ! " cried Siror ; and he seized the maiden in his 
 arms, and, casting her on the rude altar, he drew forth his 
 sword to smite her to the heart. 
 
 Right over the stones rose a giant oak, the growth of im- 
 memorial ages ; and from the oak, or from the heavens, 
 broke forth a loud and solemn voice, " Strike not, son of 
 kings ! the stars forbear their own : the maiden thou shalt 
 not slay ; yet shalt thou reign over the race of Oestrich ; and 
 thou shalt give Orna as a bride to the favorite of the stars. 
 Arise and go thy way ! " 
 
 The voice ceased ; the terror of Orna had overpowered 
 for a time the springs of life ; and Siror bore her home 
 through the wood in his strong arms. 
 
 " Alas ! " said Morven, when, at the next day, he again 
 met the aspiring prince ; " alas ! the stars have ordained me 
 a lot which my heart desires not : for I, lonely of life, and 
 crippled of shape, am insensible to the fires of love ; and 
 ever, as thou and thy tribe know, I have shunned the eyes o\
 
 120 THE PILGRIMS OP THE RHINE. 
 
 women, for the maidens laughed at my halting step and my 
 sullen features; and so in my youth' I learned betimes to 
 banish all thoughts of love. But since they told me (as they 
 declared to thee), that only through that marriage, thou, O 
 beloved prince ? canst obtain thy father's plumed crown,. I 
 yield me to their will." 
 
 "But," said the prince, "not until I am king can I give 
 thee my sister in marriage; for thou knowest that my sire 
 would smite me to the dust, if I asked him to give the flower 
 of our race to the son of the herdsman Osslah." 
 
 " Thou speakest the words of truth. Go home and fear 
 not : but, when thou art king, the sacrifice must be made, and 
 Orna mine. Alas } how can I dare to lift my eyes to her ! 
 But so ordained the dread kings of night ! — who shall gain- 
 say their word ? " 
 
 " The day that sees me king, sees Orna thine," answered 
 the prince. 
 
 Morven walked forth, as was his wont, alone ; and he 
 said to himself, "The king is old, yet may he live long be- 
 tween me and mine hope ? " and he began to cast in his mind 
 how he might shorten the time. Thus absorbed, he wandered 
 on so unheedingly, that night advanced, and he had lost his 
 path among the thick W'oods, and knew not how to regain 
 his house : so he lay down quietly beneath a tree, and rested 
 till day dawned ; then hunger came upon him, and he searched 
 among the bushes for such simple roots as those with which 
 — for he was ever careless of food — he was used to appease 
 the craving of nature. He found, among other more familiar 
 herbs and roots, a red berry of a sweetish taste, which he 
 had never obser^•ed before. He ate of it sparingly, and had 
 not proceeded far in the wood before he found his eyes swim, 
 and a deadly sickness came over him. For several hours he 
 lay convulsed on the ground, expecting death ; but the gaunt 
 spareness of his frame, and his unvarying abstinence, pre- 
 vailed over the poison, and he recovered slowly, and after 
 great anguish : but he went with feeble steps back to the spot 
 where the berries grew, and, plucking several, hid them in 
 his bosom, and by nightfall regained the city. 
 
 The next day he went forth among his father's herbs and 
 seizing a lamb, forced some of the berries into its stomach 
 and the lamb escaping ran away, and fell down dead. Then 
 Morven took some more of the berries and boiled them down, 
 and mixed the juice with wine, and he ga^^ the wine in .secret 
 to one of his father's servants, and the ser\'ant died.
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 127 
 
 Then Mon-en sought the king, and coming into his pres- 
 ence alone, he said unto him, " How fares my lord ? " 
 
 The king sat on a couch, made of the skins of wolves, 
 and his eye was glassy and dim ; but vast were his aged limbs 
 and huge' was his stature, and he had been taller by a head 
 than the children of men, and none living could bend the 
 bow he had bent in youth. Gray, gaunt, and worn, as some 
 mighty bones that are dug at times from the bosom of the 
 earth, — a relic of the strength of old. 
 
 And the king said, faintly, and with a ghastly laugh, — 
 
 " The men of my years fare ill. What avails my strength ? 
 Better had I been born a cripple like thee,^so should I have 
 had nothing to lament in growing old." 
 
 The red flush passed over Morven's brow ; but he bent 
 humbly, — • 
 
 " O king, what if I could give thee back thy youth ? what 
 if I could restore to thee the vigor which distinguished thee 
 above the sons of men, when the warriors of Alrich fell like 
 grass before thy sword t " 
 
 Then the king uplifted his dull eyes, and he said, — 
 
 "What meanest thou, son of Osslah ! Surely I hear 
 much of thy great wisdom, and how thou speakest nightly 
 with the stars. Can the gods of the night give unto thee the 
 secret to make the old young ? " 
 
 " Tempt them not by doubt," said Morven, reverently. 
 " All things are possible to the rulers of the dark hour ; and, 
 lo ! the star that loves thy servant spake to him at the dead 
 of night and said ' Arise, and go unto the king ; and tell him 
 that the stars honor the tribe of Oestrich, and remember how 
 the king bent his bov/ against the sons of Alrich ; wherefore, 
 look thou under the stone that lies to the right of thy dwelling 
 even beside the pine-tree, and thou shalt see a vessel of clay, 
 and in the vessel thou wilt find a sweet liquid, that shall 
 make the king thy master forget his age for ever. Therefore, 
 my lord, when the morning rose I went forth, and looked 
 under the stone, and behold the vessel of clay ; and I have 
 brought it hither for my lord the king." 
 
 " Quick — slave — quick ! that 1 may drink and regain my 
 youth ! " 
 
 " Nay, listen, O king ! farther said the star to me, — 
 
 " ' It' is only at night, when the stars have power that this 
 their gift will avail ; wherefore, the king must wait till the 
 hush of the midnight, when the moon is high, and then may 
 he mingle the liquid with his wine. And he must reveal to
 
 128 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 none that he hath received the gift from the hand of the ser- 
 vant of the stars. For they do their work in secret, and 
 when men sleep ; therefore they love not the babble of 
 mouths, and he who reveals their benefits shall surely die.' " 
 
 " Fear not," said the king, grasping the vessel ; " none 
 shall know : and, behold, I will rise on the morrow; and my 
 two sons — wrangling for my crown, — verily I shall be younger 
 than they ! " 
 
 Then the king laughed loud ; and he scarcely thanked 
 the servant of the stars, neither did he promise him reward ; 
 for the kings in those days had little thought, — save for them- 
 selves. 
 
 And Morven said to him, " Shall I not attend my lord ? 
 for without me, perchance, the drug might fail of its effect." 
 
 ' Ay," said the king, " rest here." 
 
 " Nay," replied Morven ; " thy servants will marvel and 
 talk much, if they see the son of Osslah sojourning in thy 
 palace. So would the displeasure of the gods of night per- 
 chance be incurred. Suffer that the lesser door of the palace 
 be unbarred, so that at the night hour, when the moon is 
 midway in the heavens, I may steal unseen into thy chamber, 
 and mix the liquid with thy wine." 
 
 " So be it," said the king. " Thou art wise, though thy 
 limbs are crooked and curt ; and the stars might have chosen 
 a taller man." Then the king laughed again and Morven 
 laughed too, but there was danger in the mirth of the son of 
 Osslah. 
 
 The night had begim to wane, and the inhabitants of 
 Oestrich were buried in deep sleep, when, hark ! a sharp 
 voice was heard cr}dng out in the streets, " Woe, woe ! A- 
 wake, ye sons of Oestrich — woe ! " Then forth, wild — hag- 
 gard — alarmed — spear in hand, rushed the giant sons of the 
 rugged tribe, and they saw a man on a height in the middle 
 of the city, shrieking " Woe ! " and it was Morven, the son 
 of Osslah ! And he said unto them, as they gathered round 
 him, " Men and warriors, tremble as ye hear. The star of 
 the west hath spoken to me, and thus said the star : — " Evil 
 shall fall upon the kingly house of Oestrich, — yea, ere the 
 morning dawn ; wherefore, go thou mourning into the streets, 
 and wake the inhabitants to woe ! ' So I rose, and did the 
 bidding of the star." And while Morven was yet speaking, 
 a servant of the king's house ran up to the crowd, crying 
 loudly — " The king is dead ! " So they went into the palace 
 and ^'ound the king stark upon his couch, and his huge limbs
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 129 
 
 all cramped and crippled by the pangs of death, and his hands 
 clenched as if in menace of a foe — the Foe of all living flesh ! 
 Then fear came on the gazers, and they looked on Morven 
 with a deeper awe than the boldest warrior would have 
 called forth ; and they bore him back to the council-hall of 
 the wise men, wailing and clashing their arms, in woo, and 
 shouting, ever and anon, " Honor to Morven the Prophet ! " 
 And that was the first time the word prophet was ever used 
 in those countries. 
 
 And at noon, on the third day from the king's death, Siror 
 sought Morven, and he said, " Lo, my father is no more, and 
 the people meet this evening at sunset to elect his successor, 
 and the warriors and the young men will surely choose my 
 brother, tor he is more known in war. Fail me not, there- 
 fore." 
 
 " Peace, boy ! " said Morven, sternly ; " nor dare to ques- 
 tion the truth of the gods of night." 
 
 For Morv^en now began to presume on his power among 
 the joeople, and to speak as rulers speak, even to the sons of 
 kings. And the voice silenced the fiery Siror, nor dared he 
 to reply. 
 
 " Behold," said Morv^en, taking up a chaplet of colored 
 plumes, " wear this on thy head, and put on a brave face, for 
 the people like a hopeful spirit, and go down with thy brother 
 to the place where the new king is to be chosen, and leave 
 the rest to the stars. But, above all things, forget not that 
 chaplet ; it has been blessed by the gods of night." 
 
 The prince took the chaplet and returned home. 
 
 It was evening, and the wariiors and chiefs of the tribe 
 were assembled in the place where the new king was to be 
 elected. And the voices of the many favored Prince Voltock, 
 the brother of Siror, for he had slain twelve foemen with his 
 spear ; and verily, in those days, that was a great virtue in a 
 king. 
 
 Suddenly there was a shout in the streets, and the people 
 cried out, " Way for Morven the Prophet, the prophet!" 
 For the people held the son of Osslah in even greater respect 
 than did the chiefs. Now, since he had become of note, 
 Morven had assumed a majesty of air which the son of the 
 herdsman knew not in his earlier days ; and albeit his stature 
 was short, and his limbs halted, yet his countenance was 
 grave and high. He only of the tribe wore a garment that 
 swept the ground, and his head was bare, and his long black 
 hair descended to his girdle, and rarely was change or human
 
 I^o "TI^^ PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 passion seen in his calm aspect. He feasted not, nor drank wine, 
 nor was his presence frequent in the streets. He laughed 
 not, neither did he smile, save when alone in the forest, and 
 then he laughed at the follies of his tribe. 
 
 So he walked slowly through the crowd, ne' her turning 
 to the left nor to the right, as the crowd gave way ; and he 
 3 ipported his steps with a staff of the knotted pine. 
 
 And when he came to the place where the chiefs were 
 met, and the two princes stood in the centre, he bade the 
 people around him proclaim silence ; then, mounting on a 
 huge fragment of rock, he thus spoke to the multitude : — 
 
 " Princes, Warriors, and Bards ! ye, O council of the wise 
 men ! and ye, O hunters of the forests, and snarers of the 
 fishes of the streams ! hearken, to Morven, the son of Osslah. 
 Ye 'know that I am lowly of race, and weak of limb ; but did 
 I not give into your hands the tribe of Alrich, and did ye not 
 slay them in the dead of night with a great slaughter ? Surely, 
 ye must know this, of hirnself, did not the herdsman's son ; 
 surely he was but the agent of the bright gods that love the 
 children of Oestrich. Three nights since, when slumber was 
 on the earth, was not my voice heard in the streets ? Did I 
 not proclaim woe to the kingly house of Oestrich ? and rerily 
 the dark arm had fallen on the bosom of the mighty, that Is 
 no more. Could I have dreamed this thing merely in a 
 dream, or was I not as the voice of the bright gods that watch 
 over the tribes of Oestrich ? Wherefore, O men and chiefs ! 
 scorn not the son of Osslah, but listen to his words for are 
 they not the wisdom of the stars ? Behold, last night, I sat 
 alone in the valley, and the trees were hushed around, and 
 not a breath stirred ; and I looked upon the star that counsels 
 the son of Osslah ; and I said, ' Dread conqueror of the cloud ! 
 thou that bathest thy beauty in the streams and piercest the 
 pine-boughs with thy presence, behold thy servant grieved be- 
 cause the mighty one hath passed away, and many foes sur- 
 round the house of my brethren ; and it is well that they 
 should have a king valiant and prosperous in w-ar, the cher- 
 ished of the stars. Wherefore, O star ! as thou gavest into our 
 hands the warriors of Alrich, and didst warn us of the fall of the 
 oak of our tribe, wherefore I pray thee give unto the people 
 a token that they may choose that king whom the gods of 
 the night prefer ! ' Then a low voice, sweeter than the music 
 of the bard, stole along the silence. ' Thy love for thy race 
 is grateful to the stars of night : go then, son of Osslah, and 
 seek the meeting of the chiefs and the people to choose a
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 131 
 
 king, and tell them not to scorn thee because thou art slow 
 to the chase, and little known in war ; for the stars give thee 
 wisdom as a recompense for all. Say unto the people that 
 as the wise men of the council shape their lessons by the 
 flight of birds, so by the flight of birds shall a token be given 
 unto them, and they shall choose their kings. For, saith the 
 star of night, the birds are the children of the winds, they 
 pass to and fro along the ocean of the air, and visit the clouds 
 that are the war-ships of the gods. And their music is but 
 broken melodies which they glean from the harps above. 
 Are they not the messengers of the storm ? Ere the stream 
 chafes against the bank, and the rain descends, know )'e not, 
 by the wail of birds and their low circles over the earth, that 
 the tempest is at hand ? Wherefore, wisely do ye deem that 
 the children of the air are the fit interpreters between the 
 pons of men and the lords of the world above. Say then to 
 the people and the chiefs, that they shall take, from among 
 the doves that build their nests in the roof of the palace, a 
 white dove and they shall let it loose in the air, and verily 
 the gods of the night shall deem the dove as a prayer coming 
 from the people, and they shall send a messenger to grant 
 the prayer and give to the tribes of Oestrich a king worthy 
 of themselves.' 
 
 " With that the star spoke no more." 
 
 Then the friends of Voltock murmured among themselves, 
 "and they said, " Shall this man dictate to us who shall be 
 king ? " But the people and tlie warriors shouted, " Listen to 
 the star ; do we not give or deny battle according as the bird 
 flies, — shall we not by the same token choose him by whom 
 the battle should be led ? " And the thing seemed natural 
 to them, for it was after the custom of the tribe. Then they 
 took one of the doves that built in the roof of the palace, 
 and they brought it to the spot where Morven stood, and he, 
 looking up to the stars and muttering to himself, released 
 the bird. 
 
 There was a copse of trees at a little distance from the 
 spot, and as the dove ascended, a hawk suddenly rose from 
 the copse and pursued the dove ; and the dove was terrified, 
 and soared circling high above the crowd, when lo, the hawk, 
 poising itself one moment on its wings, swooped with a sud- 
 den swoop, and, abandoning its prey alighted on the plumed 
 head of Siror.
 
 iSa 
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 " Behold, " cried Morven in a loud voice, " behold your 
 king ! " 
 
 " Hail, all hail the king! " shouted the people. " All hail 
 the chosen of the stars !" 
 
 Then Morven lifted his right hand, and the hawk left the 
 prince and alighted on Morven's shoulder. " Bird of the 
 gods, " said ho reverently, " hast thou not a secret message 
 for my ear 1 " Then the hawk put its beak to Morven's ear, 
 and Morven bowed his head submissively ; and the hawk 
 rested with Morven from that moment, and would not be 
 scared away. And Mors'en said, " The stars have sent me 
 this bird, that, in the daytime when I see them not, we may 
 never be without a counsellor in distress." 
 
 So Siror was made king, and Morven the son of Osslah 
 was constrained by the king's will to take Orna for his wife ; 
 and the people and the chiefs honored Morven the prophet 
 above all the elders of the tribe. 
 
 One day Morven said unto himself, musing, " Am I not 
 already equal with the king ? nay, is not the king my servant ? 
 did I not place him over the heads of his brothers .'' am I not, 
 therefore, more fit to reign than he is .-' shall I not push him 
 from his seat ? It is a troublesome and stormy office to reign 
 over the wild men of Oestrich, to feast in the crowded hall, 
 and to lead the warriors to the fray. Surely if I feasted not, 
 neither went out to war, they might say, this is no king, but 
 the cripple Morven ; and some of the race of Siror might slay 
 me secretly. But can I not be greater far than kings, and 
 continue to choose and govern them, living as now at mine 
 own ease ? Verily the stars shall give me a new palace, and 
 many subjects. " 
 
 Among the \vise men was Darvan ; and Morven feared 
 him, for his eve often sought the movements of the son of 
 Osslah. 
 
 And Morven said, " It were better to frusf this man than 
 to /'//>/«', for surely I want a helpmate and a friend. " So he 
 said to the wise man, as he sat alone watching the setting 
 sun : — 
 
 " It seemeth to me O Darvan ! that we ought to build a 
 great pile in honor of the stars, and the pile should be more 
 glorious than all the palaces of the chiefs and the palace of 
 the king ; for are not the stars our masters ? And thou and I 
 should be the chief dwellers in this new palace, and we would 
 serve the gods of night and fatten their altars with the
 
 THE IJLGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 133 
 
 choicest of the herd, and the freshest of the fruits of the 
 earth." 
 
 And Darvan, said, " Thou speakest as becomes the ser- 
 vant of the stars. But will the people help to build the 
 pile, for they are a warlike race, and they love not toil ? " 
 
 And Mor\'en answered, " Doubtless the stars will ordain 
 the work to be done. Fear, not." 
 
 " In truth thou art a wondrous man, thy words ever come 
 to pass," answered Darvan ; " and I wish thou wouldest teach 
 me, friend, the language of the stars." 
 
 " Assuredly, if thou ser\-est me, thou shalt know," answered 
 the proud Morven ; and Darvaii was secretly wrath that the 
 son of the herdsman should command the service of an elder 
 and a chief. 
 
 And when Morven returned to his wife, he found her weep- 
 ing much. 
 
 Now she loved the son of Osslah with an exceeding love, 
 for he was not savage and fierce as the men she had known, 
 and she was proud of his fame among the tribe ; and he took 
 her in his arms and kissed her, and asked her why she wept. 
 
 Then she told him that her brother, the king, had visited 
 her, and had spoken bitter words of Morven : " He taketh 
 from me the affection of my people," said Siror, " and 
 blindeth them with lies. And since he hath made me king, 
 what if he take my kingdom from me ? Verily a new tale of 
 the stars might undo the old." And the king had ordered 
 her to keep watch on Morven's secrecy, and to see whether 
 truth was in him when he boasted of his commune with the 
 Powers of Night. 
 
 But Orna loved Morven better than Siror, therefore she told 
 her husband all. 
 
 And Morven resented the king's ingratitude, and was 
 troubled much, for a king is a powerful foe ; but he comforted 
 Orna, and bade her dissemble, and complain also of him to 
 her brother, so that he might confide to her unsuspectingly 
 whatsoever he might design against Morven. 
 
 There was a cave by Morven's house in which he kept the 
 sacred hawk, and wherein he secretly trained and nurtured 
 other birds against future need, and the door of the cave was 
 always barred. And one day he was thus engaged when he 
 beheld a chink in the wall, that he had never noted before, 
 and the sun came playfully in ; and while he looked he per- 
 ceived the sunbeam was darkened, and presently he saw a 
 human face peering in through the chink. And Morven
 
 134 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 trembled, for he knew he had been watched. He ran 
 hastily from the cave, but the spy disappeared amongst 
 the trees ; and Morven went straight to the chamber of Dar- 
 van and sat himself down. And r3arvan did not return home 
 till late, and he started and turned pale when he saw Morv^en. 
 But Morven greeted him as a brother, and bade him to a 
 feast, which, for the first time, he purposed giving at the full 
 of the moon, in honor of the stars. And going out of Dar- 
 van's chamber he returned to his wife, and bade her rend 
 her hair, and go at the dawn of day to the king her brother, 
 and complain bitterly of Morven's treatment, and pluck rhe 
 black plans from the breast of the king. " For surely," said 
 he, " Darvan hath lied to thy brother, and some evil waits 
 me that I would fain know." 
 
 So the next morning Orna sought the king, and she said, 
 "The herdsman's son hath reviled me, and spoken harsh 
 words to me ; shall I not be avenged .? " 
 
 Then the king stamped his feet and shook his mighty 
 sword. " Surely thou shalt be avenged, for I have learned 
 from one of the elders that which convinceth me that the 
 man hath lied to the people, and the baseborn shall surely 
 die. Yea, the first time that he goeth alone into the forest, 
 my brother and I will fall upon him, and smite him to the 
 death." And with this comfort Siror dismissed Orna. 
 
 And Orna flung herself at the feet of her husband. " Fly 
 now, O my beloved ! — fly into the forests afar from my 
 brethren, or surely the sword of Siror will end thy days." 
 
 Then the son of Osslah folded his arms, and seemed 
 buried in black thoughts ; nor did he heed the voice of Orna, 
 until again and again she had implored him to fly. 
 
 " Fly ! " he said at length. " Nay, I was doubting what 
 punishment the stars should pour down upon our foe. Let 
 warriors fly. Morven the prophet conquers by arms mightier 
 than the sword." 
 
 Nevertheless Morven was perplexed in his mind, and 
 knew not how to save himself from the vengeance of the 
 king. Now, while he was musing hopelessly, he heard a roai 
 of waters ; and behold the river, for it was now the end of 
 autumn, had burst its bounds, and was rushing along the val 
 ley to the houses of the city. And now the men of the tribe, 
 and the women, and the children, came running,, and with 
 shrieks, to Morven's house, crying, "Behold, the river has 
 burst upon us ! Save us, O ruler of the stars ! "
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 133 
 
 Then the sudden thought broke upon Morven, and he re- 
 soived to risk his fate upon one desperate scheme. 
 
 And he came out from the house, calm and sad, and he 
 said, " Ye know not what ye ask ; I cannot save ye from 
 this peril : ye have brought it on yourselves." 
 
 And they cried, " How ? O son of Osslah ? — we are igno- 
 rant of our crime." 
 
 And he answered, " Go down to the king's palace and 
 V a't before it, and surely I will follow ye, and ye shall learn 
 whtrefore ye have incurred this punishment from the gods ?" 
 
 Then the crowd rolled murmuringly back, as a receding 
 sea ; and when it was gone from the place, Morven went 
 alone to the house of Darvan, which was next his own ; and 
 Darvan was greatly terrified, for he was of a great age, and 
 had no children, neither friends, and he feared that he could 
 not of himself escape the waters. 
 
 And Morven said to him, soothingly, ** Lo, the people 
 love me, and I will see that thou art saved ; for verily thou 
 hast been friendly to me, and done me much service with 
 the king." 
 
 And as he thus spake, Morven opened the door of the 
 house and looked forth, and saw that they were quite alone ; 
 then he seized the old man by the throat, and ceased not his 
 grip till he was quite dead. And leaving the body of the 
 elder on the floor, Morven stole from the house and shut the 
 gate. And as he was going to his cave he mused a little 
 while, when hearing the mighty roar of the waves advancing, 
 and far off the shrieks of women, he lifted up his head, and 
 said, proudly, " No ! in this hour terror alone shall be my 
 slave ; I will use no art save the power of my soul." So, 
 leaning on his pine-staff he strode down to the palace. And 
 it was now evening, and many of the men held torches, that 
 they might see each other's faces in the universal fear. Red 
 flashed the quivering flames on the dark robes and pale front 
 of Morven ; and he seemed mightier than the rest, because 
 his face alone was calm amidst the tumult. And louder and 
 hoarser came the roar of the waters ; and swift rushed the 
 shades of night over the hastening tide. 
 
 And Morven said in a stern voice, " Where is the king ; 
 and wherefore is he absent from his people in the hour oi 
 dread ? " Then the gate of the palace opened ; and, behold, 
 Siror was sitting in the hall by the vast pine-fire, and hi? 
 brother by his side, and his chiefs around him, for they would
 
 136 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 not deign to come amongst the crowd at the bidding of the 
 herdsman's son. 
 
 Then Morven, standing upon a rock above the heads of 
 the people (the same rock whereon he had proclaimed the 
 king), thus spake, — 
 
 " Ye desired to know, O sons of Oestrich ! wherefore the 
 river hath burst its bounds, and the peril hath come upon 
 you. Learn, then, that the stars resent as the foulest of 
 human crimes, an insult to their servants and delegates below. 
 Ye are all aware of the manner of life of Morven, whom ye 
 have surnamed the Prophet ! He harms not man nor beast ; 
 he lives alone ; and, far from the wild joys of the warrior 
 tribe, he worships in awe and fear the Powers of Night. So 
 is he able to advise ye of the coming danger, — so is he able 
 to save ye from the foe. Thus are your huntsmen swift and 
 your warriors bold ; and thus do your cattle bring forth their 
 young, and the earth its fruits. What think ye, and what do 
 ye ask to hear .-' Listen, men of Oestrich ! — they have laid 
 snares for my life ; and there are amongst you those who 
 have whetted the sword against the bosom that is only filled 
 with love for you all. Therefore have the stern lords of 
 heaven loosened the chains of the river — therefore doth this 
 evil menace ye. Neither will it pass away until they who 
 dug the pit for the servant of the stars are buried in the 
 same." 
 
 Then, by the red torches, the faces of the men looked 
 fierce and threatening ; and ten thousand voices shouted 
 forth, " Name them who conspired against thy life, O holy 
 prophet ! and surely they shall be torn limb from limb." 
 
 And Morven turned aside, and they saw that he wept bit- 
 terly ; and he said, — 
 
 " Ye have asked me, and I have answered : but now 
 scarce will ye believe the foe that I have provoked against 
 me ; and by the heavens themselves, I swear, that if my death 
 would satisfy their fury, nor bring down upon yourselves, and 
 your children's children, the anger of the throned stars, 
 gladly would I give my bosom to the knife. Yes," he cried, 
 lifting up his voice, and pointing his shadowy arm towards 
 the hall where the king sat by the pine-fire — " yes, thou 
 whom by my voice the stars chose above thy brother — yes, 
 Siror, the guilty one ! take thy sword, and come hither — ■ 
 strike, if thou hast the heart to strike, the Prophet of the 
 Gods ! "
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. i^y 
 
 The king started to his feet, and the crowd were hushed 
 in a shuddering silence. 
 
 Llorven resumed, — 
 
 *' Know then, O men of Oestrich ! that Siror, and Voltoch 
 his brother, and Darv^an the elder of the wise men, have pur- 
 posed to slay your prophet, even at such hour as when alone 
 he seeks the shade of the forest to devise new benefits for 
 you. Let the king deny it, if he can ! " 
 
 Then Voltoch, of the giant limbs, strode forth from the 
 hall and his sjDcar quivered in his hand. 
 
