of passion, such as this, unshaded by pride or delicacy, unhallowed by religion,—­a selfish craving only; every source of enjoyment stifled to cherish this burning thirst.  Yet the picture, so minute in its touches, is true as death.  I should not like Delphine now.’

Events in life, apparently trivial, often seemed to her full of mystic significance, and it was her pleasure to turn such to poetry.  On one occasion, the sight of a passion-flower, given by one lady to another, and then lost, appeared to her so significant of the character, relation, and destiny of the two, that it drew from her lines of which two or three seem worth preserving, as indicating her feeling of social relations.

  ’Dear friend, my heart grew pensive when I saw
    The flower, for thee so sweetly set apart,
  By one whose passionless though tender heart
    Is worthy to bestow, as angels are,
  By an unheeding hand conveyed away,
    To close, in unsoothed night, the promise of its day.

* * * * *

  ’The mystic flower read in thy soul-filled eye
    To its life’s question the desired reply,
  But came no nearer.  On thy gentle breast
    It hoped to find the haven of its rest;
  But in cold night, hurried afar from thee,
    It closed its once half-smiling destiny.

  ’Yet thus, methinks, it utters as it dies,—­
    “By the pure truth of those calm, gentle eyes
  Which saw my life should find its aim in thine,
    I see a clime where no strait laws confine. 
  In that blest land where twos ne’er know a three,
    Save as the accord of their fine sympathy,
  O, best-loved, I will wait for thee!"’

III.

STUDIES.

  “Nur durch das Morgenthor des Schoenen
  Drangst du in der Erkenntniss Land;
  An hoehen Glanz sich zu gewoehnen
  Uebt sich, am Reize der Verstand. 
  Was bei dem Saitenklang der Musen
  Mit suessem Beben dich, durchdrang,
  Erzog die Kraft in deinem Busen,
  Die sich dereinst zum Weltgeist schwang.”

  SCHILLER.

  “To work, with heart resigned and spirit strong;
  Subdue, with patient toil, life’s bitter wrong,
  Through Nature’s dullest, as her brightest ways,
  We will march onward, singing to thy praise.”

  E.S., in the Dial.

“The peculiar nature of the scholar’s occupation consists in this,—­that science, and especially that side of it from which he conceives of the whole, shall continually burst forth before him in new and fairer forms.  Let this fresh spiritual youth never grow old within him; let no form become fixed and rigid; let each sunrise bring him new joy and love in his vocation, and larger views of its significance.”

  FICHTE.

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