 " Rightly hast thou spoken, base son of my father's herds- 
 man ! and for thy sins shalt thou surely die ; for thou liest 
 when thou speakest of thy power with the stars, and thou 
 laughest at the folly of them who hear thee : wherefore put 
 him to death." 
 
 Then the chiefs in the hall clashed their arms, and 
 rushed forth to slay the son of Osslah. 
 
 But he, stretching his unarmed hands on high, exclaimed, 
 " Hear him, O dread ones of the night ! — -hark how he 
 blaspbemeth ? " 
 
 Then the crowd took up the word, and cried, " He 
 blasphemeth — he blasphemeth against the prophet ! " 
 
 But the king and the chiefs who hated Morven, because 
 of his power with the people, rushed into the crowd ; and 
 the crowd were irresolute, nor knew they how to act, for 
 never yet had they rebelled against their chiefs, and they 
 feared alike the prophet and the king. 
 
 And Siror cried, " Summon Darvan to us, for he hath 
 watched the steps of Morven, and he shall lift the veil from 
 my people's eyes." Then three of the swift of foot started 
 forth to the house of Darvan. 
 
 And Morven cried out with a loud voice, " Hark ! thus 
 saith the star who, now riding through yonder cloud breaks 
 forth upon my eyes — ' For the lie that the elder hath uttered 
 against my servant, the curse of the stars shall fall upon 
 him.' Seek, and as ye find him so may ye find ever the foes 
 of Morven and the gods ! " 
 
 A chill and an icy fear fell over the crowd, and even the 
 cheek of Siror grew pale ; and Morven, erect and dark above 
 the waving torches, stood motionless with folded arms. 
 And hark — far and fast came on the war-steeds of the wave 
 — the people heard them marching to the land, and tossing 
 their white manes in the roaring wind. 
 
 " Lo, as ye listen," said Morven, calmly, " the river
 
 138 THE lULGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 sweeps on. Haste, for the gods will have a victim, be it 
 your prophet or your king." 
 
 " Slave ! " shouted Siror, and his spear left his hand, and 
 far above the heads of the crowd sped hissing beside 
 the dark form of Morven, and rent the trunk of the oak 
 behind. Then the people, wroth at the danger of their 
 beloved seer, uttered a wJd yell, and gathered round him 
 with brandished swjrds, facing their chieftains and their 
 king. But at that instant, ere the war had broken forth 
 among the tribe, the three warriors returned, and they bore 
 Darvan on their shoulders, and laid him at the feet of the 
 king, and they said, tremblingly, " Thus found we. the eldei 
 in the centre of his own hall." And the people saw that 
 Darvan was a corpse, and that the prediction of Morven was 
 thus verified. " So perish the enemies of Morven and the 
 Stars ! " cried the son of Osslah. And the people echoed 
 the cry. Then the fury of Siror was at its height, and wav- 
 ing his sword above his head he plunged into the crowd, 
 " Thy blood, baseborn, or mine ! " 
 
 " So be it ! " answered Morven, quailing not. " People, 
 smite the blasphemer ! Hark how the river pours down upon 
 your children and your hearths ! On, on, or ye perish 1 " 
 
 And Siror fell, pierced by five hundred spears. 
 
 " Smite ! smite ! " cried Morven, as the chiefs of the 
 royal house gathered round the king. And the clash of 
 swords, and the gleam of spears, and the cries of the dying, 
 and the yell of the trampling people, mingled with the roar of 
 the elements, and the voices of the rushing wave. 
 
 Three hundred of the chiefs perished that night by the 
 swords of their own tribe. And the last cry of the victors 
 was, " Morven the prophet, — Morvm the king/" 
 
 And the son of Osslah, seeing the waves now spreading 
 over the valley, led Orna his wife, and the men of Oestrich, 
 their women, and their children, to a high mount, where they 
 waited the dawning sun. But Orna sat apart and wept bit- 
 terly, for her brothers were no more, and her race had per- 
 ished from the earth. And Morvan sought to comfort her 
 in vain. 
 
 When the morning rose they saw that the river had over- 
 spread the greater part of the city, and now stayed its 
 course among the hollows of the vale. Then Morven said to 
 the people, " The star-kings are avenged^ and their wrath ap- 
 peased. Tarry only here until the waters have melted into 
 the crevices of the soil." And on the fourth day thev returned
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 139 
 
 to the city,and no man dared to name another, save Morven, 
 as the king. 
 
 But Morven retired into his cave and mused deeply ; and 
 then assembling the people, he gave them new laws ; and he 
 made them build a mighty temple in honor of the stars, and 
 made them heap within it all that the tribe held most precious. 
 And he took unto him fifty children from the most famous of 
 the tribe ; and he took also ten from among the men who 
 had served him best, and he ordained that they should serve 
 the stars in the great temple : and Mor\^en was their chief. And 
 he put away the crown they pressed upon him, and he chose 
 from among the elders a new king. And he ordained that 
 henceforth the sei-vants only of the stars in the great temple 
 should elect the king and the rulers, and hold council and 
 proclaim war : but he suffered the king to feast, and to hunt, 
 and to make merry in the banquet-halls. And Morven built 
 altars in the temple, and was the first who, in the North, 
 sacrificed the beast and the bird, and afterwards human flesh, 
 upon the altars. And he drew auguries from the entrails of 
 the victim, and made schools for the science of the prophet ; 
 and Morven's piety was the wonder of the tribe, in that he 
 refused to be a king. And Morven the high priest was ten 
 thousand times mightier than the king. He taught the people 
 to till the ground, and to sow the herb ; and by his wisdom 
 and the valor that his prophecies instilled into men, he con- 
 quered all the neighboring tribes. And the sons of Oestrich 
 spread themselves over a mighty empire, and with them spread 
 the name and the laws of Morven. And in every province 
 which he conquered he ordered them to build a temple to the 
 stars. 
 
 But a heavy sorrow fell upon the years of Morven. The 
 sister of Siror bowed down her head and survived not long 
 the slaughter of her race. And she left Morven childless. 
 And he mourned bitterly and as one distraught, for her only 
 in the world had his heart the power to love. And he sat 
 down and covered his face, saying : — 
 
 " Lo ! I have toiled and travailed ; and never before in 
 the world did man conquer what I have conquered. Verily 
 the empire of the iron thews and the giant limbs is no more ! 
 I have founded a new power, that henceforth shall sway the 
 lands ; — the empire of a plotting brain and a conimanding 
 mind. But, behold ! my fate is barren, and I feel already 
 that it will grow neither fruit nor tree as a shelter to mine old 
 age. Desolate and lonely shall I pass unto my grave. O
 
 I40 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHIA'E. 
 
 Orna, my beautiful ! my loved ! none were like unto thee, 
 and to thy love do I owe my glory and my life ! Would for 
 thy sake, O sweet bird ! that nestled in the dark cavern of 
 my heart, — would for thy sake that thy brethren had been 
 spared, for verily with my life would I have purchased 
 thine. Alas ' only when I lost thee did I find that thy love 
 was dearer to me than the fear of others ! " And 
 Morven mourned night and day, and none might com- 
 fort him. 
 
 But from that time forth he gave himself solely up to the 
 cares of his calling ; and his nature and his affections, and what- 
 ever there was yet left soft in him, grew hard like stone ; and 
 he was a man without love, and he forbade love and marriage 
 to the priest. 
 
 Now, in his latter years, there arose other prophets ; for 
 the world had grown wiser even by Morven's wisdom, and 
 some did say unto themselves, " Behold Morven, the herds- 
 man's son, is a king of kings : this did the stars for their ser- 
 vant ; shall we not also be servants to the star.? " 
 
 And they wore black garments like Morven, and went 
 about prophesying of what the stars foretold them. And 
 Morven was exceeding wroth ; for he, more than other men, 
 knew that the prophets lied ; wherefore he went forth against 
 them with the ministers of the temple, and he took them, and 
 burned them by a slow fire : for thus said Morven to 
 the people : " a true prophet hath honor — but / only am 
 a true prophet ; — to all false prophets there shall be surely 
 death." ^ 
 
 And the people applauded the piety of the son of 
 Osslah. 
 
 And Morven educated the wisest of the children in the 
 mysteries of the temple, so that they grew up to succeed him 
 worthily. 
 
 And he died full of years and honor; and they carved his 
 effigy on a mighty stone before the temple, and the effigy 
 endured for a thousand ages, and whoso looked on it trem- 
 bled ; for the face was calm with the calmness of unspeak- 
 able awe ! 
 
 And Morven was the first mortal of the North that made 
 Religion the stepping-stone to Power. Of a surety Morven 
 was a great man ! 
 
 It was the last night of the old year, and the stars sat»
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE 141 
 
 each upon his ruby throne, and watched with sleepless ej^es 
 upon the world. The night was dark and troubled, the 
 dread winds were abroad, and fast and frequent hurried the 
 clouds beneath the thrones of the kings of night. And ever 
 and anon fieiy meteors flashed along the depths of heaven, 
 and were again swallowed up in the grave of darkness. But 
 far below his brethren, and with a lurid haze around his orb, 
 sat the discontented star that had watched over the hunters 
 of the North. 
 
 And on the lowest abyss of space there was spread a 
 thick and mighty gloom, from which, as from a cauldron, rose 
 columns of wreathing smoke ; and still, v.-hen the great winds 
 rested for an instant on their paths, voices of woe and 
 laughter, mingled with shrieks, were heard booming from the 
 abyss to the upper air. 
 
 And now, in the middest night, a vast figure rose slowly 
 from the abyss, and its wings threw blackness over the 
 world. High upward to the throne of the discontented star 
 sailed the fearful shape, and the star trembled on his throne 
 when the form stood before him face to face. 
 
 And the shape said, " Hail, brother ! — all hail ! " 
 
 " I know thee not," answ^ered the star : " thou art not the 
 archangel that visitest the kings of night." 
 
 And the shape laughed loud. " I am the fallen star of 
 the morning ! — I am Lucifer, thy brother ! Has thou not, O 
 sullen king ! served me and mine ? and hast thou not wrested 
 the earth from thy Lord who sittest abpve, and given it to 
 me, by darkening the souls of men with the religion of fear ? 
 Wherefore come, brother, come ; — thou hast a throne pre- 
 pared beside my own in the fiery gloom — Come ! The heavens 
 are no more for thee ? " 
 
 Th|n the star rose from his throne, and descended to the 
 side of Lucifer. For ever hath the spirit of discontent had 
 sympathy with the soul of pride. And they sank slowly 
 down to the gulf of gloom. 
 
 It was the first .night of the new year, and the stars sat 
 each on his ruby throne, and watched with sleepless eyes 
 upon the world. But sorrow dimmed the bright faces of the 
 kings of night, for they mourned in silence and in fear for a 
 fallen brother. 
 
 And the gates of the heaven of heavens flew open with a 
 golden sound, and the swift archangel fled down on his silent 
 wings ; and the archangel gave to each of the stars as before 
 the message of his Lord ; and to each star was his appointed
 
 142 
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 charge. And when the heraldry seemed done, there came a 
 laugh from the abyss of gloom, and half-way from the gulf 
 rose the lurid shajDe of Lucifer the fiend ! 
 
 " Thou countest thy flock ill, O radiant shepherd ! Be- 
 hold ! one star is missing from the three thousand and ten ! " 
 
 " Back to thy gulf, false Luqifer ! — the throne of thy 
 brother hath been filled." 
 
 And, lo ! as the archangel spake, the stars beheld a young 
 and all-lustrous stranger on the throne of the erring star ; and 
 his face was so soft to look upon, that the dimmest of human 
 eyes might have gazed upon its splendor unabashed : but the 
 dark fiend alone was dazzled by its lustre, and, with a yell 
 that shook the flaming pillars of the universe, he plunged 
 backward into the gloom. 
 
 Then, far and sweet from the arch unseen, came forth 
 the voice of God, — 
 
 " Behold ! on the throne of the discontented star sits the 
 star of Hope ; and he that breathed into mankind the reli- 
 gion of Fear hath a successor in him who shall teach earth 
 the religion of Love ! " 
 
 And evermore the star of Fear dwells in Lucifer and the 
 star of Love keeps vigil in heaven ! 
 
 ' CHAPTER XX. 
 
 « 
 
 Gelnhausen. — The power of Love in sanctified places. — A portrait ot 
 Frederick Barbarossa. — The ambition of men finds no adequate 
 sympathy in women. 
 
 " You made me tremble for you more than once," said 
 Gertrude to the student ; " I feared you were about to touch 
 upon ground really sacred, but your end redeemed all." 
 
 " The false religion always tries to counterfeit the garb, 
 the language, the aspect, of the true," answered the German ; 
 " for that reason, I purposely suffered my tale to occasion 
 that very fear and anxiety you speak of, conscious that the 
 most scrupulous would be contented when the whole was fin- 
 ished " 
 
 This German was one of a new school, of which England 
 as yet knows nothing. We shall see, hereafter, what it will 
 produce.
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 143 
 
 The student left them at Friedberg, and our travellers pro- 
 ceeded to Gelnhausen, — a spot interesting to lovers ; for here 
 Fr-derick the First was won by the beauty of Gela, and, in 
 \Xt: midst of an island vale, he built the Imperial Palace, 
 in honor to the lady of his love. The spot is, indeed, well 
 chosen of itself ; the mountains of the Rhinegeburg close it 
 with the green gloom of woods, and the glancing waters of 
 the Kinz. 
 
 " Still, wherever we go," said Trev}dyan, " we nnd all 
 tradition is connected with love ; and history, for that reason, 
 hallows less than romance." 
 
 " It is singular," said Vane, moralizing, " that love makes 
 but a small part of our actual lives, but is yet the master-key 
 to our sympathies. The hardest of us, who laugh at the pas- 
 sion when they see it palpably before them, are arrested by 
 some dim tradition of its existence in the past. It is as if 
 life had few opportunities of bringing out certain qualities 
 within us, so that they always remain untold and dormant, 
 susceptible to thought, but deaf to action." 
 
 " You refine and mystify too much," said Trevylyan, 
 smiling; "none of us have any faculty, any passion, uncalled 
 forth, if we have really loved, though but for a day." 
 
 Gertrude smiled, and drawing her arm within his, Trevyl- 
 yan left Vane to philosophize on passion ; a fit occupation 
 for one who had never felt it. 
 
 " Here let us pause," said Trevylyan, afterwards, as they 
 visited the remains of the ancient palace, and the sun glit- 
 tered on the scene, " to recall the old chivalric day of the 
 gallant Barbarossa ; — let us suppose him commencing the last 
 great action of his life ; let us picture him as setting out for 
 the Holy Land. Imagine him issuing from those walls on 
 h 5 white charger ; his fiery eye somewhat dimmed by years, 
 and his hair blanched, but nobler from the impress of time it- 
 self , — the clang of arms ; the tramp of steeds ; banners on 
 high; music pealing from hill to hill ; the red cross and the 
 nodding plume ; the sun, as now glancing on yonder trees ; 
 and thence reflected from the burnished arms of the Crusa- 
 ders ; — but, Gela " 
 
 " Ah," said Gertrude, " she must be no more ; for she 
 would have outlived her beauty, and have found that glory 
 had now no rival in his breast, Glor\' consoles men for 
 the death of the loved ; but glory is infidelity to the living." 
 
 " Nay, not so, dearest Gertrude," said Trevylyan, quickly ; 
 " for my darling dream of Fame is the hope of laying its hon
 
 144 ^-^-^ PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 nrs at your feet ! And if ever, in future years, 1 should rise 
 above the herd, I should only ask xiyoiir step were proud, and 
 your heart elated." 
 
 " I was wrong," said Gertrude, with tears in her eyes ; 
 " and, for your sake, I can be ambitious." 
 
 Perhaps there, too, she was mistaken ; for one of '■he 
 common disappointments of the heart is, that women have 
 so rarely a sympathy in our better and higher aspirings. 
 Their ambition is not for great things ; they cannot under- 
 stand that desire •' which scorns delight, and loves laborious 
 days." If they love us, they usually exact too much. They 
 are jealous of the ambition to which we sacrifice so largely, 
 and which divides us from them ; and they leave the stern 
 passion of great minds to the only solitude which affection 
 cannot share. To aspire is to be alone 1 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 View of Ehrenbreitstein. — A new alarm in Gertrude's Health.— 
 
 Trarbach. 
 
 Another time our travellers proceeded from Coblentz 
 to Treves, following the course of the Moselle. They stopped 
 on the opposite bank below the bridge that unites Coblentz 
 with the Petersberg, to linger over the superb view of Ehren- 
 breitstein which you may there behold. 
 
 It was one of those calm noonday scenes which impress 
 upon us their own bright and voluptuous tranquillity. There 
 stood the old herdsman leaning on his staff, and the quiet 
 cattle knee-deep in the gliding waters. Never did stream 
 more smooth and sheen, than was at that hour the surface ot 
 the Moselle, mirror the images of the pastoral life. Beyond, 
 the darker shadows of the bridge and of the walls of Cob- 
 lentz fell deep over the waves, chequered by the tall sails of 
 the craft that were moored around the harbor. But clear 
 against the sun rose the spires and roofs of Coblentz, backed 
 by many a hill sloping away to the horizon. High, dark, and 
 massive, on the opposite bnnk, swelled the towers and rock 
 of Ehrenbreitstein ; a type of that great chivalric spirit — the 
 HONOR that the rock arrogates for its name, — which demands
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 '45 
 
 SO many sacrifices of blood and tears, but which e\'^er creates 
 in the restless heart of man a far deeper interest than the 
 more peaceful scenes of life by which it is contrasted. There, 
 still — from the calm waters, and the abodes of common toil 
 and ordinary pleasure — turns the aspiring mind ! Still as we 
 gaze on that lofty and immemorial rock, we recall the famine 
 and the siege , and own that the more daring crimes of men 
 have a strange privilege in hallowing the very spot which 
 they devastate ! 
 
 Below, in green curves and mimic bays covered with 
 herbage, the gradual banks mingled with the water ; and just 
 where the bridge closed, a solitary group of trees, standing 
 dark in the thickest shadow, gave that melancholy feature to 
 the scene which resembles the one dark thought that often 
 forces itself into our sunniest hours. Their bousfhs stirred 
 not ; no voice of birds broke the stillness of their gloomy 
 verdure ; the eye turned from thcni, as from the sad moral that 
 belongs to existence. 
 
 In proceeding to Trarbach, Gertrude was seized with an- 
 other of those fainting-fits which had so terrified Trevylyn 
 before ; they stopped an hour or two at a little village, but 
 Gertrude rallied with such apparent rapidity, and so strongly 
 insisted on proceeding, that they reluctantly continued their 
 way. This event would have thrown a gloom over their jour- 
 ney, if Gertrude had not exerted herself to dispel the impres- 
 sion she had occasioned ; and so light, so cheerful, were her 
 spirits, that for the time at least she succeeded. 
 
 They arrived at Trarbach late at noon. This now small 
 and humble town is said to have been the Thronus Bacchi of 
 the ancients. From the spot where the travellers halted to 
 take, as it were, their impression of the town, they saw be- 
 fore them the little hostelry, a poor pretender to the Thronus 
 Bacchi, with the rude sign of the Holy Mother over the 
 door. The peaked roof, the sunk window, the gray walls, 
 chequered with the rude beams of wood so common to the 
 meaner houses on the Continent, bore something of a melan- 
 choly and unprepossessing aspect. Right above, with its 
 Gothic windows and venerable spire, rose the church of the 
 town ; and, crowning the summit of a green and almost per 
 pendicular mountain, scowled the remains of one of those 
 mighty castles which makes the never-falling frown on a Ger- 
 man landscape. 
 
 The scene was one of quiet and of gloom ; the exceeding 
 serenity of the day contrasted, with an almost unpleasing
 
 « 
 
 146 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 brightness, the poverty of the town, the thinness of the pop- 
 ulation, and the dreary grandeur of the ruins that overhung 
 the capital of the perished race of the bold Counts of Span- 
 heim. 
 
 They passed the night at Trarbach, and continued their 
 journey next day. At Treves, Gertrude was for some days 
 seriously ill ; and when they returned to Coblentz, her dis- 
 ease had evidently received a rapid and alarming increase. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 The Double Life.— Trevylyan's fate. — Sorrow the Parent of Fame. — 
 Neiderlahnstein. — Dreams. 
 
 There are two lives to each of us, gliding on at the same 
 time, scarcely connected with each other ! — the life of our 
 actions, the life of our minds ; the external and the inward 
 history ; the movements of the frame, the deep and ever- 
 restless workings of the heart ! They who have loved know 
 that there is a diary of the affections, which we might keep 
 for years without having occasion even to touch upon the ex- 
 terior surface of life, our busy occupations — the mechanical 
 progress of our existence ; yc: by the last are we judged, the 
 first is never known. History reveals men's deeds, men's 
 outward characters, but not themselves. There is a secret 
 self that hath its own life " rounded by a dream," unpene- 
 trated, unguessed. What passed within Treyylyan, hour 
 after hour, as he watched over the declining health of the 
 only being in the world whom his proud heart had been ever 
 destined to love ? His real record of the time was marked 
 by ever^r cloud upon Gertrude's brow, every smile of her 
 countenance, every — the faintest — alteration in her disease ; 
 yet, to the outward seeming, all this vast current of varying 
 eventful emotion lay dark and unconjectured. He filled up, 
 with wonted regularity, the colorings of existence, and smiled 
 and moved as other men. For still, in the heroism with 
 which devoiion conquers self, he sought only to cheer and 
 gladden the young heart on which he had embarked his all ; 
 and he kept the dark tempest of his anguish for the solitude 
 of night. 
 
 That was a peculiar doom which fate had reserved foi
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 147 
 
 him ; and casting him, in after years, on the great sea of 
 public strife, it seemed as i she were resolved to tear from 
 his heart all yearnings for the land. For him there was to be 
 no green or sequestered spot in the valley of household 
 peace. His bark was to know no haven, and his soul not 
 even the desire of rest. For action is that Lethe in which 
 alone we forget our former dreams, and the mind that, too 
 stern not to wrestle with its emotions, seeks to conquer re- 
 gret, must leave itself no leisure to look behind. Who knows 
 what benefits to the world may have sprung from the sorrows 
 of the benefactor? As the harvest that gladdens mankind in 
 the suns of autumn was called forth by the rains of spring, so 
 the griefs of youth may make the fame of maturity. 
 
 Gertrude, charmed by the beauties of the river, desired 
 to continue the voyage to Mayence. The rich Trevylyan 
 persuaded the physician who had attended her to accompany 
 them, and they once more pursued their way along the banks 
 of the feudal Rhine ; for what the Tiber is to the classic, the 
 Rhine is to the chivalric, age. The steep rock and the gray 
 dismantled tower, the massive and rude picturesque of the 
 feudal days, constitute the great features of the scene ; and 
 you might almost fancy, as you glide along, that you are sail- 
 ing back adown the river of Time, and the monuments of the 
 pomp and power of old, rising, one after one, upon its 
 shores ! 
 
 Vane and Du e, the physician, at the farther end of 
 
 the vessel, conversed upon stones and strata, in that singular 
 pedantry of science which strips nature to a skeleton, and 
 prowls among the dead bones of the world, unconscious of 
 its living beauty. 
 
 They left Gertrude and Trevylyan to themselves, and. 
 "bending o'er the vessel's laving side," they indulged in si- 
 lence the melancholy with which each was imbued. For 
 Gertrude began to waken, though doubtingly and at inter- 
 vals, to a sense of the short span that was granted to her 
 life ; and over the loveliness around her, there floated that 
 sad and ineffable interest which springs from the present !• 
 ment of our own death. They passed the rich island of Ober- 
 werth, and Hochheim, famous for its ruby grape, and saw, 
 from his mountain bed, the Lahn bear his tribute of fruits 
 and corn into the treasury of the Rhine. Proudly rose the 
 tower of Niederlahnstein, and deeply lay its shadow along the 
 stream. It was late noon ; the cattle had sought the shade 
 from the slanting sun, and, far beyond, the holy castle of
 
 148 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 Marksburg raised its battlements above mountains 20vered 
 with the vine. On the water two boats had been drawn 
 alongside each other ; and from one, now t. oving to the 
 land, the splash of oars broke the general stillness of the 
 tide. Fast by an old tower the fishermen were busied in 
 their craft, but the sound of their voices did not reach the 
 ear. It was life, but a silent life ; suited to the tranquillity o^ 
 noon. 
 
 " There is samething in travel," said Gertrude, " which 
 constantly, even amidst the most retired spots, impresses us 
 with the exuberance of life. We come to those quiet nooks 
 and find a race whose existence we never dreamed of. In 
 their humble path they know the same passions and tread the 
 same career as ourselves. The mountains shut them out 
 from the great world, but their village is a world in itself. 
 And they know and heed no more of the turbulent scenes of 
 remote cities, than our own planet of the inhabitants of the 
 distant stars. What then is death, but the forgetfulness of 
 some few hearts added to the general unconsciousness of 
 our existence that pervades the universe .'' The bubble breaks 
 in the vast desert of the air, without a sound." 
 
 "Why talk of death?" said Trev}'lyan, with a writhing 
 smile ; " these sunny scenes should not call forth such melan- 
 choly images." 
 
 " Melancholy," repeated Gertrude, mechanically. " Yes, 
 death is indeed melancholy when we are loved ! " 
 
 They stayed a short time at Niederlahnstein, for Vane was 
 anxious to examine the minerals that the Lahn brings into 
 the Rhine ; and the sun was waning towards its close as they 
 renewed their voyage. As they sailed slowly on, Gertrude 
 said, " How like a dream is this sentiment of existence, when, 
 without labor or motion, every change of scene is brought 
 before us ; and if I am with you, dearest, I do not feel it less 
 lesembling a dream, for I have dreamed of you i ely more 
 than ever. And dreams have become a part of my life it- 
 self." 
 
 " Speaking of dreams," said Trevylyan, as they pursued 
 that mysterious subject ; " I once, during my former resi- 
 dence in Germany, fell in with a singular enthusiast, who had 
 taught himself what he termed ' A System of Dreaming.' 
 When he first spoke to me upon it I asked him to explain 
 what he meant, which he did somewhat in the following 
 words.
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 149 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 The Life of Dreams. 
 
 " * I WAS born,' said he, ' with many of the sentiments of 
 the poet, but without the language to express them ; my feel- 
 mgs were constantly chilled by the intercourse of the actual 
 world — my family, mere Germans, dull and unimpassioned — • 
 had nothing in common with me ; nor did I out of my family 
 find those with whom I could better sympathize. I was 
 revolted by friendships — for they were susceptible to every 
 change ; I was disappointed in love — for the truth never ap- 
 proached to my ideal. Nursed early in the lap of Romance, 
 enamoured of the wild and the adventurous, the common- 
 places of life were to me inexpressibly tame and joyless. 
 And yet indolence, which belongs to the poetical character, 
 was more inviting than that eager and uncontemplative action 
 which can alone wring enterprise from life. Meditation was 
 my natural element. I loved to spend the noon reclined by 
 some shady stream, and in a half sleep to shape images from 
 the glancing sunbeams ; a dim and unreal order of philosophy, 
 that belongs to our nation, was my favorite intellectual pur- 
 suit. And I sought amongst the Obscure and the Recondite 
 the variety and emotion I could not find in the Familiar. Thus 
 constantly watching the operations of the inner-mind, it 
 occurred to me at last, that sleep having its own world, but 
 as yet a rude and fragmentary one, it might be possible to 
 shape from its chaos all those combinations of beauty, of power, 
 of glory, and of love, which were denied to me in the world 
 in which my frame walked and had its being. So soon as 
 this idea cam.e upon me, I nursed and cherished, and mused 
 over it, till I found that the imagination began to effect the 
 miracle I desired. By brooding ardently, intensely, before I 
 retired to rest, over any especial train of thought, over any 
 ideal creations ; by keeping the body utterly still and quies- 
 cent during the whole day ; by shutting out all living adven- 
 ture, the memory of which might perplex and interfere with 
 the stream of events that I desired to pour forth into the 
 wilds of sleep, I discovered at last that I could lead in dreama
 
 I^O • THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 a life solely their own, and utterly distinct from the life of 
 day. Towers and palaces, all my heritage and seigneury, 
 rose before me from the depth of night ; I quaffed from 
 jewelled cups the Falernian of imperial vaults ; music from 
 harps of celestial tone filled up the crevices of air ; and the 
 smiles of immortal beauty flushed like sunlight over all. 
 Thus the adventure and the glory, that I could not for my 
 waking life obtain, was obtained for me in sleep. I wandered 
 with the gryphon and the gnome ; I sounded the horn at en- 
 chanted portals ; I conquered in the knightly lists ; I planted 
 my standard over battlements as huge as the painter's Birth 
 of Babylon itself. 
 
 " ' But I was afraid to call forth one shape on whose love- 
 liness to pour all the hidden passion of my soul. I trembled 
 lest my sleep should present me some image which it could 
 never restore, and, waking from which, even the new world I 
 had created might be left desolate forever. I shuddered lest 
 I should adore a vision which the first ray of morning could 
 smite to the grave. 
 
 " ' In this train of mind I began to ponder whether it 
 might not be possible to connect dreams together : to supply 
 the thread that was wanting ; to make one night continue the 
 history of the other, so as to bring together the same shapes 
 and the same scenes, and thus lead a connected and har- 
 monious life, not only in the one half of existence, but in the 
 other, the richer and more glorious half. No sooner did this 
 idea present itself to me, than I burned to accomplish it. I 
 had before taught myself that Faith is the great creator ; that 
 to believe fervently is to make belief true. So I would not 
 suffer my mind to doubt the practicability of its scheme. I 
 shut myself up then entirely by day, refused books, and hated 
 the very sun, and compelled all my thoughts (and sleep is the 
 mirror of thought) to glide in one direction, the direction of 
 my dreams, so that from night to night the imagination might 
 keep up the thread of action, and I might thus lie down full 
 of the last dream and confident of the sequel. Not for one 
 day only, or for one month, did I pursue this system, but I 
 continued it zealously and sternly, till at length it began to 
 succeed. Who shall tell,' cried the enthusiast, — I see him 
 now with his deep, bright, sunken eyes, and his wild hair 
 thrown backward from his brow, 'the rapture that I expe- 
 rienced, when first, faintly and half distinct, I perceived the 
 harmony 1 had invoked down upon my dreams ? At first 
 there was only a partial and desultory connection between
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 151 
 
 them ; my eye recognized certain shapes, my ear certain tones 
 common to each ; by degrees these augmerjcd in number, 
 and were more defined in outUne. At length one fair face 
 broke forth from among the ruder forms, and night after night 
 appeared mixing with them for a moment and then vanishing 
 just as the mariner watches, in a clouded sky, the moon shin- 
 ing through the drifting rack, and quickly gone. My curi- 
 osity was now vividly excited : the face, with its lustrous eyes 
 and seraph features, roused all the emotions that no living 
 shape had called forth. I became enamoured of a dream, 
 and as the statue to the Cyprian was my creation to me ; so 
 from this intent and unceasing passion, I at length worked out 
 my reward. My dream became more palpable ; I spoke with 
 it ; I knelt to it ; my lips were pressed to its own ; we ex- 
 changed the vows of love, and morning only separated us 
 >with the certainty that at night we should meet again. Thus 
 then,' continued my visionary, ' I commenced a history utterly 
 separate from the history of the world, and it went on alter- 
 nately with my harsh and chilling history of the day, equally 
 regular and equally continuous. And what, you ask, was 
 that history ? Methought I was a prince in some Eastern 
 island, that had no features in common with the colder north 
 of my native home. By day I looked upon the dull walls of 
 a German town, and saw homely or squalid forms passing 
 before me ; the sky was dim and the sun cheerless. Night 
 came on with her thousand stars, and brought me the dews of 
 sleep. Then suddenly there was a new world ; the richest 
 fruits hung from the trees in clusters of gold and purple. 
 Palaces of the quaint fashion of the sunnier climes, with 
 spiral minarets and glittering cupolas, were mirrored upon 
 vast lakes sheltered by the palm-tree and banana. The sun 
 seemed a different orb, so mellow and gorgeous were his 
 beams ; birds and winged things of all hues fluttered .n the 
 shining air; the faces and garments of men were not of the 
 northern regions of the world, and their voices spoke a 
 tongue which, strange at first, by degrees I interpreted. 
 Sometimes I made war upon neighboring kings ; sometimes 1 
 chased the spotted pard through the vast gloom of immeni- 
 orial forests ; my life was at once a life of enterprise and 
 pomp. But, above all, there was the history of my love ! I 
 thought there were a thousand dithculties in the way of at- 
 taining its possession. Many were the rocks I had to scale, 
 and the battles to wage, and the fortresses to storm, in order 
 to win her as my bride. But at last,' continued the enthusi
 
 152 
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 ast, ' she is won, she is my own i Time in that wild world, 
 which I visit nightly, passes not so slowly as in this, and yet 
 an hour may be the same as a year. This continuity of ex- 
 istence, this successive series of dreams, so different from the 
 broken incoherence of other men's sleep, at times bewilders 
 me with strange and suspicious thoughts. What if this glori- 
 ous sleep be a real life, and this dull waking the true repose ? 
 Why not } What is there more faithful in the one than in the 
 other ? And there have I garnered and collected all of pleas- 
 ure that I am capable of feeling. I seek no joy in this world 
 — I form no ties, I feast not, nor love, nor make merrv' — I 
 am only impatient till the hour when I may re-enter my royal 
 realms and pour my renewed delight into the bosom of my 
 bright Ideal. There then have I found all that the world 
 denied me ; there have I realized the yearning and the aspi- 
 ration within me ; there have I coined the untold poetry into 
 the Felt— the Seen ! ' 
 
 " I found," continued Trevvlvan, " that this tale was 
 corroborated by inquiry into the visionary's habits. He 
 shunned society ; avoided all unnecessary movement oi 
 excitement. He fared with rigid abstemiousness and only 
 appeared to feel pleasure as the day departed, and the hour 
 of return to his imaginar}' kingdom approached. He always 
 retired to rest punctually at a certain hour, and would sleep 
 so soundly, that a cannon fired under his window would not 
 arouse him. He never, which may seem singular, spoke or 
 moved much in his sleep, but was peculiarly calm, almost 
 to the appearance of lifelessness ; but, discovering once that 
 he had been watched in sleep, he was wont afterwards 
 carefully to secure the chamber from intrusion. His victor}- 
 over the natural incoherence of sleep had, when I first knev 
 him, lasted for some years ; possibly, what imagination first 
 produced was afterwards continued by habit. 
 
 " I saw him again a few months subsequent to this con- 
 fession, and he seemed to me much changed. He health 
 was broken, and his abstraction had deepened into gloom. 
 
 " I questioned him of the cause of the alteration, and he 
 answered me with great reluctance, — 
 
 " ' She is dead," said he, ' my realms are desolate 1 A 
 serpent stung her, and she died in these very arms. Vainly, 
 when I started from my sleep in horror and despair, vainly 
 did I say to myself, — This is but a dream. I shall see her 
 again. A vision cannot die ! Hath it tiesh that decays ? is 
 it not a spirit — bodiless — indissoluble .'' With what terrible
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 153 
 
 anxiety I awaited the night ! Again I slept, and the dream 
 lay again before me — dead and withered. Even the ideal 
 can vanish. I assisted in the burial ; I laid her in the earth ; 
 I heaped the monumental mockery over her form. And 
 never since hath she, or aught like her, revisitea my dreams, 
 I see her only when I wake ; thus to wake is indeed to 
 dream ! But," continued the visionary, in a solerm voice, 
 " I feel myself departing from this world, and with a fearful 
 joy ; for I think there may be a land beyond even the land 
 of sleep, where I shall see her again — a land in which a vision 
 itself may be restored.' 
 
 '* And in truth," concluded Trevylyan, " the Dreamer died 
 shortly afterwards, suddenly, and in his sleep. And never 
 before, perhaps had Fate so literally made of a living man 
 (with his passions and his powers, his ambition and his love) 
 the plaything and puppet of a dream." 
 
 " Ah," said Vane, who had heard the latter part of Trevyl- 
 yan's story ; " could the German have bequeathed to us his 
 secret, what a refuge should we possess from the ills of earth ! 
 The dungeon and disease, poverty, affliction, shame, would 
 cease to be the tyrants of our lot ; and to Sleep we should 
 confine our history and transfer our emotions." 
 
 " Gertrude," whispered the lover, " what his kingdom and 
 his bride were to the Dreamer, art thou to me ! " 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 The Brothers. 
 
 The banks of the Rhine now shelved away into sweeping 
 plains, and on their right rose the once imperial city of Bop- 
 part. In no journey of similar length do you meet with such 
 striking instances of the mutability and shifts of power. To 
 find, as in the Memphian Egypt, a city sunk into a heap of 
 desolate ruins ; the hum, the roar, the mart of nations, 
 hushed into the silence of ancestral tombs, is less humbling 
 to our human vanity than to mark, as long as the Rhine, the 
 kingly city dwindled into the humble town or the dreary 
 village ; decay without its grandeur, change without the awe 
 of its solitude ! On the site on which Drusus raised his
 
 154 
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 Roman tower, and the kings of the Franks their palaces, 
 trade now dribbles in tobacco-pipes, and transforms into an 
 excellent cotton factory the antique nunnery of Koningsberg ! 
 So be it ; it is the progressive order of things — the world 
 itself will soon be one excellent cotton factory. 
 
 " Look ! " said Trevylyan, as they sailed on, " at yonder 
 mountain, with its two traditionary Castles of Liebenstein 
 and Sternfels." 
 
 Massive and huge the ruins swelled above the green rock, 
 at the foot of which lay, in happier security from time and 
 change, the clustered cottages of the peasant, with a single 
 spire rising above the quiet village. 
 
 " Is there not, Albert, a celebrated legend attached to 
 those castles?" said Gertrude. "I think I remember to 
 have heard their names in connection with your profession ■ 
 of tale-teller." 
 
 " Yes," said Trevylyan ; " the story relates to the last 
 lords of those shattered towers, and " 
 
 " You will sit here, nearer to me, and begin," interrupted 
 Gertrude, in her tone of child-like command — " Come." 
 
 The Brothers : a Tale* 
 
 You must imagine, then, dear Gertrude (said Trevylyan), 
 a beautiful summer day, and by the same faculty that none 
 possess so richly as yourself, for it is you who can kindle 
 something of that divine spark even in me, you must rebuild 
 those shattered towers in the pomp of old ; raise the gallery 
 and the hall ; man the battlement with warders, and give the 
 proud banners of ancestral chivalry to wave upon the v.alls. 
 But above, sloping half down the rock, you must fancy the 
 hanging gardens of Leibenstein, fragrant with flowers, and 
 basking in the noonday sun. 
 
 On the greenest turf, underneath an oak, there sat three 
 persons, in the bloom of youth. Two of the three were 
 brothers ; the third was an orphan girl, whom the lord of the 
 opposite tower of Sternfels had bequeathed to the protection 
 of his brother, the chief of Liebenstein. The castle itself and 
 the demesne that belonged to it passed away from the female 
 line, and became the heritage of Otho, the orphan's cousin, 
 and the younger of the two brothers now seated on the 
 turf. 
 
 ♦This tale is, in reality, founded on the beautiful tradition which 
 lielongs to Liebenstein and Sternfels.
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 155 
 
 " And oh," said the elder, whose name was Warbeck, "you 
 have twined a chaplet for my brother ; have you not, dearest 
 Leoline, a simple tiower for me ? " 
 
 The beautiful orphan — (for beautiful she was, Gertrude, as 
 the heroine of the tale you bid me tell ought to be, — should 
 she not have to the dreams of my fancy your lustrous hair, 
 and your sweet smile, and your eyes of blue, that are never, 
 never silent ? Ah, pardon me, that in a former tale, I denied 
 the heroine the beauty of your face, and remember that to 
 atone for it, I endowed her with the beauty of your mind) — 
 the beautiful orphan blushed to her temples, and culling from 
 the flowers in her lap the freshest of the roses, began weaving 
 them into a wreath for Warbeck. 
 
 " It would be better," said the gay Otho, " to make my 
 sober brother a chaplet of the rue and cypress ; the rose is 
 much too bright a flower for so serious a knight." 
 
 Leoline held up her hand reprovingly, 
 
 " Let him laugh, dearest cousin," said Warbeck, gazing 
 passionately on her changing cheek : " and thou, Leoline, be- 
 -lieve that the silent stream runs the deepest./ 
 
 At this moment, they heard the voice of the old chief, 
 their father, calling aloud for Leoline ; for, ever when he re- 
 turned from the chase, he v/anted her gentle presence ; and 
 the hall was solitary to him if the light sound of her step, and 
 the music of her voice, were not heard in welcome. 
 
 Leoline hastened to her guardian and the brothers were 
 left alone. 
 
 Nothing could be more dissimilar than the features and 
 the respective characters of Otho and Warbeck. Otho's 
 countenance was flushed with the brow^n hues of health ; his 
 eyes were of the brightest hazel ; his dark hair wreathed in 
 short curls round his open and fearless brow ; the jest ever 
 echoed on his lips, and his step was bounding as the foot of 
 the hunter of the Alps. Bold and light was his spirit ; if at 
 times he betrayed the haughty insolence of youth, he felt 
 generously, and though not ever ready to confess sorrow for 
 a fault, he was at least ready to brave peril for a friend. 
 
 But Warbeck's frame^ though of equal strength, wms more 
 slender in its propct'ons than that of his brother; the fair 
 long hair, that cha'"acterized his northern race, hung on either 
 side of a countenance calm and pale, and deeply 'impressed 
 with thoun^ht, even to sadness. His features, more majestic 
 and regular than Otho's rarelv varied in their expression.
 
 156 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 More resolute even than Otho, he was less impetuous ; more 
 impassioned, he was also less capricious. 
 
 The brothers remained silent after Leoline had left them. 
 Otho carelessly braced on his sword, that he had laid aside 
 on the grass ; but VVarbeck gathered up the flowers that had 
 been touched by the soft hand of Leoline, and placed them 
 in his bosom. 
 
 The action disturbed Otho ; he bit his lip, and changed 
 color ; at length he said, with a forced laugh, — 
 
 " It must be confessed, brother, that you carry your affec- 
 tion for our fair cousin to a degree that even relationship 
 seems scarcely to warrant." 
 
 " It is true," said Warbeck, calmly : " I love her with a 
 love surpassing that of blood." 
 
 " How," said Otho, fiercely : " do you dare to think of 
 Leoline as a bride ?" 
 
 " Dare I " repeated Warbeck, turning yet paler than his 
 wonted hue. 
 
 " Yes, I have said the word ! Know, Warbeck, that 
 I, too, love Leoline ; I, too, claim her as my bride ; and never 
 while I can wield a sword, — never, while I wear the spurs of 
 knighthood, will I render my claim to a living rival. Even," 
 he added (sinking his voice), "though that rival be my brother!" 
 
 Warbeck answered not ; his very soul seemed stunned ; 
 he gazed long and wistfully on his brother, and then, turning 
 his face away, ascended the rock without uttering a single 
 word. 
 
 This silence startled Otho. Accustomed to vent every 
 emotion of his own, he could not comprehend the forbearance 
 of his brother; he knew his high and brave nature too well to 
 imagine that it arose from fear. Might it not be contempt, 
 or might he not, at this moment, intend to seek their father ; 
 and, the first to proclaim his love for the orphan, advance, 
 also, the privilege of the elder-born ? As these suspicions 
 flashed across him, the haughty Otho strode to his brother's 
 side, and laying his hand on his arm, said, — 
 
 " Whither goest thou ? and dost thou consent to surrender 
 Leoline ? " 
 
 " Does she love thee, Otho ? " answered Warbeck, break- 
 ing the silence at last ; and his voice spoke so deep an an- 
 guish, that it arrested the passions of Otho, even at their 
 height. 
 
 " It is thou who art now silent," continued Warbeck ; 
 " speak ; doth she love thee, and has her lip confessed it ? "
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 157 
 
 " I have believed that she loved me," faltered Otho ; 
 "but she is of maiden bearing, and her lip, at least, has 
 never told it." 
 
 " Enough," said Warbeck, " release your hold." 
 
 "Stay," said Otho, his suspicions returning; "stay — yet 
 one word ; dost thou seek my father .'' He ever honored thee 
 more than me : wilt thou own to him thy love, and insist on 
 thy right of birth ? By my soul and my hope of heaven, do 
 it, and one of us two must fall ! " 
 
 " Poor boy ! " answered Warbeck, bitterly ; " how little 
 thou canst read the heart of one who loves truly ! Thinkest 
 thou I would wed her if she loved thee ? Thinkest thou I 
 could, even to be blessed myself, give her one moment's 
 pain ? Out on the thought — away ! " 
 
 " Then wilt not thou seek our father ? " said Otho abashed. 
 
 " Our father ! — has our father the keeping of Leoline's 
 affection .'' " answered Warbeck ; and shaking off his brother's 
 grasp, he sought the way to the castle. 
 
 As he entered the hall, he heard the voice of Leoline ; 
 she was singing to the old chief one of the simple ballads of 
 the time, that the warrior and the hunter loved to hear. 
 He paused lest he should break the spell (a spell stronger 
 than a sorcerer's to him), and gazing upon Leoline's beautiful 
 form, his heart sank within him. His brother and himself 
 had each that day, as they sat in the gardens, given her a 
 flower ; his flov/er was the fresher and the rarer ; his he saw 
 not, but she wore his brother's in her bosom ! 
 
 The chief, lulled by the music and wearied with the toils 
 of the chase, sank into sleep as the song ended, and Warbeck, 
 coming forward, motioned to Leoline to follow him. He 
 passed into a retired and solitary walk and when they were 
 a little distance from the castle, Warbeck turned round, and 
 taking Leoline's hand gently, said, — 
 
 " Let us rest here for one moment, dearest cousin ; I 
 have much on my heart to say to thee." 
 
 " And what is there," answered Leoline, as they sat on 
 a mossy bank, with the broad Rliine glancing below, "what 
 is there that my kind Warbeck would ask of me? Ah ! 
 wculd it might be some favor, something in poor Leoline's 
 power to grant ? for ever from my birth you have been to 
 me most tender, most kind. You , I have often heard them 
 say, taught my first steps to walk ; you formed my infant 
 lips into language, and, in after years, when my wild cousin 
 was far away in the forest at the chase, you would hrave hi.s
 
 158 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 gay jest and remain at home, lest Leoline should be wean 
 in the solitude. Ah, would I could repay you ! " 
 
 Warbeck turned away his cheek ; his heart was very full, 
 and it was some moments, before he summoned courage to 
 reply. 
 
 " My fair cousin," said he, " those were happy days ; 
 but they were the days of childhood. New cares and new 
 thoughts have now come on us. But I am still thy friend, 
 Leoline, and still thou wilt confide in me thy young sorrows 
 and thy young hopes, as thou ever didst. Wilt thou not, 
 Leoline ? " 
 
 " Canst thou ask me .'' " said Leoline ; and Warbeck, 
 gazing on her face, saw that though her eyes were full of 
 tears, they yet looked steadily upon his ; and he knew that 
 she loved him only as a sister. 
 
 He sighed, and paused again ere he resumed : " Enough," 
 said he, " now to my task. Once on a time, dear cousin, 
 there lived among these mountains a certain chief who had 
 two sons, and an orphan like thyself dwelt also in his halls. 
 And the elder son — but no matter, let us not waste words on 
 hwi ! — the younger son, then, loved the orphan dearly — more 
 dearly than cousins love ; and, fearful of refusal, he prayed 
 the elder one to urge his suit to the orphan. Leoline, 
 my tale is done. Canst thou not love Otho as he loves 
 thee?" 
 
 And now lifting his eyes to Leoline, he saw that 
 she trembled violently, and her cheek was covered with 
 blushes. 
 
 " Say," continued he, mastering himself ; " is not that 
 flower (his present) a token that he is chiefly in thy 
 thoughts .? " 
 
 '' Ah, Warbeck ! do not deem me ungrateful that I wear 
 not yours also : but " 
 
 " Hush ! " said Warbeck, hastily ; " I am but as thy 
 brother — is not Otho more ? He is young, brave, and beau- 
 tiful. God grant that he may deserve thee, if thou givcst 
 him so rich a gift as thy aiTections." 
 
 " I saw less of Otho in my childhood," said Leoline, 
 evasively ; " therefore, his kindness of late years seemed 
 stranger to me than thine." 
 
 " And thou wilt not then reject him ? Thou wilt be his 
 bride ? " 
 
 " And thy sister." answered Leoline. 
 
 "Bless thee, my own dear cousin! one brother's kiss
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHIATE. 159 
 
 then, and farewell ! Otho shall thank thee for him- 
 self." 
 
 He kissed her forehead calmly, and, turning away, 
 plunged into the thicket ; then, nor till then, he gave vent to 
 such emotions, as, had Leoline seen them, Otho's suit had 
 been lost for ever ; for passionately, deeply as in her fond 
 and innocent heart she loved Otho, the happiness of Warbeck 
 was not less dear to her. 
 
 When the young knight had recovered his self-posses.sion, 
 he went in search of Otho. He found him alone in the wood, 
 leaning with folded arms against a tree, and gazing moodily 
 on the ground. Warbeck's noble heart was touched at his 
 brother's dejection. 
 
 " Cheer thee, Otho," said he ; "I bring thee no bad tid- 
 ings ; I have seen Leoline — I have conversed with her — nay, 
 start not — she loves thee ! she is thine ! " 
 
 " Generous — generous Warbeck ! " exclaimed Otho ; and 
 he threw himself on his brother's neck. " No, no," said he, 
 " this must not be ; thou hast the elder claim — I resign 
 her to thee. Forgive me my waywardness, brother, forgive 
 me ! " 
 
 " Think of the past no more," said Warbeck ; " the love 
 of Leoline is excuse for greater offences than thine : and now, 
 be kind to her ; her nature is soft and keen. / know her 
 well ; for I have studied her faintest wish. Thou art hasty 
 and quick of ire ; but remember, that a word wounds where 
 love is deep. For my sake, as for hers, think more of her 
 happiness than thine own ; now seek her — she waits to hear 
 from thy lips the tale that sounded cold upon mine." 
 
 With that he left his brother, and, once more re-entering 
 the castle, he went into the hall of his ancestors. His father 
 still slept ; he put his hand on his gray hair, and blessed 
 him ; then stealing up to his chamber, he braced on his helm 
 and armor, and thrice kissing the hilt of his sword, said with 
 a flushed cheek, — 
 
 " Henceforth be i/wu my bride ! '• Then passing from 
 the castle, he sped by the most solitary paths down the rock, 
 gained the Rhine, and hailing one of the numerous fishermen 
 of the river, won the opposite shore ; and alone, but not sad, 
 for his high heart supported him, and Leoline at least was 
 happy, he hastened to Frankfort. 
 
 The town was all gayety and life, arms clanged at every 
 corner, the sounds of martial music, the wave of banners, the 
 glittering of plumed casques, the neighing of war-steeds, al)
 
 l6o THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 united to stir the blood and inflame the sense. St. Bertrand 
 had lifted the sacred cross along the shores of the Rhine, and 
 the streets of Frankfort witnessed with what success ! 
 
 On that same day Warbeck assumed the sacred badge, and 
 was enlisted among the knights of the Emperor Conrad. 
 
 We must suppose some time to have elapsed, and Otho 
 and Leoline were not yet wedded ; for, in the first fervor of 
 his gratitude to his brother, Otho had proclaimed tohisfathei 
 and to Leoline the conquest Warbeck had obtained over him- 
 self ; and Leoiine, touched to the heart, would not consent 
 that the wedding should take place immediately. " Let him, 
 at least," said she, " not be insulted by a premature festiv- 
 ity ; and give him time, amongst the lofty beauties he will 
 gaze upon in a far country, to forget, Otho, that he once 
 loved her who is the beloved of thee." 
 
 The old chief applauded this delicacy ; and even Otho, in 
 the first flush of his feelings towards his brother, did not ven- 
 ture to oppose it. They settled, then, that the marriage 
 should take place at the end of a year. 
 
 Months rolled away, and an absent and moody gloom set- 
 tled upon Otho's brow. In his excursion with his gay com- 
 panions among the neighboring towns, he heard of nothing 
 but the glory of the Crusaders, of the homage paid to the 
 heroes of the Cross at the courts they visited, of the adven- 
 tures of their life, and the exciting spirit that animated their 
 war. In fact, neither minstrel nor priest suffered the theme 
 to grow cold ; and the fame of those who had gone forth to 
 the holy strife, gave at once emulation and discontent to the 
 youths who remained behind, 
 
 " And my brother enjoys this ardent and glorious life." 
 said the impatient Otho ; " while I, whose arm is as strong, 
 and whose heart is as bold, languish here listening to the dull 
 tales of a hoary sire and the silly songs of an orphan girl,'' 
 His heart smote him at the last sentence, but he had already 
 begun to weary of the gentle love of Leoline. Perhaps when 
 he had no longer to gain a triumph over a rival, the excite- 
 ment palled : or perhaps his proud spirit secretly chafed at 
 being conquered by his brother in generosity, even when out- 
 shining him in the success of love. 
 
 But poor Leoline, once taught that she was to consider 
 
 Otho her betrothed, surrendered her heart entirely to his 
 
 control. His wild spirit, his dark beauty, his daring valor, 
 
 won while they awed her ; and in the fitfulness of his nature 
 
 ''e those perpetual springs of hope and fear, that are the
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. i6i 
 
 fountains of ever-agitated love. She saw with Increasing 
 grief the change that was growing over Otho's mind ; nor 
 did she divine tlie cause. " Surely I have not offended him." 
 thought she. 
 
 Among the companions of Otho was one who possessed 
 a singular sway over him. He was a knight of that mys- 
 terious order of the Temple, which exercised at one time so 
 great a command over the minds of men. 
 
 A severe and dangerous wound in a brawl with an Eng- 
 lish knight had confined the Templar at Frankfort, and pre- 
 vented his joining the Crusade. During his slow recovery 
 he had formed an intimacy with Otho, and taking up his resi- 
 dence at the castle of Liebenstein, had been struck with the 
 beauty of Leoline. Prevented by his oath from marriage, he 
 allowed himself a double license in love, and doubted not, 
 could he disengage the young knight from his betrothed, that 
 she would add a new conquest to the many he had already 
 achieved. Artfully therefore he painted to Otho the various 
 attractions of the Holy Cause ; and, above all, he failed not 
 to describe, with glowing colors, the beauties who, in the gor- 
 geous East, distinguished with a prodigal favor the warriors 
 of the Cross. Dowries, unknown in the more sterile moun- 
 tains of the Rhine, accompanied the hand of these beauteous 
 maidens ; and even a prince's daughter was not deemed, he 
 said, too lofty a marriage for the heroes who might win king- 
 doms for themselves. 
 
 "To me, " said the Templar, '' such hopes are eternally 
 denied. But you, were you not already betrothed, what for- 
 tunes might await you ! " 
 
 By such discourses the ambition of Otho was perpetually 
 aroused ; they served to deepen his discontent at his present 
 obscurity, and to convert to distaste the only solace it afforded 
 in the innocence and affection of Leoline. 
 
 One night, a minstrel sought shelter from the storm in the 
 halls of Liebenstein. His visit was welcomed by the chief, 
 and he repaid the hospitality he had received by the exercise 
 of his art. He sang of the chase, and the gaunt hound started 
 from the hearth. He sang of love, and Otho forgetting his 
 restless dreams, approached to Leoline, and laid himself at 
 her feet. Louder then and louder rose the strain. The min- 
 strel sang of war ; he painted the feats of the Crusaders ; he 
 plunged into the thickest of the battle ; the steed neighed ; 
 the trump sounded ; and you might have heard the ringing of 
 the steel. But when he came to signalize the name of the
 
 1 62 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 boldest knights, high amongst the loftiest sounded the name 
 of Sir Warbeck of Liebenstein. Thrice had he saved the im- 
 perial banner ; two chargers slain beneath him, he had covered 
 their bodies with the fiercest of the foe. Gentle in the tent 
 and terrible in the fray, the minstrel should forget his craft 
 ere the Rhine should forget its hero. The chief started from 
 his seat. Leoline clasped the minstrel's hand. 
 
 '' .Speak, — you have seen him — he lives — he is honored ? " 
 
 "I myself am but just from Palestine, brave chief and 
 ncble maiden. I saw the gallant knight of I^iebenstein 
 at the right hand of the imperial Conrad, And he, lady, 
 was the only knight whom admiration shone upon without 
 envy, its shadow. — Who then," continued the minstrel, once 
 more striking his harp, " who then would remain inglorious 
 in the hall .'' Shall not the banners of his sires reproach him 
 as they wave ? and shall not every voice from Palestine 
 strike shame into his soul .-' " 
 
 " Right,"' cried Otho, suddenly, and flinging himself at 
 the feet of his father. " Thou hearest what my brother has 
 done, and thine aged eyes weep tears of joy. Shall /only 
 dishonor thine old age with a rusted sword 1 No ! grant me, 
 like my brother, to go forth with the heroes of the Cross." 
 
 " Noble youth," cried the harper, " therein speaks the soul 
 of Sir Warbeck ; hear him, sir knight, — hear the noble 
 youih." 
 
 " Heaven cries aloud in his voice," said the Templar, 
 solemnly. 
 
 "My son, I cannot chide thine ardor," said the old chief, 
 raising him with trembling hands ; " but Leoline, thy be- 
 trothed ? " 
 
 Pale as a statue, with ears that doubted their sense as 
 they drank in the cruel words of her lover, stood the orphan. 
 She did not speak, she scarcely breathed ; she sank into her 
 seat, and gazed upon the ground, till, at the speech of the 
 chief, both maiden pride and maiden tenderness restored her 
 consciousness, and she said, — 
 
 " 7J uncle ! — Shall /bid Otho stay, when his wishes bid 
 him depart ? " 
 
 " He will return to thee, noble lady, covered with glor}%" 
 said the harper : but Otho said no more. The touching voice 
 of Leoline went to his soul ; he resumed his seat in silence ; 
 and Leoline, going up to him, whispered gently, " Act as 
 though I were not ; " and left the hall to commune with her 
 heart and to weep alone.
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 163 
 
 " I can wed her before I go," said Otho, suddenly, as he 
 sat tliat night in the Templar's chamber. 
 
 " Why, that is true ; and leave thy bride in the first week 
 —a hard trial ! " 
 
 " Better than incur the chance of never Calling her mine. 
 Dear, kind, beloved Leoline ! " 
 
 "Assuredly, she deserves all from thee ; and, indeed, it is 
 no small sacrifice, at thy years and with thy mien, to re- 
 nounce for ever all interest among the noble maidens thou 
 wilt visit. Ah, from the galleries of Constantinople what 
 eyes will look down on thee, and what ears, learning that 
 thou art Otho the bridegroom, will turn away, caring for thee 
 no more ! A bridegroom without a bride ! Nay, man, much 
 as the Cross wants warriors, I am enough thy friend to tell 
 thee, if thou weddest, to stay peaceably at home, and forget 
 in the chase the labors of war, from which thou wouldst strip 
 the ambition of love." 
 
 " I would I knew what were best," said Otho, irreso- 
 lutely. " My brother — ha, shall he for ever excel me ? 
 But Leoline, how will she grieve — she who left him for 
 me ! " 
 
 " Was that thy fault ? " said the Templar, gayly. *' It 
 may many times chance to thee again to be preferred to 
 another. Troth, it is a sin under which the conscience may 
 walk lightly enough. But sleep on it, Otho ; my eyes grow 
 heavy." 
 
 The next day Otho sought Leoline, and proposed to her 
 that their wedding should precede his parting ; but so em- 
 barrassed was he, so divided between two wishes, that 
 Leoline, offended, hurt, stung by his coldness, refused 
 the proposal at once. She left him, lest he should see 
 her weep, and then — then she repented even of her just 
 pride. 
 
 But Otho, striving to appease his conscience with the belief 
 that hers was now the sole fault, busied himself in prepara- 
 tions for his departure. Anxious to outshine his brother, he 
 departed not as Warbeck, alone and unattended, but levying 
 all the horse, men, and money that his domain of Sternfels — 
 which he had not yet tenanted — would afiford, he repaired to 
 Frankfort at the head of a glittering troop. 
 
 The Templar, affecting a relapse, tarried behind, and 
 promised to join him at that Constantinople of which he had 
 so loudly boasted. Meanwhile he devoted his whole powers 
 of pleasing to console the unhappy orphan. The force oi
 
 i64 I^HE PILGRIMS OF THE RIinVE. 
 
 her simple love was, however, stronger than all his arts. In 
 vain he insinuated doubts of Otho ; she refused to heal 
 them : in vain he poured with the softest accents into her ear 
 the witchery of flattery and song : she turned heedlessly 
 away : and only pained by the courtesies that had so little 
 resemblance to Otho, she shut herself up in her chamber, 
 and pined in solitude for her forsaken 
 
 The Templar now resolved to attempt darker arts to 
 obtain power over her, when, fortunately, he was sum 
 moned suddenly away by a mission from the Grand Master, 
 of so high import, that it could not be resisted by a passion 
 stronger in his breast than love- — the passion of ambition. 
 He left the castle to its solitude ; and Otho peopling it no 
 more with his gay companions, no solitude could be more un- 
 frequently disturbed. 
 
 Meanwhile, though, ever and anon, the fame of Warbeck 
 reached their ears, it came unaccompanied with that of 
 Otho, — of him they heard no tidings : and thus the love ol 
 the tender orphan was kept alive by the perpetual restless- 
 ness of fear. At length the old chief died, and Leoline was 
 left utterly alone. 
 
 One evening as she sat with her maidens in the hall, the 
 ringing of a steed's hoofs was heard in the outer court ; a 
 horn sounded, the heavy gates were unbarred, and a knight 
 of a stately mien and covered with the mantle of the Cross, 
 entered the hall ; he stopped for one moment at the entrance, 
 as if overpowered by his emotion ; in the next, he had 
 clasped Leoline to his breast. 
 
 " Dost thou not recognize thy cousin Warbeck } " He 
 doffed his casque, and she saw that majestic brow which, un- 
 like Otho's, had never changed or been clouded in its aspect 
 to her. 
 
 " The war is suspended for the present," said he. " I 
 learned my father's death, and I have returned home to 
 hang up my banner in the hall, and spend my days in 
 peace." 
 
 Time and the life of camps had worked their change upon 
 Warbeck's face ; the fair hair, deepened in its shade, was 
 worn from the temples ; and disclosed one scar that rather 
 aided the beauty of a countenance that had always some- 
 thing high and martial in its character ; but the calm it once 
 wore had settled down into sadness ; he conversed more 
 rarely than before, and though he smiled not less often, nor 
 less kindly, the smile had more of thought, and the kindness
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 165 
 
 had forgot its passion. He had apparently conquered a love 
 that was so early crossed, but not that fidelity of re- 
 membrance which made Leoline dearer to him than all 
 others, and forbade him to replace the images he had graven 
 upon his soul. 
 
 The orphan's lips trembled with the name of Otho, but a 
 certain recollection stifled even her anxiety. Warbeck has- 
 tened to forestall her questions. 
 
 " Otho was well," he said, " and sojourning at Constan- 
 tinople ; he had lingered there so long that the crusade had 
 terminated without his aid : doubtless now he would speedily 
 return ; a month, a week, nay, a day, might restore him to 
 her side." 
 
 Leoline was inexpressibly consoled, yet something re- 
 mained untold. Why, if so eager for the strife of the sacred 
 tomb, had he thus tarried at Constantinople ? She won- 
 dered, she wearied conjecture, but she did not dare to search 
 farther. 
 
 The generous Warbeck concealed from her that Otho led 
 a life of the most reckless and indolent dissipation ; — wasting 
 his wealth in the pleasures of the Greek court, and only oc- 
 cupying his ambition with the wild schemes of founding a 
 principality in those foreign climes, w"hich the enterprises of 
 the Norman adventurers had rendered so alluring to the 
 knightly bandits of the age. 
 
 The cousins resumed their old friendship, and Warbeck 
 believed that it was friendship alone. They walked again 
 among the gardens in which their childhood had strayed ; 
 they sat again on the green turf whereon they had woven 
 flowers ; they looked down on the eternal mirror of the 
 Rhine ; — ah ! could it have reflected the same unawakened 
 freshness of their life's early spring ! 
 
 The grave and contemplative mind of Warbeck had not 
 been so contented with the honors of war, but that .it had 
 sought also those calmer sources of emotion which were yet 
 found among the sages of the East. He had drunk at the 
 fountain of the wisdom of those distant climes, and had ac- 
 quired the habits of meditation which were indulged by those 
 wiser tribes, from which the Crusaders brought back to the 
 North the knowledge that was destined to enlighten their 
 posterity. Warbeck, therefore, had little in common with the 
 ruder chiefs around : he did not summon them to his board, 
 nor attend at their noisy wassails. Often late at night, in 
 yon shattered tower, his lonely lamp shone still over the
 
 1 66 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 mighty stream, and his only relief to loneliness was in the 
 presence and the song of his soft cousin. 
 
 Months rolled on, when suddenly a vague and fearful 
 rumor reached the castle of Liebenstein. Otho was return- 
 ing home to the neighboring tower of Sternfels ; but not alone. 
 He brought back with him a Greek bride of surpassing 
 beauiy, and dowered with almost regal wealth. Leoline was 
 the first to discredit the rumor ; Leoline was soon the only 
 one who disbelieved. 
 
 . Bright in the summer noon flashed the array of horse- 
 men ; far up the steep ascent wound the gorgeous cavalcade ; 
 the lonely towers of Liebenstein heard the echo of many a 
 laugh and peal of merriment. Otho bore home his bride to 
 the hall of Sternfels. 
 
 That night there was a great banquet in Otho's castle ; 
 the lights shone from every casement, and music swelled loud 
 and ceaselessly within. 
 
 By the side of Otho, glittering with the prodigal jewels 
 of the East, sat the Greek. Her dark locks, her flashing 
 eye, the false colors of her complexion, dazzled the eyes of 
 her guests. On her left hand sat the Templar. 
 
 " By the holy rood," quoth the Templar, gayly, though 
 he crossed himself as he spoke, " we shall scare the owls to- 
 night on those grim towers of Liebenstein. Thy grave 
 brother. Sir Otho, will have much to do to comfort his cousin 
 when she sees what a gallant life she would have led with 
 thee." 
 
 " Poor damsel ! " said the Greek, with afl"ected pity, 
 " doubtless she will now be reconciled to the rejected one. I 
 hear he is a knight of a comely mien." 
 
 " Peace ! " said Otho, sternly, and quaffing a large goblet 
 of wine. 
 
 The Greek bit her lip, and glanced meaningly at the Tem- 
 plar, who returned the glance. 
 
 " Nought but a beauty such as thine can win my par- 
 don," said Otho, turning to his bride, and gazing passionate- 
 ly in her face. 
 
 The Greek smiled. 
 
 Well sped the feast, the laugh deepened, the wine circled, 
 when Otho's eye rested on a guest at the bottom of the 
 board, whose figure was mantled from head to foot, and whose 
 face was covered by a dark veil. 
 
 " Beshrew me ! " said he, aloud ; " but this is scarce
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 167 
 
 courteous at our revel : will the stranger vouchsafe to un- 
 mask ? " 
 
 These words turned all eyes to the figure, and they who 
 sat next it perceived that it trembled violently ; at length it 
 rose, and walking slowly, but with grace, to the fair Greek, it 
 laid beside her a wreath of flowers. 
 
 " It is a simple gift, ladye," said the stranger, in a voice 
 of such sweetness that the rudest guest was touched by 
 it. " But it is all I can offer, and the bride of Otho 
 should not be without a gift at my hands. May ye both be 
 happy ! " 
 
 With these words, the stranger turned and passed from 
 the hall silent as a shadow. 
 
 " Bring back the stranger ! " cried the Greek, recovering 
 her surprise. Twenty guests sprang up to obey her mandate. 
 
 " No, no ! " said Otho, waving his hand impatiently. 
 "Touch her not, heed her not, at your peril." 
 
 The Greek bent over the flowers to conceal her anger, 
 and from amongst them dropped the broken half of a ring. 
 Otho recognized it at once ; it was the half of that ring which 
 he had broken with his betrothed. Alas, he required not 
 such a sign to convince him that that figure, so full of ineffable 
 grace, that touching voice, that simple action so tender in its 
 sentiment, that gift, that blessing, came only from the for- 
 saken and forgiving Leoline ! 
 
 But Warbeck, alone in his solitary tower, paced to and 
 fro with agitated steps. Deep, undying wrath at his brother's 
 falsehood, mingled with one burning, one delicious hope. He 
 confessed now that he had deceived himself when he thought 
 Ills passion was no more ; was there any longer a bar to his 
 union with Leoline ? 
 
 In that delicacy which was breathed into him by his love, 
 he had forborne to seek, or to offer her the insult of consola- 
 tion. He felt that the shock should be borne alone, and yet 
 he pined, he thirsted, to throw himself at her feet. 
 
 Nursing these contending thoughts, he was aroused by a 
 knock at his door ; he opened it — the passage was thronged by 
 Leoline's maidens ; pale, anxious, weeping. Leoline had left 
 the castle, with but one female attendant ; none knew whither : 
 — they knew too soon. From the hall of Sternfels she had 
 passed over in the dark and inclement night, to the valley in 
 which the convent of Bornhofed offered to the weary of spiri< 
 and the broken of heart a refuge at the shrine of God. 
 
 At daybreak the next morning, Warbeck was at the con
 
 1 68 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 vent's gate. He saw Leoline : what a change one night ot 
 suffering had made in that face, which was the fountain of all 
 loveUness to him ? He clasped her in his arms ; he wept ; he 
 urged all that love could urge : he besought her to accept 
 that heart, which had never wronged her memorj^bv a thought. 
 " Oh, Leoline ! didst thou not say once that these arms 
 nursed thy childhood ; that this voice soothed thine early 
 sorrows ! Ah, trust to them again and for ever. From a love 
 that forsook thee, turn to the love that never swerved." 
 
 " No," said Leoline ; " No. What would the chivalry 
 of which thou art the boast — what would they say of thee, 
 wert thou to wed one affianced and deserted, who tarried 
 years for another, and brought to thine arms only that heart 
 which he had abandoned .'' No ; and even if thou, and I know 
 thou wouldst be, wert callous to such wrong of thy high name, 
 shall I bring to thee a broken heart, and bruised spirit 1 shalt 
 thou wed sorrow and not joy ? and shall sighs that will not 
 cease, and tears that may not be dried, be the only dowry of 
 thy bride ? Thou, too, for whom all blessings should be or- 
 dained ? No, forget me ; forget thy poor Leoline ! She hath 
 nothing but prayers for thee." 
 
 In vain Warbeck pleaded ; in vain he urged all that 
 passion and truth could urge ; the springs of earthly love were 
 for ever dried up in the orphan's heart, and her resolution 
 was immovable — she tore herself from his arms, and the gate 
 of the convent creaked harshly on his ear. 
 
 A new and stern emotion now wholly possessed him ; 
 though naturally mild and gentle, he cherished anger, when 
 once it was aroused, with the strength of a calm mind. 
 Leoline's tears, her sufferings, her wrongs, her uncomplaining 
 spirit, the change already stamped upon her face, all cried 
 aloud to him for vengeance. •' She is an orphan," said he, 
 bitterly ; "she hath none to protect, to redress her, save me 
 alone. My father's charge over her forlorn youth descends 
 of right to me. What matters it whether her forsaker be my 
 brother ? — he is her foe. Hath he not crushed her heart i 
 Hath he not consigned her to sorrow till the grave ? And 
 with what insult ; no warning, no excuse ; with lewd wassailers 
 keeping revel for his new bridals in the hearing — before the 
 sight — of his betrothed ! Enough ! the time hath come, 
 when, to use his own words, ' One of us two must fall ! ' " He 
 half-drew his sword as he spoke, and thrusting it back vio- 
 lently into the sheath, strode home to his solitary castle. The 
 sound of steeds and of the hunting horn met him at his por
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 169 
 
 tal : the bridal train of Sternfels, all mirth and gladness, were 
 parting for the chase. 
 
 That evening a knight in complete armor entered the 
 banquet-hall of Sternfels, and defied Otho, on the part of 
 Warbeck of Liebenstein, to mortal combat. 
 
 Even the Templar was startled by so unnatural a challenge ; 
 but Otho, reddening, took up the gage, and the day and spot 
 were fixed. Discontented, wroth with himself, a savage glad- 
 ness seized him, he longed to wreak his desperate feelingseven 
 on his brother. Nor had he ever in his jealous heart for- 
 given that brother his virtues and his renown. 
 
 At the appointed hour, the brothers met as foes. War- 
 beck's vizor was up, and all the settled sternness of his soul 
 was stamped upon his brow. But Otho, more willing to 
 brave the arm than to face the front of his brother, kept his 
 vizor down ; the Templar stood by him with folded arms. It 
 was a study in human passions to his mocking mind. Scarce 
 had the first trump sounded to this dread conflict, when a new 
 actor entered on the scene. The rumor of so unprecedented 
 an event had not failed to reach the convent of Bornhofen ; — 
 and now, two by two, came the sisters of the holy shrine, and 
 the armed men made way, as with trailing garments and 
 veiled faces they swept along into the very lists. At that 
 moment one from amongst them left her sisters with a slow 
 majestic pace, and paused not till she stood right between the 
 brother foes. 
 
 " Warbeck," she said in a hollow voice, that curdled up his 
 dark spirit as it spoke, " is it thus thou wouldst prove thy lovy 
 and maintain thy trust over the fatherless orphan whom thy 
 sire bequeathed to thy care ? Shall I have murder on me 
 soul ? " At that question she paused, and those who heard 
 It were struck dumb and shuddered. 
 
 " Shall I forget thy wrongs, Leoline ? " said Warbeck. 
 " Wrongs ! they united me to God ! they are forgiven, 
 they are no more. Earth has deserted me, but heaven hath 
 taken me to its arms ; — shall I murmur at the change ? And 
 thou, Otho — (here her voice faltered) — thou, does thy con- 
 science smite thee not ? — wouldst thou atone for robbing me 
 of hope by barring against me the future ? Wretch that I 
 should be, could I dream of mercy — could I dream of com- 
 fort, if thy brother fell by thy sword in my cause ? Otho, ] 
 have pardoned thee, and blessed thee and thine. Once, per- 
 haps, thou didst love me ; remember how I loved thee — cast 
 down thine arms."
 
 lyo 
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 Otho gazed at the veiled form before him. Where had 
 the soft Leoline learned to command? — he turned to his 
 brother , he felt all that he had inflicted upon both ; and cast- 
 ing his sword upon the ground, he knelt at the feet of Leo- 
 line, and kissed her garment with a devotion that votary 
 never lavished on a holier saint. 
 
 The spell that lay over the warriors around was broken ; 
 there was one loud cry of congratulation and joy. " And 
 thou, Warbeck ! " said Leoline, turning to the sjDOt where, 
 still motionless and haughty, Warbeck stood. 
 
 " Have I ever rebelled against thy will ? " said he, softly ; 
 and buried the point of his sword in the earth. — " Yet, Leo- 
 line, yet," added he, looking at his kneeling brother, " yet 
 art thou already better avenged than by this steel ! " 
 
 " Thou art ! thou art ! " cried Otho, smiting his breast ; 
 and slowly, and scarce noting the crowd that fell back from 
 his path, Warbeck left the lists. 
 
 Leoline said no more ; her divine errand was fulfilled. 
 She looked long and wistfully after the stately form of the 
 knight of Liebenstein, and then, with a slight sigh, she turned 
 to Otho : " This is the last time we shall meet on earth. 
 Peace be with us all." 
 
 She then, with the same majestic and collected bearing, 
 passed on towards the sisterhood ; and as, in the same sol- 
 emn procession, they glided back towards the convent, there 
 was not a man present — no, not even the hardened Templar 
 — who would not, like Otho, have bent his knee to Leoline. 
 
 Once more Otho plunged into the wild revelry of the 
 age ; his castle was thronged with guests, and night after 
 night the lighted halls shone down athwart the tranquil 
 Rliine. The beauty of the Greek, the wealth of Otho, the 
 fame of the Templar, attracted all the chivalry from far and 
 near. Never had the banks of the Rhine known so hospita- 
 ble a lord as the knight of Sternfels. Yet gloom seized him 
 in the midst of gladness, and the revel was welcome only as 
 the escape from remorse. The voice of scandal, however, 
 soon began to mingle with that of envy at the pomp of Otho. 
 The fair Greek, it was said, weary of her lord, lavished her 
 smiles on others : the young and the fair were always most 
 acceptable at the castle ; and, above all, her guilty love for 
 the Templar scarcely affected disguise. Otho alone ap- 
 peared unconscious of the rumor ; and though he had begun 
 to neglect his bride, he relaxed not in his intimacy with the 
 Templar.
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 171 
 
 It was noon, and the Greek was sitting in her bower alone 
 with her suspected lover ; the rich perfumes of the East 
 mingled with the fragrance of flowers, and various luxuries, 
 unknown till then in those northern shores, gave a soft and 
 effeminate character to the room. 
 
 " I tell thee," said the Greek, petulantly, " that he begins 
 to suspect ; that I have seen him watch thee, and mutter as 
 he watched, and play with the hilt of his dagger. Better .et 
 us fly ere it is too late, for his vengeance would be terril)le 
 were it once roused against us. Ah, why did I ever forsake 
 my own sweet land for these barbarous shores ! There, love 
 is not considered eternal, nor inconstancy a crime worthy 
 death." 
 
 " Peace, pretty one ! " said the Templar, carelessly , 
 " ihou knowest not the laws of our foolish chivalry. Think- 
 est thou I could tly from a knight's halls like a thief in the 
 night ? Why verily, even the red cross would not cover such 
 dishonor. If thou fearest that thy dull lord suspects, let us 
 part. The emperor hath sent to me from Frankfort. Ere 
 evening I might be on my way thither." 
 
 " And I left to brave the barbarian's revenge alone ? Is 
 this thy chivalry ? " 
 
 " Nay, prate not so wildly," answered the Templar. 
 " Surely, when the object of his suspicion is gone, thy woman's 
 art and thy Greek wiles can easily allay the jealous fiend. 
 Do I not know thee, Glycera .'' Why, thou wouldst fool all 
 men — save a Templar." 
 
 " And thou, cruel, wouldst thou leave me ? " said the 
 Greek, weeping. " How shall I live without thee ? " 
 
 The Templar laughed slightly. " Can such eyes ever 
 weep without a comforter ? But farewell ; I must not be 
 found with thee. To-morrow I depart for Frankfort; we shall 
 meet again." 
 
 As soon as the door closed on the Templar, the Greek 
 rose, and pacing the room said, " Selfish, selfish ! how could 
 I ever trust him 1 Yet I dare not brave Otho alone. Surely 
 it was his step that disturbed us in our yesterday's interview. 
 Nay, I will fly. I can never want a companion." 
 
 She clapped her hands ; a young page appeared ; she 
 threw herself on her seat and wept bitterly. 
 
 The page approached, and love was mingled with his 
 compassion. 
 
 " Why weepest thou, dearest lady ? " said he ; " is there
 
 172 
 
 THE riLGKJMS OF THE R II LYE. 
 
 aught in which Conrad's services — services! — ah thou hast 
 read his heart — fiis devotion may avail ? " 
 
 Otho had wandered out the whole day alone ; his vassals 
 had observed that his brow was more gloomy than its wont, 
 for he usually concealed whatever might prey within. Some 
 of the most confidential of his servitors he had conferred 
 with, and the conference had deepened the shadow on his 
 countenance. He returned at twilight ; the Greek did not 
 honor the repast with her presence. She was unwell, and 
 not to be disturbed. The gay Templar was the life of the 
 board. 
 
 " Thou carriest a sad brow to-day. Sir Otho," said he 
 " good faith, thou hast caught it from the air of Liebenstein. 
 
 " I have something troubles me," answered Otho, forcing 
 a smile, "which I would fain impart to thy friendly bosom. 
 The night is clear and the moon is up, let us forth alone into 
 the garden." 
 
 The Temple rose and he forgot not to gird on his sword 
 as he followed the knight. 
 
 Otho led the way to one of the most distant terraces that 
 overhung the Rhine. 
 
 " Sir Temple," said he, pausing, " answer me one ques- 
 tion on thy knightly honor. Was it thy step that left my lady's 
 bower yestereve at vespers ? " 
 
 Startled by so sudden a query, the wily Templar faltered 
 in his reply. 
 
 The red blood mounted to Otho's brow. " Nay, lie not, 
 sir knight. These eyes, thanks to God ! have not witnessed, 
 but these ears have heard from others of my dishonor." 
 
 As Otho spoke, the Templar's eye, resting on the water, 
 perceived a boat rowing fast over the Rhine ; the distance 
 forbade him to see more than the outline of two figures with- 
 in it. " She was right," thought he ; " perhaps that boat al 
 ready bears her from the danger." 
 
 Drawing himself up to the full height of his tall stature, 
 the Templar replied haughtih', — 
 
 " Sir Otho of Sternfels, if thou hast deigned to question 
 thy vassals, obtain from them only an answer. It is not to 
 contradict such minions that the knights of the Temple pledge 
 their word ! " 
 
 " Enough," cried Otho, losing patience, and striking the 
 Templar with his clenched hand. " Draw, traitor ! draw ! " 
 
 Alone in his lofty tower Warbeck watched the night 
 deepen over the heavens, and communed mournfully with
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 173 
 
 himself. " To what end," thought he, " have these strong 
 affections, these capacities of love, this yearning after sym- 
 pathy, been given me ? Unloved and unknown I walk to my 
 grave, and all the noble mysteries of my heart are forever 
 to be untold." 
 
 Thus musing, he heard not the challenge of the warder 
 on the wall, or the unbarring of the gate below, or the tread 
 of footsteps along the winding stair ; the door was thrown 
 suddenly open, and Otho stood before him. " Come," he 
 said, in a low voice trembling with passion ; " come, I will 
 show thee that which shall glad thine heart. Twofold is 
 Leoline avenged." 
 
 Warbeck looked in amazement on a brother he had not 
 met since they stood in arms each against the other's life, 
 and he now saw that the arm that Otho extended to him 
 dripped with blood, trickling drop by drop upon the floor. 
 
 " Come," said Otho, " follow nie ; it is my last prayer. 
 Come, for Leoline's sake, come." 
 
 At that name Warbeck hesitated no longer ; he girded on 
 his sword, and followed his brother down the stairs and 
 through the castle-gate. The porter scarcely believed his 
 eyes when he saw the two brothers, so divided, go forth at 
 that hour alone, and seemingly in friendship. 
 
 Warbeck, arrived at that epoch in the feelings when 
 nothing stuns, followed with silent steps the rapid strides of 
 his brother. The two castles, as you are aware, are scarce a 
 stone's throw from each other. In a few minutes Otho 
 paused at an open space in one of the terraces of Sternfels, 
 on which the moon shone bright and steady. '' Behold ! " 
 he said, in a ghastly voice, " behold ! " and Warbeck 
 saw on the sward the corpse of the Templar, bathed 
 with the blood that even still poured fast and warm from his 
 heart. 
 
 " Hark ! " said Otho. " He it was who first made me 
 waver in my vows to Leoline ; he persuaded me to Vvcd yon 
 whited falsehood. Hark ! he, who had thus wronged my 
 real love, dishonored me with my faithless bride, and thus — ■ 
 thus — thus " — as grinding his teeth, he spurned again and 
 again the dead body of" the Templar — "thus Leoline and 
 myself are avenged ! " 
 
 " And thy wife 1 " said Warbeck, pityingly. 
 
 " Fled — fled with a hireling page. It is well ! she 
 was not worth the sword that was once belted on — by 
 Leoline."
 
 174 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 The tradition, dear Gertrude, proceeds to tell us that 
 Otho, though often menaced by the rude justice of the day 
 for the death of the Templar, defied and escaped the 
 menace. On the very night of his revenge, a long delirious 
 illness seized him ; the generous Warbeck forgave, forgot all, 
 save that he had been once consecrated by Leoline's love. 
 He tended him through his sickness, and when he recovered, 
 Otho was an altered man. He forswore the comrades he 
 had once courted, the revels he had once led. The halls of 
 Sternfels were desolate as those of Liebenstein, The only 
 companion Otho sought was Warbeck, and Warbeck bore 
 with him. They had no topic in common, for on one subject 
 Warbeck at least felt too deeply ever to trust himself to 
 speak ; yet did a strange and secret sympathy re-unite them. 
 They had at least a common sorrow ; often they were seen 
 wandering together by the solitary banks of the river, or 
 amidst the woods, without apparently interchanging word or 
 sign. Otho died first, and still in the prime of youth ; and 
 Warbeck was now left companionless. In vain the imperial 
 court wooed him to its pleasures ; in vain the camp proffered 
 him the oblivion of renown. Ah ! could he tear himself 
 from a spot where morning and night he could see afar, 
 amidst the valley, the roof that sheltered Leoline, and on 
 which every copse, every turf, reminded him of former days ? 
 His solitary life, his midnight vigils, strange scrolls about his 
 chamber, obtained him by degrees the repute of cultivating 
 the darker arts ; and shunning, he became shunned by all. 
 But still it was sweet to hear from time to time of the increas- 
 ing sanctity of her in whom he had treasured up his last 
 thoughts of earth. She it was who healed the sick ; she it 
 was who relieved the poor ; and the superstition of 
 that age brought pilgrims from afar to the altars that she 
 served. 
 
 Many years afterwards, a band of lawless robbers, who 
 ever and anon broke from their mountain fastnesses to 
 pillage and to desolate the valleys of the Rhine ; who spared 
 neither sex nor age ; neither tower nor hut ; nor even the 
 houses of God himself ; laid waste the territories round 
 Bornhofen, and demanded treasure from the convent. The 
 abbess, of the bold lineage of Rudesheim, refused the sacri- 
 legious demand ; the convent was stormed ; its vassals re- 
 sisted ; the robbers, inured to slaughter, won the day ; al- 
 ready the gates were forced, when a knight at the head of a 
 small but hardy trooD, rushed down from the mountain siae,
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 175 
 
 and turned the tide of the fray. Wherever his sword flashed, 
 fell a foe. Wherever his war-cry sounded, was a space of 
 dead men in the thick of the battle. The fight was won ; the 
 convent saved ; the abbess and the sisterhood came forth to 
 bless their deliverer. Laid under an aged oak, he was 
 bleedinsf fast to death : his head was bare and his locks were 
 gray, but scarcely yet with years. One only of the sister- 
 hood recognized that majestic face ; one bathed his parched 
 lips ; one held his dying hand ; and in Leoline's presence 
 passed away the faithful spirit of the last lord of Lieben- 
 stein ! 
 
 " Oh ! " shid Gertrude, through her tears ; " surely you 
 must have altered the facts, — surely — surely — it must have 
 been impossible for Leoline, with a woman's heart, to have 
 loved Otho more than Warbeck ? " 
 
 " My child," said Vane, " so think women when they 
 read a tale of love, and see the whole heart bared before 
 them ; but not so act they in real life — when they see only 
 tiie surface of character, and pierce not its depths — until it is 
 too late ! " 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 The Immortality of the Soul — A Common Incident not before described 
 — Trevylyan and Gertrude. 
 
 The day now grew cool as it waned to its decline, and the 
 breeze came sharp upon the delicate frame of the sufferer. 
 They resolved to proceed no farther ; and as they carried 
 with them attendants and baggage, which rendered their 
 route almost independent of the ordinary accommodation, 
 they steered for the opposite shore, and landed at a village 
 beautifully sequestered in a valley, and where they fortunate- 
 ly obtained a lodging not often met with in the regions of 
 the picturesque. 
 
 When Gertrude, at an early hour, retired to bed. Vane 
 
 and Du e fell into speculative conversation upon the 
 
 nature of man. Vane's philosophy was of a quiet and passive 
 scepticism; the physician dared more boldly, and rushed 
 from doubt to negation. The attention of Trevylyan, as he
 
 iy6 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 sat apart and musing, was arrested in despite of himself. He 
 listened to an argument in which he took no share ; but 
 which suddenly inspired him with an interest in that awful 
 subject which, in the heat of youth and the occupations of 
 the world, had never been so prominently called forth 
 before. 
 
 " What ! " thought he, with unutterable anguish, as he 
 listened to the earnest vehemence of the Frenchman and the 
 tranquil assent of Vane ; " if this creed were indeed true, — 
 if there be no other world — Gertrude is lost to me eternally, 
 through the dread gloom of death there would break forth no 
 star ! " 
 
 That is a peculiar incident that perhaps occurs to us all 
 at times, but which I have never found expressed in books ; 
 — viz. to hear a doubt of futurity at the very moment in 
 which the present is most overcast ; and to find at once this 
 world stripped of its delusion, and the next of its consolation. 
 It is perhaps for others, rather than ourselves, that the fond 
 heart requiries an Hereafter. The tranquil rest, the shadow, 
 and the silence, the mere pause of the wheel of life, have no 
 terror for the wise, who know the due value of the world, — 
 
 "After the billows of a -stormy sea, 
 Sweet is at last the haven of repose !" 
 
 Eut not so when that stillness is to divide us eternally from 
 others ; when those we have loved with all the passion, the 
 devotion, the watchful sanctity of the weak human heart, are 
 to exist to us no more ! — when, after long years of desertion 
 and widowhood on earth, there is to be no hope of re-union 
 in that Invisible beyond the stars ; when the torch, not of 
 life only, but of love, is to be quenched in the Dark Fountain ; 
 and the grave, that we would fain hope is the great restorer 
 of broken ties, is but the dumb seal of hopeless — utter — in- 
 exorable separation ! And it is this thought — this sentiment, 
 which makes religion out of woe, and teaches belief to the 
 mourning heart, that in the gladness of united afifections felt 
 not the necessity of a heaven ! To how many is the death of 
 the beloved the parent of faith ! 
 
 Stung by his thoughts Trevylyan rose abruptly, and steal- 
 ing from the lovvly hostelry, walked forth amidst the serene 
 and deepening night ; from the window of Gertrude's room 
 the light streamed calm on the purple air. 
 
 With uneven steps and many a pause, he paced to and 
 fro beneath the window, and gave the rein to his thoughts.
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. i-j-j 
 
 How intensely he felt the all that Gertrude was to him ! 
 How bitterly he foresaw the change in his lot and character 
 that her death Avould work out ! For who that met him in 
 later years ever dreamed that emotions so soft, and yet so 
 ardent, had visited one so stern ? Who could have believed 
 that time was, when the polished and cold Trevylyan had 
 kept the vigils he now held below the chamber of one so 
 little like himself as Gertrude, in that remote and solitary 
 hamlet ; shut in by the haunted mountains" of the Rhine, and 
 beneath the moonlight of the romantic North? 
 
 While thus engaged, the light in Gertrude's room was 
 suddenly extinguished ; it is impossible to express how much 
 that trivial incident affected him ! It was like an emblem of 
 what was to come ; rhe light had been the only evidence of 
 life that broke u]3on that hour, and he was now left alone 
 with the shades of night. Was not this like the herald of 
 Gertrude's own death ; the extinction of the only living ray 
 that broke upon the darkness of the world ? 
 
 His anguish, his presentiment of utter desolation in- 
 creased. He groaned aloud : he dashed his clenched hand 
 to his breast — large and cold drops of agony stole down his 
 brow. " Father," he exclaimed with a struggling voice, " let 
 this cup pass from me ! Smite my ambition to the root, curse 
 me with poverty, shame, and bodily cHsease ; but leave me 
 this one solace, this one companion of my fate. ! " 
 
 At this moment Gertrude's window opened gently, and he 
 heard her accents steal soothingly upon his ear. 
 
 " Is not that your voice, Albert .<* " said she. softly. " I 
 heard it just as I laid down to rest, and could not sleep while 
 you were thus exposed to the damp night air. You do not 
 answer ; surely it is your voice : when did I mistake it for 
 another's .'' " 
 
 Mastering with a violent effort his emotions, Trevylyan 
 answered, with a sort of convulsive gayety — 
 
 " Why come to these shores, dear Gertrude, unless ycu 
 are honored with the chivalry that belongs to them .'' What 
 wind, what blight, can harm me while within the circle of 
 your presence ; and what sleep can bring me dreams so dear 
 as the waking thoughts of you 1 " 
 
 " It is cold," said Gertrude, shivering ; " come in, dear 
 Albert, I beseech you, and I will thank you to-morrow." 
 Gertrude's voice was choked by the hectic cough, that went 
 like an arrow to Trevylyan's heart ; and he felt that in hei
 
 178 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 anxiety for him she was now exposing her own frame to the 
 unwholesome night. 
 
 He spoke no more, but hurried within the house; and 
 when the gray Ught of morn broke upon his gloomy features, 
 haggard from the want of sleep, it might have seemed, in 
 that dim eye and fast-sinking cheek, as if the lovers were not 
 to be divided — even by death itself. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 In which the reader will learn how the Fairies were received by the 
 Sovereigns of the Mines. — The complaint of the last of the Fauns. — 
 The Red Huntsman. — The storm. — Death. 
 
 In the deep valley of Ehrenthal, the metal kings — the 
 Prince of the Silver Palaces, the Gnome Monarch of the dull 
 Lead Mine, the President of the Copper United States, held 
 a court to receive the fairy wanderers from the island of 
 Nonnewerth. The prince was there, in a gallant hunting- 
 suit of oak-leaves, in honor to England ; and wore a profu- 
 sion of fairy orders, which had been instituted from time to 
 time in honor of the human poets that had celebrated the spiri- 
 tual and ethereal tribes. Chief of these, sweet Dreamers of the 
 Midsummer Night's Dream, was the badge crystallized from 
 the dews that rose above the whispering reeds of Avon, on 
 the night of thy birth — the great epoch of the intellectual 
 world. Nor wert thou, O beloved MusEeus ! nor thou, dim- 
 dreaming Tieck ! nor were ye, the wild imaginer of the 
 bright-haired Undine, and the wayward spirit that invoked 
 for the gloomy Manfred the Witch of the breathless Alps, 
 and the spirits of earth and air ! — nor were ye without the 
 honors of fairy homage. Your memory may fade from the 
 heart of man, and the spells of new enchanters may succeed 
 to the charm you once wove over the face of the common 
 world ; but still in the green knolls of the haunted valley and 
 the deep shade of forests, and the starred palaces of air, ye 
 are honored by the beings of your dreams, as demigods and 
 kings. Your graves are tended by invisible hands, and the 
 places of your birth are hallowed by no perishable worship. 
 
 Even as I write,* far away amidst the hills of Scotland, 
 
 * It was just at the time the author was finishing this work that the 
 great master of his art was drawing to the close of his career.
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 179 
 
 and by the forest thou hast clothed with immortal verdure 
 thou, the waker of " the Harp by lone GlenfiUan's spring," 
 art passing from the earth which thou hast " painted with de- 
 light." And, such are the chances of mortal fame, our chil- 
 dren's children may raise new idols on the site of thy holy 
 altar, and cavil where their sires adored; but for thee the 
 mermaid of the ocean shall wail in her coral caves, and the 
 sprites that lives in the waterfalls shall mourn. Strange 
 sliapes shall hew thy monument in the recesses of the 
 lonely rocks ; ever by moonlight shall the fairies pause from 
 their roundel when some wild note of their minstrelsy reminds 
 them of thine own ; — ceasing from their revelries to weep for 
 the silence of that mighty lyre, which breathed alike a reve- 
 lation of the mysteries of spirits and of men ! 
 
 The Kins: of the Silver Mines sat in a cavern in the val- 
 ley, through which the moonlight pierced its way and slept in 
 shadow on the soil, shining with metals wrought into unnum- 
 bered shapes ; and below him, on a humbler throne, with a 
 gray beard and downcast eye, sat the aged King of the 
 Dwarfs that preside over the dull realms of lead, and inspire 
 
 the verse of , and the prose of . And there, too, a 
 
 fantastic household elf was the president of the Copper Re 
 public — a spirit that loves economy and the Uses, and smiles 
 sparingly on the Beautiful. But, in the centre of the cave, 
 upon beds of the softest mosses, the untrodden growth of 
 ages, reclined the fairy visitors — Nymphalin seated by hei 
 betrothed. And round the walls of the cave were dwarf at- 
 tendants on the sovereigns of the metals, of a thousand odd 
 shapes and fantastic garments. On the abrupt ledges of the 
 rocks the bats, charmed to stillness but not sleep, clustered 
 thickly, watching the scene with fixed and amazed eyes ; and 
 one old gray owl, the favorite of the witch of the valley, sat 
 blinking in a corner, listening with all her might that she 
 mi^ht brins: home the scandal to her mistress. 
 
 " And tell me. Prince of the Rhine-Island Fays," said 
 the King of the Silver Mines, " for thou art a traveller, and 
 a fairy that hath seen much, how go men's affairs in the upper 
 world ? As to ourself we live here in a stupid splendor, and 
 only hear the news of the day when our brother of lead pays 
 a visit to the English printing-press, or the President of Cop- 
 per goes to look at his improvements in steam-engines." 
 
 " Indeed," replied Fayzenhim, preparing to speak, like 
 ^neas in the Carthaginian court ; " indeed, your majesty, I 
 know not much that will interest you in the present aspect of
 
 iSo THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 mortal affairs, except that you are quite as much honored at 
 this day as wlien the Roman conqueror bent his knee to 3'ou 
 among: the mountains of Taunus: and a vast number of little 
 round subjects of yours are constantly carried about by the 
 rich, and pined after with hopeless adoration by the poor. 
 But, begging your majesty's pardon, may I ask what has be- 
 come of your cousin, the King of the Golden Mines ? I know 
 very well that he has no dominion in these valleys, and do 
 not therefore wonder at his absence from your court this, 
 night ; but I see so little of his subjects on earth, that I 
 should fear his empire was well-nigh at an end, if I did not 
 recognize everywhere the most servile homage paid so a 
 power now become almost invisible." 
 
 The King of the Silver Mines fetched a deep sigh, " Alas, 
 prince," said he, " too well do you divine the expiration of 
 my cousin's empire. So many of his subjects have from time 
 to time gone forth to the world, pressed into military service 
 and never returning, that his kingdom is nearly depopulated. 
 And he lives far off in the distant parts of the earth, in a 
 state of melancholy seclusion ; the age of gold has passed, 
 the age of paper has commenced." 
 
 " Paper," said Nymphalin, who was still somewhat of a 
 precieuse, — " paper is a wonderful thing. What pretty books 
 the human people write upon it ! " 
 
 " Ah ! that's what I desire to convey," said the silver 
 king. " It is the age less of paper money than paper govern- 
 ment : the press is the true bank." The lord treasurer of 
 the English fairies pricked up his ears at the word " bank." 
 For he was the Attwood of the fairies. He had a favorite 
 plan of making money out of Bulrushes, and had written four 
 large bees'-wings full upon the true nature of capital. 
 
 While they were thus conversing, a sudden sound, as of 
 some rustic and rude music, broke along the air, and closing 
 its wild burden, they heard the following song. 
 
 THE COMPLAINT OF THE LAST FAUN. 
 
 I. 
 
 The moon on the Latmos mountain 
 
 Her pining vigil keeps ; 
 And ever the silver fountain 
 
 In the Doran valley weeps. 
 But gone are Endymion's dreams ; — 
 
 And the crystal lymph 
 
 Bewails the nymph 
 Whose beauty sleeked the streams I
 
 THE f/LGRIMS OF THE RHINE. iSx 
 
 II. 
 
 Round Arcady's oak, its green 
 
 The Bromian ivy weaves ; 
 But no more is the satyr seen 
 
 Laughing out from the glossy leaves. 
 Hushed is the Lycian lute, 
 
 Still grows the seed 
 
 Of the AToenale reed, 
 But the pipe of Pan is mute I 
 
 III. 
 
 The leaves in the noon-day quiver ;— 
 
 The vines on the mountains wave ; — 
 And Tiber rolls his river 
 
 As fresh by the Sylvan's cave ; 
 But my brothers are dead and gone ; 
 
 And far away 
 
 From their graves I stray, 
 And dream of the Past alone I 
 
 IV. 
 
 And the sun of the north is chill ; — 
 
 And keen is the northern gale ; 
 Alas for the song on the Argive hill; 
 
 And the dance in the Cretan vale I— 
 The youth of the earth is o'er, 
 
 And its breast is rife 
 
 With the teeming life 
 Of the Golden Tribes no more 1 
 
 V. 
 
 My race are more blest than T, 
 
 Asleep in their distant bed ; 
 'Twere better, be sure, to die 
 
 Than to mourn for the buried Dead ;— 
 To rove by the stranger streams, 
 
 At dusk and dawn 
 
 A lonely faun. 
 The last of the Grecian's dreams. 
 
 As the song ended, a shadow crossed the moonlight that 
 ,ay white and lustrous before the aperture of the cavern ; and 
 Nymphalin, looking up, beheld a graceful, yet grotesque 
 figure, standing on the sward without, and gazing on the 
 group in the cave. It was a shaggy form, with a goat's legs 
 and .ears ; but the rest of its body, and the height of the 
 stature, like a man's. An arch, pleasant, yet malicious smile 
 played about its lips ; and in its hand it held the pastoral
 
 J 82 "^^^^ PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 pipe of which poets have sung ; they would find it difficult tc 
 sing to it ! 
 
 " And who art thou ? " said Fayzenheim, with the aii of a 
 hero. 
 
 " I am the last lingering wanderer of the race which the 
 Romans worshipped : hiiher I followed their victorious steps, 
 and in these green hollows have I remained. Sometimes in 
 the still noon, when the leaves of spring bud upon the whis- 
 pering woods, I peer forth from my rocky lair, and startle 
 the peasant with my strange voice and stranger shape. Then 
 goes he home, and puzzles his thick brain with mops and 
 fancies, till at length he imagines me, the creature of the 
 south ! one of his northern demons, and his poets adapt the 
 apparition to their barbarous lines." 
 
 " Ho ! " quoth the silver king, " surely thou art the origin 
 of the fabled Satan of the cowled men living whilome in yon- 
 der ruins, with its horns and goatish limbs : and the harmless 
 faun has been made the figuration of the most implacable of 
 fiends. But why, O wanderer of the south ! lingerest thou 
 in these foreign dells .-' Why returnest thou not to the bi- 
 forked hilltop of old Parnassus, or the wastes around the 
 yellow course of the Tiber } " 
 
 " My brethren are no more," said the poor faun ; " and 
 the very faith that left us sacred and unharmed is departed. 
 But here all the spirits not of mortality are still honored ; 
 and I wander, mourning for Silenus ; though amidst the 
 vines that should console me for his loss." 
 
 " Thou hast known great beings in thy day," said the leaden 
 king, who loved the philosophy of a truism ( and the history 
 of whose inspirations I shall one day write). 
 
 " Ah, yes," said the faun, " my birth was amidst the 
 treshness of the world when the flush of the universal life 
 colored all things with divinity ; when not a tree but had its 
 Dryad — not a fountain that was without its Nymph. I sat 
 by the gray throne of Saturn, in his old age, ere yet he was 
 discrowned (for he was no visionary ideal, but the arch mon- 
 arch of the pastoral age) : and heard from his lips the history 
 of the world's birth. But those time are gone for ever — they 
 have left harsh successors." 
 
 " It is the age of paper," muttered the lord treasurer, 
 shaking his head. 
 
 " What ho, for a dance ! " cried Fayzenheim, too royal 
 for moralities, and he whirled the beautiful Nymphalin into a 
 waltz. Then forth issued the fairies, and out went the dwarfs.
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 183 
 
 And the faun leaning against an aged elm, ere yet the mid- 
 night waned, the elves danced their charmed round to the 
 antique minstrelsy of his pipe — the minstrelsy of the Grecian 
 world ! 
 
 " Hast thou seen yet, my Nymphalin," said Fayzenheim, 
 in the pauses of the dance, " the recess of the Hartz, and the 
 red form of its mighty hunter ? " 
 
 " It is a fearful sight," answered Nymphalin : " but with 
 thee I should not fear." 
 
 "Away, then," cried Fayzenheim ; " let us away at the 
 first cock-crow, into those shaggy dells, for there is no need 
 of night to conceal us, and the unwitnessed blush of morn, or 
 the dreary silence of noon, is no less than the moon's reign, 
 the season for the sports of the superhuman tribes." 
 
 Nymphalin, charmed with the proposal, readily assented, 
 and at the last hour of night, bestriding the star-beams of 
 the many-titled Friga, away sped the fairy cavalcade to the 
 gloom of the mystic Hartz. 
 
 Fain would I relate the manner of their arrival in the 
 thick recesses of the forest ; how they found the Red Hunter 
 seated on a fallen pine beside a wide chasm in the earth, with 
 the arching boughs of the wizard oak wreathing above his 
 head as a canopy, and his bow and spear lying idle at his 
 feet. Fain would I tell of the reception which he deigned 
 to the fairies, and how he told them of his ancient victories 
 over man; how he chafed at the gathering invasions of his 
 realm ; and how joyously he gloated of some great convul- 
 sion * in the northern states, which, rapt into moody reveries 
 in those solitary woods, the fierce demon broodingly foresaw. 
 All these fain would I narrate, but they are not of the Rhine, 
 and my story will not brook the delay. While thus convers- 
 ing with the fiend, noon had crept on, and the sky had be- 
 come overcast and lowering; the giant trees waved gustily 
 to and fro, and the low gatheridgs of the thunder announced 
 the approaching storm. Then the hunter rose and stretched 
 his mighty limbs, and seizing his spear, he strode rapidly 
 into the forest, to meet the thing of his own tribe that the 
 tempest awakes from their rugged lair. 
 
 A sudden recollection broke upon Nymphalin. " Alas 
 alas ! " she cried, wringing her hands ; " What have I done ' 
 In journeying hither with thee, I have forgotten my ofhce. I 
 
 * Which has come to pass — 1849.
 
 184 "^liE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 have neglected my watch ovei the elements, and my human 
 charge is at this hour, perhaps, exposed to all the fury of the 
 stonn." 
 
 " Cheer thee, my Nymphalin," said the prince, " we will 
 lay the tempest ; " and he waved his sword and muttered 
 the charms which curb the winds and roll back the marching 
 thunder : but for once the tempest ceased not at his spells ; 
 and now, as the fairies sped along the troubled air, a pale 
 and beautiful form met them by the way, and the fairies 
 paused and trembled. For the power of that Shape could 
 vanquish even them. It was the form of a female, with 
 golden hair, crowned with a chaplet of withered leaves ; hei 
 bosoms, of an exceeding beauty, lay bare to the wind, and an 
 infant was clasped between them, hushed into a sleep so 
 still, that neither the roar of the thunder, nor the livid light- 
 ning flashing from cloud to cloud, could even ruffle, much 
 less arouse, the slumberer. And the face of the Female was 
 unutterably calm and sweet (though with a something of 
 severe), there was no line nor wrinkle in her hueless brow ; 
 care never wrote its defacing characters upon that everlasting 
 beauty. It knew no sorrow nor change ; ghost-like and 
 shadowy floated on that Shape through the abyss of Time, 
 governing the world with an unquestioned and noiseless 
 sway. And the children of the green solitudes of the earth, 
 the lovely fairies of my tale, shuddered as they gazed and 
 recognized — the form of Death ! 
 
 DEATH VINDICATED. 
 
 " And why," said the beautiful Shape, with a voice soft 
 as the last sighs of a dying babe ; " why trouble ye the air 
 with spells } mine is the hour and the empire, and the storm 
 is the creature of my power. Far yonder to the west it 
 sweeps over the sea, and the ship ceases to vex the waves 
 it smites the forest, and the destined tree, torn from its 
 roots, feels the winter strip the gladness from its boughs 
 no more ! The roar of the elements is the herald of eternal 
 stillness to their victims ; and they who hear the progress of 
 my power idly shudder at the coming of peace. And ihou, 
 O tender daughter of the fairy kings ! why grievest thou at a 
 mortal's doom ? Knowest thou not that sorrow cometh with 
 years, and that to live is to mourn ? Blessed is the flower 
 that, nijiped in its early spring, feels not tiic blast that one
 
 TJIE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 185 
 
 by one scatters its blossoms around it, and leaves but the 
 bairen stem. Blessed are the young whom I clasp to my 
 .breast, and lull into the sleep which the storm cannot break, 
 nor the morrow arouse to sorrow, or to toil. The heart that 
 is stilled in the bloom of its first emotions, — that turns with 
 its last throb to the eye of love, as yet unlearned in the pos- 
 sibility of change, — has exhausted already the wine of life, 
 and is saved only from the lees. As the mother soothes to 
 sleep the wail of her troubled child, I open my arms to the 
 vexed spirit, and my bosom cradles the unquiet to repose ! " 
 The fairies answered not, for a chill and a fear lay over 
 them, and the Shape glided on ; ever as it passed away 
 through the veiling clouds they heard its low voice singing 
 amidst the roar of the storm, as the dirge of the watersprite 
 over the vessel it hath lured into the whirlpool or the shoals. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 Thurmberg. — A storm upon the Rhine. — The ruins of Rheinfels. — Peril 
 uhfelt by love. — Tiie echo of the Lurlei berg. — St. Goar. — Caub, Gu- 
 tenfels, and Pfalzgrafenstein. — A certain vastness of mind in the first 
 Hermits. — The scenery of the Rhine to Bacharach. 
 
 Our part)- continued their voyage the next day, which 
 was less bright than any they had yet experienced. The 
 clouds swept on dull and heavy, suffering the sun only to 
 break forth at scattered intervals ; they wound round the 
 curving bay which the Rhine forms in that part of its course ; 
 and gazed upon the ruins of Thurmberg with the rich gar- 
 dens that skirt the banks below. The last time Trevylyan 
 had seen those ruins soaring against the sky, the green foli- 
 age at the foot of the rocks, and the quiet village sequestered 
 beneath, glassing its roofs and solitar)' tower upon the wave, 
 it had been with a gay summer troop of light friends, who had 
 paused on the opposite shore during the heats of noon, and 
 over wine and fruits, and mimicked the groups of Boccaccio, 
 and intermingled the lute, the jest, the momentary love, and 
 the laughing tale. 
 
 What a difference now in his thoughts — in the object of 
 the voyage — in his present companions ! The feet of years 
 fall noiseless ; we heed, we note them not, till tracking the
 
 1 86 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 same course we passed long since, we are startled to find how 
 deep the impression they leave behind. To revisit the scenes 
 of our youth is to commune with the ghost of ourselves. 
 
 At this time the clouds gathered rapidly along the hea- 
 vens, and they were startled by the first peal of the thunder. 
 Sudden and swift came on the storm, and Trevylyan trembled 
 as he covered Gertrude's form with the rude boat-cloaks the)r 
 had brought with them ; the small vessel began to rock 
 wildly to and fro upon the waters. High above them rose 
 the vast dismantled Ruins of Rheinfels, the lightning dart- 
 ing through its shattered casements, and broken arches, and 
 brightening the* gloomy trees that here and there clothed the 
 rocks, and tossed to the angry wind. Swift wheeled the 
 water-birds over the river, dipping their plumage in the white 
 foam, and uttering their discordant screams. A storm upon 
 the Rhine has a grandeur it is in vain to paint. Its rocks, 
 its foliage, the feudal ruins that everywhere rise from the 
 lofty heights — speaking in characters of stern decay of many 
 a former battle against time and tempest ; the broad and 
 rapid course of the legendarj' river, all harmonize with the 
 elementary strife ; and you feel that to see the Rhine only 
 -W the sunshine is to be unconscious of its most majestic as- 
 pects. What baronial wars had those ruins witnessed ! F/om 
 the rapine of the lordly tyrant of those battlements rose the 
 first Confederation of the Rhine — the great strife between the 
 new time and the old — the town and the castle — the citizen 
 and the chief. Gray and stern those ruins breasted the storm 
 — a type of the antique opinion which once manned them with 
 armed serfs ; and, yet in ruins and decay, appeals from the 
 victorious freedom it may no longer resist ! 
 
 Clasped in Trevylyan's guardian arms, and her head 
 pillowed on his breast, Gertrude felt nothing of the storm 
 save its grandeur ; and Trevylyan's voice whispered cheer 
 and courage to her ear. She answered by a smile, and a 
 sigh, but not of pain. In the convulsions of nature we forget 
 our own separate existence, our schemes, our projects, ou; 
 fears ; our dreams vanish back into their cells. One passion 
 only the storm quells not, and the presence of Love mingles 
 with the voice of the fiercest storms as with the whispers of 
 th'; southern wind. So she felt, as they were thus drawn 
 close together, and as she strove to smile away the anxious 
 terror from Trevylyan's gaze — a security, a delight ; for peril 
 is sweet even to the fears of woman, when it impresses upon 
 her yet more vividly thirt she is beloved.
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 187 
 
 " A moment more and we reach the land," murmured 
 Trevylyan. 
 
 " I wish it not," answered Gertrude, softly. But ere 
 they got into St. Goar the rain descended in torrents, and 
 even the thick coverings round Gertrude's form were not 
 sufficient protection against it. Wet and dripping, she reached 
 the inn ; but not then, nor for some days, was she sensible 
 of the shock Iicr decaying health had received. 
 
 I'he storm lasted but a few hours, and the sun afterwards, 
 broke forth so brightly, and the stream looked so inviting, 
 that they yielded to Gertrude's earnest wish, and, taking a 
 larger vessel, continued their course : they passed along the 
 narrow and dangerous defile of the Gewirre, and the fearful 
 whirlpool of the " Bank ; " and on the shore to the left the 
 enormous rock of Lurlei rose, huge and shapeless, on their 
 gaze. In this place is a singular echo, and one of the boat- 
 men wound a horn, which produced an almost supernatural 
 music — so wild, loud, and oft-reverberated, was its sound. 
 
 The river now curved along in a narrow and deep channel 
 amongst rugged steeps, on which the westering sun cast long 
 and uncouth shadows : and here the hermit, from whose 
 sacred name the town of St. Goar derived its own, fixed his 
 abode and preached the religion of the Cross. "There was 
 a certain vastness of mind," said Vane, " in the adoption of 
 utter solitude, in which the first enthasiasts of our religion 
 indulged. The remote desert, the solitary rock, the rude 
 dwelling hollowed from the cave, the eternal conunune with 
 their own hearts, with nature, and their dreams of God, all 
 make a picture of severe- and preterhuman grandeur. Say 
 what we will of the necessity and charm of social life, there 
 is a greatness about man when he dispenses with mankind." 
 
 " As to that," said Du e, shrugging his shoulders, 
 
 " there was probably very good wine in the neighborhood, 
 and the females' eyes about Oberwesel are singularly 
 blue." 
 
 They now approached Oberwesel, another of the once im- 
 perial towns, and behind it beheld the remains of the castle of 
 the illustrious family of Schomberg ; the ancestors of the old 
 hero of the Boyne. A little further on, from the opposite 
 shore, the castle of Gutenfels rose above the busy town of 
 Kaub. 
 
 " Another of those scenes," said Trevylyan, " celebrated 
 equally by love and glory, for the castle's name is derived 
 from that of the beautiful ladye of an emperor's passion ; and
 
 1 88 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 below, upon a ridge in the steep, the great Gustavus issued 
 forth his command to begin battle with the Spaniards." 
 
 " It looks peaceful enough now," said Vane, pointing 
 to the craft that lay along the stream, and the green trees 
 drooping over a curve in the bank. Beyond, in the middle 
 of the stream itself, stands the lonely castle of Pfalzgrafen- 
 stein, sadly memorable as a prison to the more distinguished 
 of criminals. How many pining eyes may have turned from 
 those casements to the vine-clad hills of the free shore ; how 
 many indignant hearts have nursed the deep curses of hate in 
 the dungeons below, and longed for the wave that dashed 
 against the gray walls to force its way within and set them 
 free ! 
 
 Here the Rhine seems utterly bounded, shrunk into one 
 of those delusive lakes into which it so frequently seems to 
 change its course ; and as you proceed, it is as if the waters 
 were silently overflowing their channel and forcing their way 
 into the clefts of the mountain shore. Passing the Werth 
 Island on one side, and the castle of Stahleck on the other, 
 our voyagers arrived at Bacharach, which, associating the 
 feudal recollections with the classic, takes its name from the 
 
 god of the vine ; and, as Du e declared with peculiar 
 
 emphasis, quaffing a large goblet of the peculiar liquor, 
 " richly deserves the honor ! " 
 
 CHAPTER XXVni. 
 
 The voyage to Bingen — The simple incidents in this tale excused — The 
 situation and character of Gertrude — The conversation of the lovers 
 in the Tcmi)le — A fact contradicted — Thoughts occasioned by a Mad- 
 house amongst the most beautiful Landscapes of the Rhine. 
 
 The next day they again resumed their voyage, and Ger- 
 trude's spirits were more cheerful than usual ; the air seemed 
 to her lighter, and she breathed with a less painful effort ; 
 once more hope entered the breast of Trevylyan ; and, as 
 the vessel bounded on, their conversation was steejDed in no 
 sombre hues. When Gertrude's health permitted, no temper 
 was so ga}', yet so gently gay, as hers ; and now the naivt 
 sportiveness of her remarks called a smile to the placid lip of 
 Vane, and smoothed the anxious front of Trevylyan himself;
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 189 
 
 as for Du c, who had much of the boon companion be- 
 neath his professional gravity, he broke out every now and 
 then into snatches of French songs and drinking glees, which 
 he declared were the results of the air of Bacharach. Thus 
 conversing, the ruins of Furstenburg, and the echoing vale of 
 Rheindeibach, glided past their sail. Then the old town of 
 Lorch, on the opposite bank (where the red wine is said first 
 to have been made), with the green island before it in the 
 water. Winding round, the stream showed castle upon castle 
 alike in ruins, and built alike upon scarce accessible steeps. 
 Then came the chapel of St. Clements, and the opposing vil- 
 lage of Asmannshausen ; the lofty Rossell, built at the ex 
 tremest verge of the cliff ; and now the tower of Hatto, cele- 
 brated by Southey's ballad ; and the ancient town of Bingen. 
 Here they paused awhile from their voyage, with the inten- 
 tion of visiting more minutely the Rheingau, or valley of the 
 Rhine. 
 
 It must occur to every one of my readers that, in under- 
 taking, as now, in these passages in the history of Trevylyan, 
 scarcely so much a tale as an episode in real life, it is very 
 difficult to offer any interest save of the most simple and un- 
 exciting kind. It is true that to Trevylyan every day, every 
 hour, had its incident; but what are those incidents to 
 others ? A cloud in the sky ; a smile from the lip of Ger- 
 trude ; these were to him far more full of events than had 
 been the most varied scenes of his former adventurous 
 career ; but the history of the heart is not easily translated 
 into language : and the world will not readily pause from its 
 business to watch the alternations in the cheek of a dying girl. 
 
 In the immense sum of human existence, what is a single 
 unit ? Every sod on which we tread is the grave of some 
 former being : yet is there something that softens without 
 enervating the heart, in tracing in the life of another those 
 emotions that all of us have known ourselves. For who is 
 there that has not, in his progress through life, felt all its 
 ordinary business arrested, and the varieties of fate com- 
 muted into one chronicle of the affections ? Who has not 
 watched over the passing away of some being, more to him, 
 at that epoch, than all the world ? And this unit, so trivial 
 to the calculation of others, of what inestimable value was it 
 not to him ? Retracing in another such recollections, shad- 
 owed and mellowed down by time, we feel the wonderful 
 sanctity of human life, we feel what emotions a single being 
 can awake ; what a world of hope may be buried in a single
 
 IQO 
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 grave. And thus we keep alive within ourselves the soft 
 springs of that morality which unites us with our kind, and 
 sheds over the harsh scenes and turbulent contests of earth 
 the coloring of a common love. 
 
 There is often, too, in the time of year in which such 
 thoughts are presented to us, a certain harmony with the 
 feelings they awaken. As I write, I hear the last sighs oi 
 the departing summer, and the sere and yellow leaf is visible 
 in the green of nature. But, when this book goes forth into 
 the world, the year will have passed through a deeper cycle 
 of decay ; and the first melancholy signs of winter have 
 breathed into the Universal Mmd that sadness which asso- 
 ciates itself readily with the memory of friends, of feelings, 
 that are no more. The seasons, like ourselves, track their 
 course, by something of beauty, or of glory, that is left be- 
 hind. As the traveller in the land of Palestine sees tomb 
 after tomb rise before him, the landmarks of his way, and 
 the only signs of the holiness of the soil ; thus Memorj' wan- 
 ders over the most sacred spots in its various world, and 
 traces them but by the graves of the Past. 
 
 It was now that Gertrude began to feel the shock her 
 frame had received in the storm upon the Rhine. Cold 
 shiverings frequently seized her ; her cough became more 
 hollow, and her form trembled at the slightest breeze. 
 
 Vane grew seriously alarmed ; he repented that he had 
 yielded to Gertrude's wish of substituting the Rhine for the 
 Tiber or the Arno ; and would even now have hurried across 
 
 the Alps to a warmer clime, if Du e had not declared 
 
 that she could not survive the journey, and that her sole 
 chance of regaining her strength was rest. Gertrude, her- 
 self, however, in the continued delusion of her disease, clung 
 to the belief of recovery, and still supported the hopes of her 
 father, and soothed, with secret talk of the future, the 
 anguish of her betrothed. The reader may remember that, 
 the most touching passage in the ancient tragedians, the 
 most pathetic part of the most pathetic of human poets — the 
 pleading speech of Iphigenia, when imploring for her pro- 
 longed life, she impresses you with so soft a picture of its 
 innocence and its beauty, and in this Gertrude resembled the 
 Greek's creation — that she felt, on the verge of death, all 
 the flush, the glow, the loveliness of life. Her youth was 
 filled with hope, and many-colored dreams ; she lov'ed, and 
 th(> nues of morning slept upon the yet disenchanted earth. 
 'Pile ieavens to her were not as the common sky ; the wave
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 191 
 
 had its peculiar music to her ear, and the rustling leaves a 
 pleasantness that none, whose heart is not bathed in the love 
 and sense of beauty, could discern. Therefore it was, in 
 future years, a thought of deep gratitude to Trevylyan that 
 she was so little sensible of her danger ; that the landscape 
 caught not the gloom of the grave ; and that, in the Greek 
 phrase, " death found her sleeping amongst flowers." 
 
 At the end of a few days, another of those sudden turns, 
 common to her malady, occurred in Gertrude's health ; her 
 youth and her happiness rallied against the encroaching 
 tyrant, and for the ensuing fortnight she seemed once more 
 within the bounds of hope. During this time they made 
 several excursions into the Rheingau, and finished their tour 
 at the ancient Heidelberg. 
 
 One morning, in these excursions, after threading the 
 wood of Neiderwald, they gained that small and fairy temple, 
 which, hanging lightly over the mountain's brow, commands 
 one of the noblest landscapes of earth. There, seated side 
 by side, the lovers looked over the beautiful world below: 
 far to the left lay the happy islets, in the embrace of the 
 Rhine, as it wound along the low and curving meadows that 
 stretch away towards Neider Ingelheim and Mayence. Glist- 
 ening in the distance, the opposite Nah swept by the Mause 
 tower, and the ruins of Klopp, crowning the ancient Bingen, 
 into the mother tide. There, on either side the town, were 
 the mountains of St. Roch and Rupert, with some old monas- 
 tic ruin, saddening in the sun. But nearer, below the tem- 
 ple, contrasting all the other features of landscape, yawned a 
 dark and rugged gulf, girt by cragged elms and mouldering 
 lowers, the very prototype of the abyss of time — black and 
 fathomless amidst ruin and desolation. 
 
 "I think, sometimes," said Gertrude, "as in scenes like 
 these, we sit together, and, rapt from the actual world, see 
 only the enchantment the distance lends to our view — I think 
 sometimes, what pleasure it will be hereafter to recall these 
 hours. If ever you should love me less, I need only to 
 whisper to you, ' The Rhine,' and will not all the feelings you 
 have now for me return ? " 
 
 " Ah ! there will never be occasion to recall my love for 
 you : it can never decay." 
 
 " What a strange thing is life ! " said Gertrude ; " how 
 unconnected, how desultory seem all its links ! Has this 
 sweet pause from trouble, from the ordinary cares of life — 
 has it anything in common with your past career — with youi
 
 192 
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 future ? You will go into the great world ; in a few years 
 hence these moments of leisure and musing will be denied 
 to you; the action that you love and court is a jealous 
 sphere ; it allows no wandering, no repose. These moments 
 will then seem to you but as yonder islands that stud the- 
 Rhine — the stream lingers by them for a moment, and then 
 hurries on in its rapid course ; they vary, but they do not in- 
 terrupt the tide." 
 
 " You are fanciful, my Gertrude ; but your simile might 
 be juster. Rather let these banks be as our lives, and this 
 river the one thought that flows eterally by both, blessing 
 each with undying freshness." 
 
 Gertrude smiled ; and, as Trevylyan's arm encircled her, 
 she sank her beautiful face upon his bosom, he covered it with 
 his kisses, and she thought at the moment, that, even had 
 she passed death, that embrace could have recalled her to life, 
 
 They pursued their course to Mayence, partly by land, 
 partly along the river. One day, as returning to the vine- 
 clad mountains of Johannisberg, which commands the whole 
 of the Rheingau, the most beautiful valley in the world, they 
 proceeded by water to the town of EUfeld, Gertrude said : — 
 
 " There is a thought in your favorite poet which you have 
 often repeated, and which I cannot think true, — 
 
 * In nature there is nothing melancholy.' 
 
 To me it seems as if a certain melancholy were inseparable 
 from beauty ; in the sunniest noon there is a sense of solitude 
 and stillness which pervades the landscape, and even in the 
 flush of life inspires us with a musing and tender sadness. 
 Why is this ? " 
 
 "I .cannot tell," said Trevylyan, mournfully; "but I 
 allow that it is true." 
 
 " It is as if," continued the romantic Gertrude, " the 
 spirit of the world spoke to us in silence, and filled us with a 
 sense of our mortality — a whisper from the religion that be- 
 longs to nature, and is ever seeking to unite the earth with 
 the reminiscences of heaven. Ah, what without a heaven 
 would be even love ! — a perpetual terror of the separation 
 that must one day come ! If," she resumed, solemnly, after 
 a momentary pause, and a shadow settled on her young face, 
 "if it be true, Albert, that I must leave you soon " 
 
 " It cannot — it cannot!" cried Trevylyan, wildly; "be 
 still, be silent, I beseech you."
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 193 
 
 " Look yonder," said Du e, breaking seasonably in 
 
 upon the conversation of the lovers ; " on that hill to ilie 
 left, what once was an abbey, is now an asylum for the in- 
 sane. Does it not seem a quiet and serene abode for the 
 unstrung and erring minds that tenant it? What a mystery 
 is there in our conformation ! — those strange and bewildered 
 fancies which replace our solid reason, what a moral of our 
 human weakness do they breathe ! " 
 
 It does indeed induce a dark and singular train of 
 thought, when, in the midst of these lovely scenes, we chance 
 upon this lone retreat for those on whose eyes Nature, per- 
 haps, smiles in vain. Or is it in vain ? They look down upon 
 the broad Rhine, with its tranquil isles ; do their wild illusions 
 endow the river with another name, and people the valleys 
 with no living shapes ? Does the broken mirror within re- 
 flect back the countenance of real things, or shadows and 
 shapes, crossed, mingled, and bewildered, — the phantasmaof 
 a sick man's dreams? Yet, perchance, one memory unscathed 
 by the general ruins of the brain, can make even the beauti- 
 ful Rhine more beautiful than it is to the common eye ; — can 
 calm it with the hues of departed love, and bid its possessor 
 walk over its vine-clad mountains with the beings that have 
 ceased to be / There, perhaps, the self-made monarch sits 
 upon his throne and claims the vessels as his fleet, the waves 
 and the valleys as his own. There the enthusiast, blasted by 
 the light of some imaginary creed, beholds the shapes of 
 angels, and watches in the clouds round the setting sun, the 
 pavilions of God. There the victim of forsaken or perished 
 love, mightier than the sorcerers of old, evokes the dead, or 
 recalls the faithless by the philtre of undying fancies. Ah, 
 blessed art thou, the winged power of Imagination that is 
 within us ! — conquering even grief — brightening even despair. 
 Thou takest us from the world when reason can no longer 
 bind us to it, and givest to the maniac the inspiration and the 
 solace of the bard. Thou, the parent of the purer love, ling- 
 erest like love, when even ourself forsakes us, and lightest 
 up the shattered chambers of the heart with the glory thai 
 makes a sanctity of decay.
 
 194 ^'^■^^" PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 Ellfeld. — Mayence. — Heidelberg — A conversation between Vane and 
 the German Student, — The Ruins of the Castle of Heidelberg and 
 its solitary Habitant. 
 
 It was now the full moon ; light clouds were bearing up 
 towards the opposite banks of the Rhine, but over the Gothic 
 towers of Ellfeld the sky spread blue and clear ; the river 
 danced beside the old gray walls with a sunny wave, and close 
 at hand a vessel crowded with passengers, and loud with 
 eager voices, gave a merry life to the scene. 
 
 On the opposite bank the hills sloped away into the far 
 horizon, and one slight skiff in the midst of the waters broke 
 the solitary brightness of the noonday calm. 
 
 The town of Ellfeld was the gift of Otho the First to the 
 Church ; not far from thence is the crystal spring that gives 
 its name to the delicious grape of Markbrunner. 
 
 " Ah ! " quoth Du e, " doubtless the good bishops of 
 
 Mayence made the best of the vicinity ! " 
 
 They stayed some little time at this town, and visited the 
 ruins of Scharfenstine ; thence proceeding up the river, they 
 passed Nieder Walluf, called the Gate of the Rheingau, and 
 the luxuriant garden of Schierstein ; thence, sailing by the 
 castle-seat of the Prince Nassau Usingen, and passing two 
 long and narrow isles, they arrived at Mayence, as the sun 
 shot his last rays upon the water, gilding the proud cathedral- 
 spire, and breaking the mist that began to gather behind, 
 over the rocks of the Rheingau. 
 
 Ever-memorable Mavence ! — memorable alike for freedom 
 and for song — within those walls how often woke the gallant 
 music of the Troubadour ; and how often beside that river 
 did the heart of the maiden tremble to the lay I Within those 
 walls the stout Walpoden first broached the great scheme of 
 the Hanseatic league ; and more than all, O memorable 
 Mayence, thou canst claim the first invention of the might- 
 iest engine of human intellect, — the great leveller of power, 
 — th-j Demiurgus of the moral world, — the press ! Here too 
 lived the maligned hd'ro of the greatest drama of modern genius, 
 the traditionary Faust, illustrating in himself the fate of his
 
 THE riLGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 195 
 
 successoK^ in dispensing knowledge — held a monster for his 
 wisdom, and consigned to the penalties of hell as a recompense 
 for the benefits he had conferred on earth ! 
 
 At Mayence, Gertrude heard so much and so constantly 
 of Heidelberg, that she grew impatient to visit that enchant- 
 ing town; and as Du e considered the air of Heidelberg 
 
 more pure and invigorating than that of Mayence, they re- 
 solved to fix within it their temporary residence. Alas ! it was 
 the place destined to close their brief and melancholy pil- 
 grimage, and to become to the heart of Trevylyan the holiest 
 spot which the earth contained ; — the Kaaba of the world. 
 But Gertrude, unconscious of her fate, conversed gayly as 
 their carriage rolled rapidly on, and constantly alive to every 
 new sensation, she touched with her characteristic vivacity on 
 all they had seen in their previous route. There is a great 
 charm in the observations of one new to the world, if we our- 
 selves have become somewhat tired of " its hack sights and 
 sounds ; " we hear in their freshness a voice from our own 
 youth. 
 
 In the haunted valley of the Necker, the most crystal of 
 rivers, stands the town of Heidelberg. The shades of even- 
 ing gathered round it as their heavy carriage rattled along 
 the antique streets, and not till the next day was Gertrude 
 aware of all the unriv^alled beauties that environ the place. 
 
 Vane, who was an early riser, went forth alone in the 
 morning to reconnoitre the town ; and as he was gazing on 
 the tower of St. Peter, he heard himself suddenly accosted ; 
 he turned round and saw the German student, whom they 
 had met among the mountains of Taunus, at his elbow. 
 
 " Monsieur has chosen well in coming hither," said the 
 student ; " and I trust our town will not disappoint his expec- 
 tations." 
 
 Vane answered with courtesy, and the German offering 
 to accompany him in his walk, their conversation fell natu- 
 rally on the life of a university, and the current education of 
 the German people. 
 
 " It is surprising," said the student, " that men are eter- 
 nally inventing new systems of education, and yet persevering 
 in the old. How many years ago is it since Fichte predicted, 
 in the system of Pestalozzi, the regeneration of the German 
 people? What has it done ? We admire — we praise, and we 
 blunder on in the very course Pestalozzi proves to be erron- 
 eous. Certainly," continued the student, " there must be 
 some radical defect in a system of culture in which genius is
 
 ig6 THE PTLGRIAIS OF THE RlIfXE. 
 
 an exception, and dulness the result. Yet here, \\\ our Ger- 
 man universities, everything proves that education without 
 equitable institutions avails little in the general formation of 
 character. Here the young men of the colleges mix on the 
 most equal terms ; they are daring, romantic, enamoured of 
 freedom even to its madness ; they leave the university, no 
 poll ileal career continues the train of mind they had acquired ; 
 they plunge into obscurity ; live scattered and separate, and 
 the student inebriated with Schiller, sinks into the passive 
 priest or the lethargic baron. His college career, so far 
 from indicating his future life, exactly reverses it : he is 
 brought up in one course in order to proceed in another. 
 And this I hold to be the universal error of education in all 
 countries ; they conceive it a certain something to be fm 
 ished at a certain age. They do not made it a part of the 
 continuous history of life, but a wandering from it." 
 
 " You have been in England ?'' asked Vane. 
 
 " Yes ; I have travelled over nearly the whole of it on 
 foot. I was poor at that time, and imagining that there was 
 a sort of masonry between all men of letters, I inquired at 
 each town for the savans, and asked money of them as a ma:- 
 ter of course." 
 
 Vane almost laughed outright at the simplicity and naive 
 unconsciousness of degradation with which the student pro- 
 claimed himself a public beggar. 
 
 " And how did you generally succeed ? " 
 
 " In most cases I was threatened with the stocks, and 
 twice I was consigned by t\i& J iige de pa ixio the village police, 
 to be passed to some mystic Mecca they were pleased to en- 
 title ' a parish.' Ah ! " (continued the German with much 
 bonhomie), " It was a pity to see in a great nation so much 
 value attached to such a trifle as money. But what sur- 
 prised me greatly was the tone of your poetry. Madame de 
 Stael, who knew perhaps as much of England as she did of 
 Germany, tells us that its chief character is the cJiivalresqiie ; 
 and excepting only Scott, who, by the way, is not English, I 
 did not find one chivalrous poet among you. Yet," continued 
 the student, " between ourselves, I fancy that in our present 
 age of civilization, there is an unexamined mistake in the 
 general mind as to the value of poetry. It delights still as 
 ever, but it has ceased to teach. The prose of the heart en- 
 lightens, touches, rouses, far more than poetr)'. Your most 
 philosophical poets would be commonplace if turned into 
 prose. Verse cannot contain the refining subtle thoughts
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE, 197 
 
 whicli a great prose writer embodies ; the rhyme eternally 
 cripples it ; it properly deals with the common problems of 
 human nature vvhich are now hackneyed, and not with the 
 nice and philosophizing corollaries which may be drawn from 
 them. Thus, though it would seem at first a paradox, com- 
 monplace is more the element of poetry than of prose." 
 
 This sentiment charmed Vane, who had nothing of the 
 poet about him ; and he took the student to share their break- 
 fast at the inn, with a complacency he rarely experienced at 
 the re-meeting with a new acquaintance. 
 
 After breakfast, our party proceeded through the town 
 towards the wonderful castle which is its chief attraction, and 
 the noblest wreck of German grandeur. 
 
 And now pausing, the mountain yet unsealed, the stately 
 ruin frowned upon them, girt by its massive walls and hang- 
 ing terraces, round vvhich from place to place clung the 
 dwarfed and various foliage. High at the rear rose the huge 
 mountain, covered, save at its extreme summit, with dark 
 trees, and concealing in its mysterious breast the shadowy 
 beings of the legendary world. But towards the ruins, and 
 up a steep ascent, you may see a few scattered sheep thinly 
 studding the broken ground. Aloft, above the ramparts, rose, 
 desolate and huge, the Palace of the Electors of the Palatinate. 
 In its broken walls you may trace the tokens of the lightning 
 that blasted its ancient pomp, but still leaves in the vast extent 
 of pile a fitting monument of the memory of Charlemagne. 
 Below, in the distance, spread the plain far and spacious, till 
 the shadowy river, with one solitary sail upon its breast, 
 united the melancholy scene of earth with the autumnal sky. 
 
 " See," said Vane, pointing to two peasants who were 
 conversing near them on the matters of their little trade, 
 utterly unconscious of the associations of th'^ spot, " see, 
 after all that is said and done about human greatness, it 
 is always the greatness of the few. Ages pass, and leave the 
 poor herd, the mass of men, eternally the same — hewers of 
 wood and drawers of water. The pomp of princes has its 
 ebb and flow, but the peasant sells his fruit as gayly to the 
 stranger on the ruins, as to the emperor in the palace." 
 
 " Will it be always so ? " said the student. 
 
 " Let us hope not, for the sake of permanence in glory," 
 said Trev^lyan ; " had a people built yonder palace, its splen- 
 dor would never have passed away." 
 
 Vane shrugged his shoulders, and Du e took snuff. 
 
 But all the impressions produced by the castle at a dis-
 
 198 
 
 THE riLGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 tance, are as nothing when you stand withhi its vast area 
 and behold the architecture of all ages blended into one 
 mighty ruin ! The rich hues of the masonry, the sweeping fa 
 cades — every description of building which man ever framed 
 for war or for luxury — is here ; all having only the common 
 character — ruin. The feudal rampart, the 3'awning fosse, 
 the rude tower, the splendid arch, — the strength of a fortress, 
 the magnificence of a palace, — all united, strike upon ,he soul 
 like the history of a fallen empire in all its epochs. 
 
 " There is one singular habitant of these ruins," said the 
 student ; " a solitary painter, who has dwelt here some twenty 
 years, companioned only by his Art. No other apartment 
 but that which he tenants is occupied by a human being." 
 
 " What a poetical existence ! " cried Gertrude, enchanted 
 with a solitude so full of associations. 
 
 " Perhaps so," said the cruel Vane, ever anxious to dispel 
 an illusion ; " but more probably custom has deadened to 
 him all that overpowers ourselves with awe ; and he may 
 tread among these ruins rather seeking to pick up some rude 
 morsel of antiquity, than feeding his imagination with the 
 dim traditions that invest them with so august a poetry." 
 
 " Monsieur's conjecture has something of the truth in it," 
 said the German : " but then the painter is a Frenchman." 
 
 There is a sense of fatality in the singular mournfulness 
 and majesty which belongs to the ruins of Heidelberg ; con- 
 trasting the vastness of the strength with the utterness of the 
 ruin. It has been twice struck with lightning, and is the 
 wreck of the elements, not of man : during the great siege it 
 sustained, the lightning is supposed to have struck the pow 
 der-magazine by accident. 
 
 What a scene for some great imaginative work ! What a 
 mocking interference of the wrath of nature in the puny con- 
 tests of men ! One stroke of the " red right arm " above us, 
 crushing the triumph of ages, and laughing to scorn the powei 
 of the beleaguerers and the valor of the beseiged ! 
 
 They passed the whole day among these stupendous ruins, 
 and felt, when they descended to their inn, as if they had left 
 the caverns of some mighty tomb.
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE KHIXE. 
 
 199 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 No part of the Earth really solitary. — The song of the Fairies. — The sa- 
 cred spot. — The Witch of the Evil Winds. — The Spell and ihe dutj -A 
 
 the Fairies. 
 
 But in what spot of the world is there ever utter soli- 
 tude .'' The vanity of man supposes that loneliness is his ab- 
 sence ? Who shall say what millions of spiritual beings glide 
 invisibly among scenes apparently the most deserted ? Or 
 what know we of our own mechanism, that we should deny 
 the possibility of life and motion to things that we cannot 
 ourselves recognize ? 
 
 At moonlight, in the Great Court of Heidelberg, on the 
 borders of the shattered basin overgrown with weeds, the fol- 
 lowing song was heard by the melancholy shades that roam 
 at night through the mouldering halls of old, and the gloomy 
 hollows in the mountains of Heidelberg. 
 
 SONG OF THE FAIRIES IN THE RUINS OF HEIDELBERG. 
 
 From the woods and the glossy green, 
 
 With the wild thyme strewn ; 
 From the rivers whose crisped sheen 
 
 Is kissed by tiie trembling moon; — 
 While the dwarf looks out from his mountain cave, 
 
 And the erl king from his lair. 
 And the water-nymph from her moaning wave, — 
 
 We skir the limber air. 
 There's a smile on the vine-clad shore, 
 
 A smile on the castled heights ; 
 They dream back the days of yore, 
 
 And they smile at our roundel rites I 
 
 Our roundel rites I 
 
 Lightly we tread these halls around, 
 
 Lightly tread we ; 
 Yet, hark ! we have scared with a single sound 
 The moping owl on the breathless tree, 
 
 And the goblin sprites I 
 ■ Ha ! ha I we have scared with a single sound 
 The old gray owl on the breathless tree 
 
 And the goblin sprites ! 
 
 " They come not," said Pipalee ; " yet the banquet is pre- 
 pared, and the poor queen will be glad of some refreshment."
 
 200 l^f^E riLGRTMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 " What a pity ! all the rose-leaves will be over-broiled " 
 said Nip. 
 
 " Let us amuse ourselves with the old painter," quoth 
 Trip, springing over the ruins. 
 
 " Well said," cried Pipalee and Nip : and all three, leav- 
 ing my lord-treasurer amazed at their levity, whisked into the 
 painter's apartment. Permitting them to throw the ink over 
 their victim's papers, break his pencils, mix his colors, mislay 
 his night-cap, and go whiz against his face in the shape of a 
 great bat, till the astonished Frenchman began to think the 
 pensive goblins of the place had taken a sprightly fit, — we 
 hasten to a small green spot some little way from the town, 
 in the valley of the Neckar, and by the banks of its silver 
 stream. It was circled round by dark trees, save on that side 
 bordered by the river. The wild flowers sprang profusely 
 from the turf which yet was smooth and singularly green. 
 And there was the German fairy describing a circle round 
 the spot, and making his elvish spells. And Nymphalin sat 
 droopingly in the centre, shading her face, which was bowed 
 down as the head of a water-lily, and weeping crystal tears. 
 
 There came a hollow murmur through the trees, and a 
 rush as of a mighty wind, and a dark form emerged from the 
 shadow and approached the spot. 
 
 The face was wrinkled and old, and stern with a malev- 
 olent and evil aspect. The frame was lean and gaunt, and 
 supported by a staff, and a short gray mantle covered its 
 bended shoulders. 
 
 "Things of the moonbeam !" said the form, in a shrill 
 and ghastly voice ; " what want ye here ? and why charm ye 
 this spot from the coming of me and mine .'' " 
 
 " Dark witch of the blight and blast," answered the fairy, 
 " THOU that nippest the herb in its tender youth, and eatest 
 up the core of the soft bud ; behold, it is but a small spot 
 that the fairies claim from thy demesnes, and on which, 
 through frost and heat, they will keep the herbage green 
 and the air gentle in its sighs ! " 
 
 " And wherefore, O dweller in the crevices of the earth ! 
 wherefore wouldst thou guard this spot from the curses of 
 the season ? " 
 
 " We know by our instinct," answered the fairy, " that 
 this spot will become the grave of one whom the fairies love ; 
 hither, by an unfelf influence, shall we guide her yet living 
 steps ; and in gazing upon this spot shall the desire of quiet 
 and the resignation to death steal upon her soul. Behold,
 
 THE r/LGR/MS OF THE KI/IA'E. 2 01 
 
 throughout the universe, all things at war with one another ; 
 — the lion with the lamb; the serpent with the bird; and 
 even the gentlest bird itself with the moth of air, or the 
 worm of the humble earth ! What then to men, and to the 
 spirits transcending men, is so lovely and so sacred as a be- 
 ing that harmeth none ? what so beautiful as Innocence ? 
 what so mournful as its untimely tomb ? And shall not that 
 tomb be sacred ? shall it not be our peculiar care ? May 
 we not mourn over it as at the passing away of some fair 
 miracle in Nature ; too tender to endure, too rare to be for- 
 gotten ? It is for this, O dread waker of the blast ! that the 
 fairies would consecrate this little spot ; for this they would 
 charm away from its tranquil turf the wandering ghoul and 
 the evil children of the night. Here, not the ill-omened 
 owl, nor the blind bat, nor the unclean worm shall come. 
 And thou shouldst have neither will nor power to nip the 
 flowers of spring, nor sear the green herbs of summer. Is it 
 not, dark mother of the evil winds 1 is it not our immemorial 
 office to tend the grave of innocence, and keep fresh the 
 flowers round the resting-place of Virgin love ? " 
 
 Then the witch drew her cloak round her, and muttered 
 to herself, and without further answer turned away among 
 the trees and vanished, as the breath of the east wind 
 which goeth with her as her comrade, scattered the mel- 
 ancholy leaves along her path ! 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 Gertrude and Trevylyan, when the former is awakened to the approach 
 
 of Death. 
 
 The next day, Gertrude and her companions went along 
 the banks of the haunted Neckar. She had passed a sleep- 
 less and painful night, and her evanescent and child-like 
 spirits had sobered down into a melancholy and thoughtful 
 mood. She leaned back in an open carriage with Trevylyan, 
 
 ever constant by her side, while Du e and Vane rode 
 
 slowly in advance. Trevylyan tried in vain to cheer her, 
 even his attempts (usually so eagerly received) to charm her 
 duller moments by tale or legend, were, in this instance,
 
 202 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 fruitless. She shook her head gently — pressed his hand, and 
 said, " No, dear Trevylyan — no ; even your art fails to-day, 
 but your kindness, never ! " and pressing his hand to hei 
 lips, she burst passionately into tears. 
 
 Alarmed and anxious, he clasped her to his breast, and 
 strove to lift her face, as it drooped on its resting-place, and 
 kiss away its tears. 
 
 " Oh ! " said she, at length, " do not despise my weak- 
 ness, I am overcome by my own thoughts ; I look upon the 
 world, and see that it is fair and good ; I look upon you, and 
 I see all that I can venerate and adore. Life seems to me 
 so sweet, and the earth so lovely ; can you wonder, then, that 
 I should shrink at the thought of death } Nay, interrupt me 
 not, dear Albert ; the thought must be borne and braved. I 
 have not cherished, I have not yielded to it through my long- 
 increasing illness, but there have been times when it has 
 forced itself upon me ; and now, now more palpably than 
 ever. Do not think me weak and childish ; I never feared 
 death till I knew you ; but to see you no more — never again 
 to touch this dear hand — never to thank you for your love — • 
 never to be sensible of your care — to lie down and sleep, and 
 never, never once more to dream of you ! Ah ! that is a bitter 
 thought ! but I will brave it — yes, brave it as one wortliy of 
 your regard." 
 
 Trevylyan, choked by his emotions, covered his own face 
 with his hands, and, leaning back in the carriage, vainly 
 struggled with his sobs. 
 
 " Perhaps," she said, yet ever and anon clinging to the 
 hope that had utterly abandoned him, " perhaps, I may yet 
 deceive myself ; and my love for you, which seems to me as 
 if it could conquer death, may bear me up against this fell 
 disease ; — the hope to live with you — to watch you — to share 
 your high dreams, and oh ! above all, to soothe you in sorrow 
 and sickness, as you have soothed ine — has not that hope 
 something that may support even this sinking frame ? And 
 who shall love thee as I love ? who see thee as I have seen ? 
 who pray for thee in gratitude and tears as I have prayed ? 
 Oh, Albert, so little am I jealous of you, so little do I think 
 of myself in comparison, that I could close my eyes happily 
 on the world, if I knew that what I could be to thee, anothei 
 will be ! " 
 
 " Gertrude," said Trevylyan ; and lifting up his colorless 
 face, he gazed upon her with an earnest and calm solemnity. 
 "Gertrude, let us be united at once ! if Fate must sever us,
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 203 
 
 let her cut the last tie too ; let us feel at least that on earth 
 we have been all in all to each other ; let us defy death, even 
 as it frowns upon us. Be mine to-morrow — this day — oh 
 God ! be miae ! " 
 
 Over even that pale countenance, beneath whose hues 
 the lamp of life so faintly fluttered, a deep, radiant flash 
 passed one moment, lighting up the beautiful ruin with the 
 glow of maiden youth and impassioned hope, and then died 
 rapidly away. 
 
 "No, Albert," she said, sighing; "No! it must not be : 
 far easier would come the pang to you, while yet we are not 
 wholly united ; and for my own part, I am selfish, and feel 
 as if I should leave a tenderer remembrance on your heart, 
 thus parted ; tenderer, but not so sad. I would not wish you 
 to feel yourself widowed to my memory ; I would not cling 
 like a blight to your fair prospects of the future. Remember 
 me rather as a dream ; as something never wholly won, and 
 therefore, asking no fidelity but that of kind and forbearing 
 thoughts. Do you remember one evening as we sailed along 
 the Rhine — ah! happy, happy hour ! — that we heard from 
 the banks a strain of music, not so skilfully played as to be 
 worth listening to for itself, but suiting, as it did, the hour 
 and the scene, we remained silent, that we might hear it the 
 better ; and when it died insensibly upon the waters, a cer- 
 tain melancholy stole over us ; we felt that a something that 
 softened the landscape had gone, and we conversed less 
 lightly than before ? Just so, my own loved — my own adored 
 Trevylyan, just so is the influence that our brief love — your 
 poor Gertrude's existence, should bequeath to your remem- 
 brance. A sound — a presence — should haunt you a little 
 while, but no more, ere you again become sensible of the 
 glories that court your way ! " 
 
 But as Gertrude said this, she turned to Trevylyan, and 
 seeing his agony, she could refrain no longer ; she felt that 
 to soothe was to insult ; and, throwing herself upon his 
 breast, they mingled their tears together.
 
 J 04 ^-^^^ PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 A spot to be buried in. 
 
 On their return homeward, Du e took the third seat 
 
 in the carriage, and endeavored, v.'ith his usual vivacity, to 
 cheer the spirits of his companions ; and such was the elas- 
 ticity of Gertrude's nature, that with her, he, to a certain de- 
 gree, succeeded in his kindly attempt. Quickly alive to the 
 charms of scenery, she entered by degrees into the external 
 beauties which every turn in the road opened to their view ; 
 and the silvery smoothness of the river, that made the con- 
 stant attraction of the landscape ; the serenity of the time, 
 and the clearness of the heavens, tended to tranquillize a 
 mind that, like a sunflower, so instinctively turned from the 
 shadow to the light. 
 
 Once Du e stopped the carriage in a spot of herbage, 
 
 bedded among the trees, and said to Gertrude : " We are 
 now in one of the many places along the Neckar, which your 
 favorite traditions serve to consecrate. Amidst yonder 
 copses, in the early ages of Christianity, there dwelt a hermit, 
 who, though young in years, was renowned for the sanctity of 
 his life. None knew whence he came, nor for what cause he 
 had limited the circle of life to the seclusion of his cell. He 
 rarely spoke, save when his ghostly advice, or his kindly 
 prayer, was needed : he lived upon herbs, and the wild fruits 
 which the peasants brought to his cave ; and every morning 
 and every evening he came to this spot to fill his pitcher from 
 the water of the stream. But here he was observed to linger 
 long after his task was done, and to sit gazing upon the walls 
 of a convent which then rose upon the opposite side of the 
 bank, though now even its ruins are gone. Gradually his 
 health gave way beneath the austerities he practised ; and one 
 evening he was found by some fishermen insensible on the 
 turf. They bore him for medical aid to the opposite con- 
 vent ! and one of the sisterhood, the daughter of a prince, 
 was summoned to tend the recluse. But when his eyes 
 opened upon hers, a sudden recognition appeared to seize 
 both. He spoke ; and the sister threw herself on the couch 
 of the dying man, and shrieked forth a name, the most
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE KIlhVE. 
 
 205 
 
 famous in the surrounding country, — the name of a once 
 noted minstrel — who, in those rude times liad mingled the 
 poet with the lawless chief, and was supposed, years since, 
 to have fallen in one of the desperate frays between prince 
 and outlaw which were then common ; storming the very cas- 
 tle which held her — now the pious nun, then the beauty and 
 presider over the tournament and galliard. She survived but 
 a few hours, and left conjecture busy with a history to which 
 it never obtained further clue. Many a troubadour, in later 
 times, furnished forth in poetry the details which truth re- 
 fused to supply ; and the place where the hermit at sunrise 
 and sunset ever came to gaze upon the convent became con- 
 secrated by song." 
 
 The place invested with this legendary interest was im- 
 pressed with a singular aspect of melancholy quiet ; wild 
 flowers yet lingered on the turf, whose grassy sedges gently 
 overhung the Neckar, that murmured amidst them with a 
 plaintive music. Not a wind stirred the trees ; but, at a little 
 distance from the place, the spire of a church rose amidst the 
 copse ; and, as they paused, they suddenly heard from the 
 holy building the bell that summons to the burial of the dead. 
 It came on the ear in such harmony with the spot, with the 
 hour, with the breathing calm, that it thrilled to the heart of 
 each with an inexpressible power. It was like the voice of 
 another world — that amidst the solitude of nature summoned 
 the lulled spirit from the cares of this ; — it invited, not re- 
 pulsed, and had in its tone mt)re of softness than of awe. 
 
 Gertrude turned, with tears starting to her eyes, and, lay- 
 ing her hand on Trevylyan's, whispered : — " In such a spot, 
 so calm, so sequestered, yet in the neighborhood of the house 
 of God, would I wish this broken frame to be consigned to 
 rest !" 
 
 CHAPTER THE LAST. 
 The Conclusion of this Tale. 
 
 From that day • Gertrude's spirit resumed its wonted 
 cheerfulness, and for the ensuing week she never reverted to 
 her approaching fate; she seemed once more to have grown 
 unconscious of its limit. Perhaps she sought, anxious for
 
 2o6 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 Trevylyan to the last, not to throw additional gloom over theit 
 earthly separation ; or, perhaps, once steadily regarding the 
 certainty of her doom, its terrors vanished. The chords of 
 thought, vibrating to the subtlest emotions, maybe changed by 
 a single incident, or in a single hour ; a sound of sacred music, 
 a green and quiet burial place, may convert the form of death 
 into the aspect of an angel. And therefore wisely, and wdth a 
 beautiful lore, did the Greeks strip the grave of its unreal 
 gloom ; wisely did they body forth the great Principle of Rest 
 by solemn and lovely images — unconscious of the northern 
 madness that made a Spectre of Repose ! 
 
 But while Gertrude's spirit resumed its healthful tone, her 
 frame rapidly declined, and a few days now could do the 
 ravage of months a little while before. 
 
 One evening, amidst the desolate ruins of Heidelberg, 
 Trevylyan, who had gone forth alone to indulge the thoughts 
 which he strove to stifle in Gertrude's presence, suddenly en- 
 countered Vane. That calm and almost callous pupil of the 
 adversities of the world was standing alone, and gazing upon 
 the shattered casements and riven tower, through which the 
 sun now cast its slant and parting ray. 
 
 Trevylyan, who had never loved this cold and unsuscep- 
 tible man, save for the sake of Gertrude, felt now almost a 
 hatred creep over him, as he thought in such a time, and with 
 death fastening upon the flower of her house, he could yet be 
 calm, and smile, and muse, and moralize, and play the com- 
 mon part of the world. He strode slowly up to him, 
 and standing full before him, said, with a hollow voice and 
 writhing smile : " You amuse yourself pleasantly, sir ; this 
 is a fine scene ; — and to meditate over griefs a thousand years 
 hushed to rest is better than watching over a sick girl, and 
 eating away your lieart with fear !" 
 
 Vane looked at him quietly, but intently, and made no 
 reply. 
 
 " Vane !" continued Trevylyan, with the same preter- 
 natural attempt at calm ; " Vane, in a few days all will be 
 over, and you and I, the things, the plotters, the false men of 
 the world, will be left alone — left by the sole Being that 
 graces our dull life, that makes by her love, either of us wor- 
 thy of a thought !" 
 
 Vane started, and turned away his face. " You are 
 cruel," said he, with a faltering voice. 
 
 " What, man ! " shouted Trevylyan, seizing him abruptly 
 by the arm, " can yon feel ? Is your cold heart touched ?
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 207 
 
 Come, then," added he, with a wild laugh, " come, let us be 
 friends ! " 
 
 Vane drew aside, with a certain dignity, that impressed 
 Trevylyan even at that hour. " Some years hence," said he, 
 " you will be called cold as I am ; sorrow will teach you the 
 wisdom of indifference — it is a bitter school, sir — a bitter 
 school ! But think you that I do indeed see unmoved my 
 last hope shivered — the last tie that binds me to my kind ? 
 No, no ! I feel it as a man may feel ; I cloak it as a man 
 grown gray in misfortune should do ! My child is more to 
 me than your betrothed to you ; for you are young and 
 wealthy, and life smiles before you ; but 1 — no more — sir — • 
 
 no more." 
 
 " Forgive me," said Trevylyan, humbly ; " I have wronged 
 you ; but Gertrude is an excuse for any crime of love ; and 
 now listen to my last prayer — give her to me — even on the 
 verge of the grave. Death cannot seize her in the arms — in 
 the vigils — of a love like mine." 
 
 Vane shuddered. " It were to wed the dead," said he — 
 " No ! " 
 
 Trevylyan drew back, and without another w^ord, hurried 
 away ; he returned to the town ; he sought, with methodical 
 calmness, the owner of the ground in which Gertrude bod 
 Avished to be buried. He purchased it, and that very night 
 he sought the priest of a neighboring church, and directed it 
 should be consecrated according to the due rite and ceremo- 
 nial. 
 
 The priest, an aged and pious man, was struck by the re- 
 quest, and the air of him who made it. 
 
 " Shall it be done forthwith, sir 1 " said he, hesitating. 
 
 " Forthwith," answered Trevylyan, with a calm smile — ■ 
 " a bridegroom, you know, is naturally impatient." 
 
 For the next three days, Gertrude was so ill as to be con- 
 fined to her bed. All that time Trevylyan sat outside her 
 door without speaking, scarcely lifting his eyes from the 
 ground. The attendants passed to and fro — he heeded them 
 not ; perlvaps as even the foreign menials turned aside and 
 w^iped their eyes, and prayed God to comfort him, he required 
 compassion less at that time than any other. There is a 
 stupefaction in woe, and the heart sleeps without a pang when 
 exhausted by its afflictions. 
 
 But on the fourth day Gertrude rose, and was carried down 
 (how changed, yet how lovely ever !) to their common apart- 
 ment. During those three days the priest had been with
 
 2o8 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. 
 
 her often, and her spirit, full of religion from her child 
 hood, had been unspeakably soothed by his comfort. She 
 took food from the hand of Trevylyan ; she smiled upon him 
 as sweetly as of old. She conversed M'ith him, though with 
 a faint voice, and at broken intervals. But she felt no pain; 
 life ebbed away gradually, and without a pang. " My father," 
 she said to Vane, whose features still bore their usual calm, 
 whatever might have passed within, " I know that you will 
 grieve when I am gone more than the world might guess ; for 
 I alone know what you were years ago, ere friends left you and 
 fortune frowned, and ere my poor mother died. But do not — 
 do not believe that hope and comfort leave you with me. 
 Till the heaven pass away from the earth, there shall be 
 comfort and hope for all." 
 
 They did not lodge in the town, but had fixed their abode 
 on its outskirts, and within sight of the Neckar : and from the 
 window they saw a light sail gliding gayly by, till it passed, 
 and solitude once more rested upon the waters. 
 
 " The sail passes from our eyes, " said Gertrude, point- 
 ing to it, " but still it glides on as happily though we see it 
 no more ; and I feel — yes, father, I feel — I know that it is 
 so with us. We glide down the river of time from the eyes 
 of men, but we cease not the less to be ! " 
 
 And now as the twilight descended, she expressed a wish, 
 before she retired to rest, to be left alone with Trevylyan. 
 He was not then sitting by her side, for he would not trust 
 himself to do so ; but with his face averted, at a little distance 
 from her. She called him by his name ; he answered not nor 
 turned. Weak as she was, she raised herself from the sofa, 
 and crept gently along the floor till she came to him, and 
 sank in his arms. 
 
 " Ah, unkind ! " she said, " unkind for once ! Will you 
 turn away from me ? Come, let us look once more on the 
 river : see ! the night darkens over it. Our pleasant voyage, 
 the t\^pe of our love, is finished ; our sail may be unfurled no 
 more. Never again can your voice soothe the lassitude of 
 sickness with the legend and the song — the course is run, the 
 vessel is broken up; night closes over its fragments ; but now, 
 in this hour, love me, be kind to me as ever. Still let me be 
 your own Gertrude — still let me close my eyes this night, as 
 before, with the sweet consciousness that I am loved. " 
 
 " Loved ! — O Gertrude ! speak not to me thus ! " 
 
 " Come, that is yourself again ! " and she clung with weak 
 arms caressingly to his breast. " And now, " she said more
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE KIFINE. 
 
 209 
 
 solemnly, " let us forget that we are mortal ; let us rcme-mbcr 
 only that life is a part, not the whole of our career ; let us 
 feel in this soft hour, and while yet we are unsevered, the 
 presence of The Eternal that is within us, so that it shall not 
 be as death, but as a short absence ; and when once the pang 
 of parting is over, you must think only that we are shortly to 
 meet again. What ! you turn from me still ? See, I do not 
 weep or grieve, I have conquered the pang of our absence ; 
 will you be outdone by me ? Do you remember, Albert, that 
 you once told me how the wisest of the sages of old, in prison, 
 and before death, consoled his friends with the proof of the 
 immortality of the soul ? Is it not consolation ? — does it not 
 suffice ; or will you deem it wise from the lips of wisdom, but 
 vain from the lips of love ?" 
 
 " Hush, hush ! " said Trevylyan, wildly ; " or I shall think 
 you an angel already. " 
 
 But let us close this commune, and leave unrevealed the 
 last sacred words that ever passed between them upon earth. 
 
 When Vane and the physician stole back softly into the 
 room, Trevylyan motioned to them to be still : " She sleeps," 
 he whispered ; " hush ! " And in truth, wearied out by her 
 own emotions, and lulled by the belief that she had soothed 
 one with whom her heart dwelt now, as ever, she had fallen 
 into sleep, or it may be, insensibility, on his breast. There 
 as she lay, so fair, so frail, so delicate, the twilight deepened 
 into shade, and the first star, like the hope of the future, 
 broke forth upon the darkness of the earth. 
 
 Nothing could equal the stillness without, save that which 
 lay breathlessly within. For not one of the group stirred or 
 spoke ; and Trevylyan, bending over her, never took his eyes 
 from her face, watching the parted lips, and fancying that he 
 imbibed the breath. Alas ; the breath was stilled ! from sleep 
 to death she had glided without a sigh : happy, most happy in 
 that death ! — cradled in the arms of unchanged love, and 
 brightened in her last thought by the consciousness of inno 
 
 cence and the assurances of heaven ! 
 
 ******* 
 
 Tre\'ylyan, after long sojourn on the Continent, returned 
 to England. He plunged into active life, and became what 
 is termed in this age of little names, a distinguished and 
 noted man. But what was mainly remarkable in his future 
 conduct, was his impatience of rest. He eagerly courted all
 
 2IO THE PILGRIMS OF THE RIJINE. 
 
 occupations, even of the most varied and motley kind. Busi- 
 ness, — letters, — pleasure. He suffered no pause in his career ; 
 and leisure to him was as care to others. He lived in the 
 world, as the worldly do, discharging its duties, fostering its 
 affections, and fulfdling its career. But there was a deep and 
 wintry change within him — the sunlight of his life ivas gone ; the 
 loveliness of romance had left the earth. The stem was 
 proof as heretofore to the blast, but the green leaves were 
 severed from it forever, and the bird had forsaken its boughs. 
 Once he had idolized the beauty that is born of song ; the 
 glory and the ardor that invest such thoughts as are not of 
 our common clay ; but the well of enthusiasm was dried up, 
 and the golden bowl was broken at the fountain. With Ger- 
 trude the poetry of existence was gone. As she herself had 
 described her loss, a music had ceased to breathe along the 
 face of things ; and though the bark might sail on as swiftly, 
 and the stream swell with as proud a wave, a something that 
 had vibrated on the heart was still, and the magic of the voy- 
 age was no more. 
 
 And Gertrude sleeps on the spot where she wished her 
 last couch to be made ; and far — oh, far dearer is that small 
 spot on the distant banks of the gliding Neckar to Trevyl- 
 yan's heart, than all the broad lands and fertile fields of his 
 Ancestral domain. The turf, too, preserves its emerald 
 greenness ; and it would seem to me that the field flowers 
 spring up by the sides of the simple tomb even more pro- 
 fusely than of old. A curve in the bank breaks the tide of 
 Neckar; and therefore its stream pauses, as if to linger re- 
 luctantly, by that solitary grave, and to mourn among the rust- 
 ling sedges ere it passes on. And I have thought, when I last 
 looked upon that quiet place, — when I saw the turf so fresh, 
 and the flowers so bright of hue, that aerial hands might in- 
 deed tend the sod ; that it was by no imaginary spells that I 
 summoned the fairies to my tale ; that in truth, and with 
 vigils constant though unseen, they yet kept from all pollu- 
 ting footsteps, and from the harsher influence of the seasons, 
 the grave of one who so loved their race ; and who, in her 
 gentle and spotless virtue, claimed kindred with the beauti- 
 ful Ideal of the world. Is there one of us who has not known 
 &ome being for whom it seemed not too wild a phantasy to 
 indulge such dreams ?
 
 To the former editions of this tale was prefixed a poem ok 
 " The Ideal,'' which had all the worst faults of the author'' s ear- 
 liest compositions in verse. The present poem (jiu'th the exception 
 cf a very few lines') has been entirely re-written, and has at least 
 the comparative merit of being less vague in the thought, and U'^s 
 unpolished in the diction, than that which it rcplcues. 
 
 Ems, 1849.
 
 THE IDEAL WORLD. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE IDEAL WORLD — ITS REALM IS EVERYWHERE AROUND US — ITS IN- 
 HABITANTS ARE THE IMMORTAL PERSONIFICATIONS OF ALL BEAUTI- 
 FUL THOUGHTS — TO THAT WORLD WE ATTAIN BY THE REPOSE OF THE 
 SENSES. 
 
 Around " this visible diurnal sphere," 
 
 There floats a World that girds us like the space ; 
 On wandering clouds and gliding beams career 
 
 Its ever-moving, murmurous Populace. 
 There, all the lovelier thoughts conceived below, 
 
 Ascending live, and in celestial shapes. 
 To that bright World, O Mortal, wouldst thou go ? 
 
 Bind but thy senses, and thy soul escapes: 
 To care, to sin, to passion close thine eyes; 
 Sleep in the flesh, and see the Dreamland rise I 
 Hark, to the gush of golden waterfalls, 
 Or knightly tromps at Archimagian Walls I 
 In the green hush of Dorian Valleys mark 
 
 The River Maid her amber tresses knitting ;— 
 When glowworms twinkle under coverts dark. 
 
 And silver clouds o'er summer stars are flitting, 
 With jocund elves invade ''the Moone's sphere, 
 Or hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear ; " * 
 Or, list! what time the roseate urns of dawn 
 
 Scatter fresh dews, and the first skylark weaves 
 Joy into song — the blithe Arcadian Faun 
 
 Piping to wood n\inphs under Bromian leaves, 
 While slowlv gleaming through the purple glade 
 Come Evian's panther car, and the pale Naxian Maid, 
 
 Such, O Ideal World, thy habitants ! *? 
 All the fair children of creative creeds — 
 
 * Midsummer Night's Dream.
 
 2 14 THE IDEAL WORLD. 
 
 All the lost tribes of Phantas}- are thine — 
 Fiom antique Saturn in Dodonian haunts, 
 
 Or Pan's first music, waketl from shepherd reeds, 
 To the last sprite, when Heaven's pale lamps decline, 
 Heard wailing soft along the solemn Rhine. 
 
 II. 
 
 OUR DREAMS BELONG TO THE IDEAL — THE DIVINER LOVE FOR WHICH 
 YOUTH SIGHS, NOT ATTAINABLE IN LIFE — BUT THE PURSUIT OF 
 THAT LOVE, BEYOND THE WORLD OF THE SENSES, PURIFIES THK 
 SOUL, AND AWAKES THE GENIUS — PETRARCH — DANTE. 
 
 Thine are the Dreams that pass the Ivory Gates, 
 
 With prophet shadows haunting poet eyes 1 
 Thine the beloved illusions youth creates 
 
 From the dim haze of its own happy skies. 
 In vain we pine — we yearn on earth to win 
 
 The being of the heart, our boyhood's dream. 
 The Psyche and the Eros ne'er have been. 
 
 Save in Olympus, wedded ! — As a stream 
 Glasses a star, so life the Ideal love ; 
 Restless the stream below — serene the orb above ! 
 Ever the soul the senses shall deceive ; 
 Here custom chill, there kinder fate bereave : 
 For mortal lips unmeet eternal vows ! 
 And Eden's flowers for Adam's mournful brows 1 
 We seek to make the moment's angel guest 
 
 The household dweller at a human hearth ; 
 ^^'e chase the bird of Paradise, whose nest 
 
 Was never found amid the bowers of earth.* 
 Yet loftier joys the vain pursuit may bring, 
 
 Than sate the senses with the boons of time ; 
 The bird of Heaven hath still an upward wing. 
 
 The steps it lures and still the steps that climb, 
 And in the ascent, altho' the soil be bare, 
 More clear the daylight and more pure the air, 
 Let Petrarch's heart the human mistress lose, 
 He mourns the Laura, but to win the Muse. 
 Could all the charms which Georgian maids combine 
 Delight the soul of the dark Florentine, 
 Like one chaste dream of childlike Beatrice 
 Awaiting Hell's dark pilgrim in the skies, 
 Snatch'd from below to be the guide above. 
 And clothe Religion in the form of Love .' " T 
 
 * According to a belief in the East, which is associated with one of 
 the loveliest and most familiar of Oriental superstitions, the bird of 
 Paiadise is never seen to rest upon the earth — and its nest is never to be 
 found. 
 
 t It is supposed by many of the commentators on Dante, that in the 
 form of his lost Beatrice, who guides him in his Vision o£ Heaven, he 
 allegorizes Religious Faith.
 
 THE IDEAL WORLD. 215 
 
 III. 
 
 lENIUS, LIFTING ITS LIFE TO THE IDEAL, BECOMES ITSELF A PURE IDEA 
 — IT MUST COMPREHEND ALL EXISTENCE ; ALL HUMAN SINS AND 
 SUFFERINGS — BUT IN COMPREHENDING, IT TRANSMUTES THEM. — THE 
 POET IN HIS TWOFOLD BEING — THE ACTUAL AND THE IDEAL — THE 
 INFLUENCE OF GENIUS OVER THE STERNEST REALITIES OF EARTH — 
 OVER OUR PASSIONS — WARS AND SUPERSTITIONS — ITS IDENTITY IS 
 WITH HUMAN PROGRESS — ITS AGENCY, EVEN WHERE UNACKNOWl^ 
 EDGED, IS UNIVERSAL. 
 
 O, thou true Iris ! sporting on thy brow 
 
 Of tears and smiles — Jove's herald, Poetry 1 
 Thou reflex image of all joy and woe — 
 
 Both fused in h'ght by thy dear phantasy ! 
 Lo! from the clay how Genius lifts its life. 
 
 And grows one pure Idea — one calm soul I 
 True, its own clearness must reflect our strife ; 
 
 True, its completeness must comprise our whole : 
 But as the sun transmutes the sullen hues 
 
 Of marsh-grown vapors into vermeil dyes, 
 And melts them later into twilight dews. 
 
 Shedding on flowers the baptism of the skies; 
 So glows the Ideal in the air we breathe — 
 
 So from the fumes of sorrow and of sin, 
 Doth its warm light in rosy colors wreathe 
 
 Its playful cloud-land, storing balms within. 
 
 Survey the Poet in his mortal mould 
 
 Man amongst men, descended from his throne t 
 The moth that chased the star now frets the fold, 
 
 Our cares, our faults, our follies are his own. 
 Passions as idle, and desires as vain. 
 Vex the wild heart, and dupe the erring brain. 
 From Freedom's field the recreant Horace flies 
 To kiss the hand by which his country dies ; 
 From Mary's grave the mighty Peasant turns. 
 And hoarse with orgies rings the laugh of Burns 
 While Rousseau's lips a lackey's vices own — 
 Lips that could draw the thimder on a throne 1 
 But when from Life the Actual Genius springs, 
 
 When, self-transform'd by its own magic rod. 
 It snaps the fetters and expands the wings. 
 
 And drops the fleshly garb that veil'd the god, 
 How the mists vanish as the form ascends ! — 
 How in its aureole every sunbeam blends ! 
 By the Arch-Brightener of Creation seen, 
 
 How dim the crowns on perishable brows 1 
 The snows of Atlas melt beneath the sheen. 
 
 Thro' Thebaid caves the rushing splendor flows, 
 Cimmerian glooms with Asian beams are bright. 
 And Earth reposes in a belt of light-
 
 ai6 THE IDEAL WORLD. 
 
 Now stern as Vengeance shines the awful form, 
 
 Artn'd with the bolt and glowing thro' the storm ; 
 
 Sets the great deeps of human passion free, 
 
 And whelms the bulwarks that would breast the sea. 
 
 Roused by its voice the ghastly Wars arise. 
 
 Mars reddens earth, the Valkyrs pale the skies ; 
 
 Dim Superstition from her hell escapes, 
 
 With all her shadowy brood of monster shapes ; 
 
 Here life itself the scowl of Typhon * takes ; 
 
 There Conscience shudders at Alecto's snakes ; 
 
 From Gothic graves at midnight yawning wide, 
 
 In gory cerements gibbering spectres glide; 
 
 And Where's o'er blasted heaths the lightnings flame, 
 
 Black secret hags "do deeds without a name I " 
 
 Y";t thro' its direst agencies of awe, 
 
 Light marks its presence and pervades its law, 
 
 And, like Orion when the storms are loud, 
 
 It links creation while it gilds a cloud. 
 
 By ruthless Thor, free Thought, frank Honor stand. 
 
 Fame's grand desire, and zeal for Fatherland. 
 
 The grim Religion of Barbarian Fear, 
 
 With some Hereafter still connects the Here, 
 
 Lifts the gross sense to some spiritual source. 
 
 And thrones some Jove above the Titan Force, 
 
 Till, love completing what in awe began. 
 
 From the rude savage dawns the thoughtful man. 
 
 Then, O behold the glorious Comforter ! 
 
 Still bright'ning worlds, but gladd'ning now the hearth, 
 Or like the lustre of our nearest star, 
 
 Fused in the common atmosphere of earth. 
 It sports like hope upon the captive's chain; 
 Descends in dreams upon the couch of pain 
 To wonder's realm allures the earnest child; 
 To the chaste love refines the instinct wild; 
 And as in waters the reflected beam, 
 Still where we turn, glides with us up the stream ; 
 And while in truth the whole expanse is bright, 
 Yields to each eye its own fond path of light, 
 So over life the rays of Genius fall, 
 Give each his track because illuming alL 
 
 IV. 
 
 FORGIVENESS TO THE ERRORS OF OUR BENEFACTORS. 
 
 Hence is that secret pardon we bestow 
 In the true instinct of the grateful heart, 
 
 • The gloomy Typhon of Egypt assumes many of the mystic attributei 
 of the Principle of Life which, 'in the Grecian Apotheosis' of the Indian 
 Bacchus, is represented in so genial a character of exuberant joy and 
 everlasting youth.
 
 THE IDEAL WORLD. 217 
 
 Upon the Sons of Song. The good they do 
 
 In the clear world of their Uranian ait 
 Enilures forever ; while the evil done 
 
 In the poor drama of their mortal scene, 
 Is but a passing cloud before tlie sun ; 
 
 Space halh no record where the mist hath been. 
 Boots it to us. if Shakspeare err'd like man ? 
 
 Wliy idly question that most mystic life ? 
 Eno' the giver in his gifts to scan; 
 
 To bless the sheaves with which thy fields are rife, 
 Nor, blundering, guess thro' what obstructive clay 
 The glorious corn-seed struggled up to day. 
 
 y. 
 
 THE IDEAL IS NOT CONFINED TO POETS — ALGERNON SIDNEY RECOG- 
 NIZES HIS IDEAL IN LIBERTY, AND BELIEVES IN ITS TRIUMTH WHERE 
 IHE MERE PRACTICAL MAN COULD BEHOLD BUT ITS RUINS — YET 
 LIBERTY IN THIS WORLD MUST EVER BE AN IDEAL, A.VD THE LANE 
 THAT IT PROMISES CAN BE FOUND BUT IN DEATH. 
 
 But not to you alone, O Sons of Song, 
 The wings that float the loftier airs along. 
 Whoever lifts us from the dust we are, 
 
 Beyond the sensual to spiritual goals ; 
 Who from the Moment and the Self afar 
 
 By deathless deeds allures reluctant souls, 
 Gives the warm life to what the Limner draws, 
 Plato but thought what god-like Cato was.* 
 Recall the wars of England's giant born, 
 
 Is Elyot's voice — is Hamj)den's death in vain? 
 Have all the meteors of the vernal morn 
 
 But wasted light upon a frozen main ? 
 Where is that child of Carnage, Freedom, flown ? 
 The Sybarite lolls upon the Martyr's throne. 
 Lewd, ribald jests succeed to solemn zeal : 
 And things of silk to Cromwell's men of steel. 
 Cold are the hosts the tromps of Ireton thrill'd, 
 And hush'd the senates Vane's large presence fill'd. 
 In what strong heart doth the old manhood dwell ? 
 Where art thou. Freedom? — Look — in Sidney's cell ! 
 There still as stately stands the living Truth, 
 Smiling on age as it had smiled on youth. 
 Her forts dismantled, and her shrines o'erthrown, 
 The headsman's block her last dread altar-stone, 
 No sanction left to Reason's vulgar hope — 
 Far from the wrecks expands her prophet's scope. 
 Millennial morns the tombs of Kedron gild, 
 The hands of saints the glorious walls rebuild, - 
 Till ea'ch foundation garnish'd with its gem, 
 High o'er Gelienna flames Jerusalem 1 
 
 • " What Plato thought, and god-like Cato was."— Pope
 
 ai8 THE IDEAL WORLD. 
 
 O thou blood-stain'd Ideal of the free, 
 
 Whose breath is heard in clarions — Liberty I 
 
 Sublimer for thy grand illusions past, 
 
 Thou spring'st to Heaven — Religion at the last. 
 
 Alike below, or commonwealths, or thrones, 
 
 Where'er men gather some crush'd victim groans , 
 
 Only in death thy real form we see. 
 
 All life is bondage — souls alone are free. 
 
 I'hus through the waste the wandering Hebrews went, 
 
 Fire on the march, but cloud upon the tent. 
 
 At last on Pisgah see the Prophet stand. 
 
 Before his vision spreads the Promised Land; 
 
 But where reveal' d the Canaan to his eye ? — 
 
 Upon the mountain he ascends to die. 
 
 VI. 
 
 YET ALL HAVE TWO ESCAPES INTO THE IDEAL WORLD — VIZ MEMORY 
 AND HOPE — EXAMPLE OF HOPE IN YOUTH, HOWEVER EXCLUDEE 
 FROM ACTION AND DESIRE — NAPOLEON's SON. 
 
 Yet whatsoever be our bondage here, 
 All have two portals to the Phantom sphere, — 
 Who hath not glided through those gates that ope, 
 Beyond the Hour, to Memory or to Hope! 
 Give Youth the Garden, — still it soars above — 
 Seeks some far glory — some diviner love. 
 Place Age amidst the Golgotha — its eyes 
 Still quit the graves, to rest upon the skies ; 
 And while the dust, unheeded, moulders there, 
 Track some lost angel through cerulean air. 
 
 Lo ! where the Austrian binds, with formal chain, 
 The crownless son of earth's last Charlemain — 
 Him, at whose birth laugh'd all the violet vales 
 
 (While yet unfallen stood thy sovereign star, 
 O Lucifer of Nations) — hark, the gales 
 
 Swell with the shout from all the hosts, whose war 
 Rended the Alps, and crimson'd Memphian Nile — 
 
 " Way for the coming of the Conqueror's Son : 
 Woe to the Merchant-Carthage of the Isle I 
 
 Woe to the Scythian Ice-world of the Don ! 
 O Thunder Lord, thy Lemnian bolts prepare, 
 The Eagle's eyrie hath its eagle heir ! " 
 Hark, at that shout from north to south, gray Power 
 
 Quails on its weak, hereditary thrones ; 
 And widow'd mothers prophesy the hour 
 
 Of future carnage to their cradled sons. 
 What ! shall our race to blood be thus consign'd, 
 And Ate claim an heirloom in mankind t 
 Are these red lots unshaken in the urn ? 
 Years pass — approach, pale Questioner — and learn; 
 Chain'd to his rock, with brows that vainly frown, 
 The fallen Titan sinks n darkness down 1
 
 THE IDEAL WORLD. 21^ 
 
 And sadly gazing through his gilded grate, 
 Behold the child whose birth was as a fate I 
 l^ar from the land in which his life began ; 
 Wall'd from the healthful air of hardy man ; 
 Rcar'd by cold hearts, and watch'd by jealous eyes, 
 His guardiaiis gaolers, and his comrades spies. 
 Each trite convention courtly fears inspire 
 To stint experience and to dwarf desire ; 
 Narrows the action to a puppet stage, 
 And trains the eaglet to the starling's cage. 
 On the dejected brow and smileless cheek, 
 What weary thought the languid lines bespeak; 
 Till drop by drop, from jaded day to day. 
 The sickly life-streams ooze themselves away. 
 
 Yet oft in Hope a boundless realm was thine. 
 That vaguest infinite — the Dream of Fame ; 
 
 Son of the sword that first made kings divine, 
 
 Heir to man's grandest royalty — a Name ! 
 Then didst thou burst upon the startled world. 
 
 And keep the glorious promise of thy birth ; 
 Then were the wings that bear the bolt unfurl'd, 
 
 A monarch's voice cried "Place upon the Earth ! 
 A new Philippi gain'd a second Rome. 
 And the Son's sword avenged the greater Caesar's doom 
 
 vn. 
 
 EXAMPLE OF MEMORY AS LEADING TO THE IDEAL — AMIDST LIFE HOW- 
 EVER HUMBLE, AND IN A MIND HOWEVER IGNORANT — THE VILLAGB 
 WIDOVk?. 
 
 But turn the eye to Life's sequester'd vale, 
 And lowly roofs remote in hamlets green. 
 Oft in my boyhood where the moss-grown pale 
 
 Fenced quiet graves, a female form was seen ; 
 Each eve she sought the melancholy ground. 
 And lingering paused, and wistful look'd around 
 If yet some footstep rustled thro' the grass, 
 Timorous she shrunk, and watch'd the shadow pass. 
 Then, when the spot lay lone amidst the gloom, 
 Crept to one grave too humble for a tomb. 
 There silent bow'd her face alcove the dead, 
 For, if in prayer, the prayer was inly said , 
 Still as the moonbeam, paused her quiet shade, 
 Still as the moonbeam, thro' the yews to fade. 
 Whose dust thus hallow'd by so fond a care ? 
 What the grave saith not — let the heart declare. 
 On yonder green two orphan children play'd ; 
 By yonder rill two plighted lovers stray'd. 
 In yonder shrine two lives were blent in one, 
 And joy-bells chimed beneath a summer sun. 
 Poor was their lot — their bread in labor found ; 
 No parent bless'd them, and no kindred own'd ;
 
 7 20 THE IDEAL WORLD. 
 
 They smiled to hear the wise their choice condemn ; 
 
 They loved — they loved — and love was wealth to them 
 
 Hark — one short week — again the holy bell ! 
 
 Still shone the sun; but dirge-like booni'd the knell 
 
 The icy hand had sever'd breast from breast ; 
 
 Left Life to toil, and sumnion'd Death to rest. 
 
 Full fifty years since then have pass'd away. 
 
 Her cheek is furrow'd, and her hair is gray, 
 
 Yet, when she speaks of him (the times are rare), 
 
 Hear in her voice how youth still trembles there 
 
 The very name of that young life that died, 
 
 Still heaves the bosom, and recalls the bride. 
 
 1-one o'er the widow's hearth those years have fled, 
 
 The daily toil still wins the daily bread ; 
 
 No books deck sorrow with fantastic dyes : 
 
 Her fond romance her woman heart supplies; 
 
 And, haplv in the few still moments given, 
 
 (Day's taskwork done) — to memory, death, and heaven, 
 
 To that unutter'd ])oem may belong 
 
 Thoughts of such pathos as had beggar'd song. 
 
 VHL 
 
 HENCE IN HOPE, MEMORY, AND PRAYER, ALL OF US ARE POETS, 
 
 Yes, while thou hopest, music fills the air, 
 
 While thou rememberest, life reclothes the clod; 
 While thou canst feel the electric chain of prayer, 
 
 Breathe but a thought, and be a soul with God I 
 Let not these forms of matter bound thine eye, 
 
 He who the vanishing point of Human things 
 Lifts from the landscape — lost amidst the sky. 
 
 Has found the Ideal which the poet sings — 
 Has pierced the pall around the senses thrown. 
 And is himself a poet — tho' unknown. 
 
 IX. 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE POEM TO THE TALE TO WHICH IT IS PREFIXED 
 —THE RHINE — ITS IDEAL CHARACTER IN ITS HISTORICAL ANU 
 LEGENDARY ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 Eno' ! — my song is closing, and to thee, 
 
 Land of the North, I dedicate its lay ; 
 As I have done the simple tale to be 
 
 The drama of this prelude ! — 
 
 Far away 
 Rolls the swift Rhine beneath the starry ray ; 
 But to my ear its haunted waters sigh ; 
 Its moonlit mountains glimmer on my eye ; 
 On wave, on marge, as on a wizard's glass. 
 Imperial ghosts in dim procession pass j
 
 rilE IDEAL WORLD. 221 
 
 Lords of the wild— the first great Fatlier-men, 
 Their fane the hill top— and their honne the glen 
 p'rowning they fade— a bridge of steel appears 
 With frank-eyed Caesar smiling thro' the spears ; 
 Tiie march moves onwards, and the mirror brings 
 The Ciothic crowns of Carlovingian kings : 
 Vanish'd alike! The Hermit rears his Cross, 
 And barbs neigh shrill, and plumes in tumult toss, 
 While (knighthood's sole sweet conquest from the Moor) 
 Sings to Arabian lutes the Troubadour. 
 
 Not yet, not yet — still glide some lingering shades — 
 Still breathe some murmurs as the starlight fades — 
 Still from her rock I hear the Siren call, 
 And see the tender ghost in Roland's mouldering hall ! 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE POEM CONTINUED — THE IDEAL LENDS ITS AIH 
 TO THE MUST FAMILAR AND THE MOST ACTUAL SOKROW OK I.I KB 
 — FICTION COMPARED TO SLEEP — IT STRENGTHENS WHILE 11 
 
 SOOTHES. 
 
 Trite were the tale I tell of love and doom, 
 
 (Whose life hath loved not, whose not mourn'd a tomb?) 
 
 But fiction draws a poetry from grief, 
 
 As art its healing from thewitlier'd leaf. 
 
 Piay thou, sweet P'ancy, round the sombre truth, 
 
 Crown the sad Genius ere it lower the torch I 
 When death the altar, and the victim youth. 
 
 Flutes fill the air, and garlands deck the porch. 
 As down the river drifts the Pilgrim sail. 
 Clothe the rude hill-tops, lull the Northern gale 
 With childlike lore the fatal course beguile. 
 And brighten death with Love's untiring smile 
 Along the banks let fairy forms be seen 
 " By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen." 
 Let' sound and shape to which the sense is dull, 
 Haunt the soul opening on the Beautiful, 
 And when at length, the symbol voyage done,— 
 Surviving Grief shrinks lonely from the sun. 
 By tender types show Grief what memories bloom 
 From lost delight — what fairies guard the tomb. 
 Scorn not the dream, O world-worn, — pause awhile, 
 New strength shall nerve thee as the dreams beguile, 
 Strung by the rest — less far shall seem the goal 1 
 As sleep to life, so fiction to the soul. 
 
 • Midsummer Night's Dream.
 
 f^3?^i5^: 
 
 %ifeM$ 
 
 ■^t>^
 
 ill>^^\ 
 
 mi 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 ^n 
 
 AA 000 402 863 5 
 
 
 W^ 
 
 il\ 
 
 i>. 
 
 w^ 
 
 ^1 
 
 
 - T^ 
 
 t«l^^ 
 
 ^^^- 
 
 m^ 
 
 4KKk<^,-' 
 
 
 ^• 
 
 
 M 
 
 
 a:^i^/i" 
 
 ^1 
 
 
 msi 
 
 m