'Silence as of Death,' writes he; for Midnight, éven ' in the Arctic latitudes, has its character: nothing but the granite cliffs ruddy-tinged, the peaceable gurgle of that slow-heaving Polar Ocean, over which in the utmost North the great Sun hangs low and lazy, as if 'he too were slumbering. Yet is his cloud-couch wrought of crimson and cloth of gold; yet does his light stream over the mirror of waters, like a tremulous firepillar, shooting downwards to the abyss, and hide itself ' under my feet. In such moments, Solitude also is in' valuable; for who would speak, or be looked on, when 'behind him lies all Europe and Africa, fast asleep, 'except the watchmen; and before him the silent Im'mensity, and Palace of the Eternal, whereof our Sun 'is but a porch-lamp.

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'Nevertheless, in this solemn moment, comes a man, or monster, scrambling from among the rock-hollows; 'and, shaggy, huge as the Hyperborean Bear, hails me ' in Russian speech: most probably, therefore, a Russian 'Smuggler. With courteous Brevity, I signify my 'indifference to contraband trade, my humane intentions, yet strong wish to be private. In vain: the monster, 'counting doubtless on his superior stature, and minded to make sport for himself, or perhaps profit, were it 'with murder, continues to advance; ever assailing me 'with his importunate train-oil breath; and now has advanced, till we stand both on the verge of the rock, 'the deep sea rippling greedily down below. What argument will avail? On the thick Hyperborean, ' cherubic reasoning, seraphic eloquence were lost. Pre'pared for such extremity, I, deftly enough, whisk aside one step; draw out, from my interior reservoirs, a suffi

"Be so

'cient Birmingham Horse-pistol, and say obliging as retire, Friend (Er ziehe sich zurück, Freund), and with promptitude!" This logic even 'the Hyperborean understands: fast enough, with apologetic, petitionary growl, he sidles off; and, except for 'suicidal as well as homicidal purposes, need not

return.

'Such I hold to be the genuine use of Gunpowder: 'that it makes all men alike tall. Nay, if thou be 'cooler, cleverer than I, if thou have more Mind, though all but no Body whatever, then canst thou kill me first, ' and art the taller. Hereby, at last, is the Goliath 'powerless, and the David resistless; savage Animalism ' is nothing, inventive Spiritualism is all.

'With respect to Duels, indeed, I have my own ideas. Few things, in this so surprising world, strike me with more surprise. Two little visual Spectra of men, ' hovering with insecure enough cohesion in the midst of 'the UNFATHOMABLE, and to dissolve therein, at any rate, very soon,-make pause at the distance of twelve paces asunder; whirl round; and, simultaneously by 'the cunningest mechanism, explode one another into Dissolution; and off-hand become Air, and Non-extant! 'Deuce on it (verdammt), the little spitfires !-Nay, "I think with old Hugo von Trimberg: "God must ' needs laugh outright, could such a thing be, to see his 'wondrous Mannikins here below."

But amid these specialities, let us not forget the great generality, which is our chief quest here: How prospered the inner man of Teufelsdröckh under so much outward shifting? Does Legion still lurk in him, though re

pressed; or has he exorcised that Devil's Brood? We can answer that the symptoms continue promising. Experience is the grand spiritual Doctor; and with him. Teufelsdröckh has now been long a patient, swallowing many a bitter bolus. Unless our poor Friend belong to the numerous class of Incurables, which seems not likely, some cure will doubtless be effected. We should rather say that Legion, or the Satanic School, was now pretty well extirpated and cast out, but next to nothing introduced in its room; whereby the heart remains, for the while, in a quiet but no comfortable state.

At length, after so much roasting,' thus writes our Autobiographer, I was what you might name calcined. 'Pray only that it be not rather, as is the more frequent 'issue, reduced to a caput-mortuum! But in any case, 'by mere dint of practice, I had grown familiar with many 'things. Wretchedness was still wretched; but I could now partly see through it, and despise it. Which 'highest mortal, in this inane Existence, had I not found 'a Shadow-hunter, or Shadow-hunted; and, when I 'looked through his brave garnitures, miserable enough? "Thy wishes have all been sniffed aside, thought I: but 'what, had they even been all granted! Did not the 'Boy Alexander weep because he had not two Planets to conquer; or a whole Solar System; or after that, a 'whole Universe? Ach Gott, when I gazed into these Stars, have they not looked down on me as if with pity from their serene spaces; like Eyes glistening with 'heavenly tears over the little lot of man! Thousands ' of human generations, all as noisy as our own, have 'been swallowed up of Time, and there remains no wreck 'of them any more; and Arcturus and Orion and Sirius

and the Pleiades are still shining in their courses, clear * and young, as when the Shepherd first noted them in the plain of Shinar. Pshaw! what is this paltry little Dog-cage of an Earth; what art thou that sittest whining there? Thou art still Nothing, Nobody: true; but 'who then is Something, Somebody? For thee the 'Family of Man has no use; it rejects thee; thou art 'wholly as a dissevered limb: so be it; perhaps it is 'better so!'

Too heavy-laden Teufelsdröckh! Yet surely his bands are loosening one day he will hurt the burden far from him, and bound forth free, and with a second youth.

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'This,' says our Professor, was the CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE I had now reached; through which whoso 'travels from the Negative Pole to the Positive must 'necessarily pass.'

CHAPTER IX.

THE EVERLASTING YEA.

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TEMPTATIONS in the Wilderness!' exclaims Teufelsdröckh: Have we not all to be tried with such? Not 'so easily can the old Adam, lodged in us by birth, be dispossessed. Our Life is compassed round with Ne· cessity; yet is the meaning of Life itself no other than 'Freedom, than Voluntary Force: thus have we a war'fare; in the beginning, especially, a hard-fought battle. 'For the God-given mandate, Work thou in Welldoing, 'lies mysteriously written, in Promethean, Prophetic 'Characters, in our hearts; and leaves us no rest, night or day, till it be deciphered and obeyed; till it burn forth, in our conduct, a visible, acted Gospel of Freedom. 'And as the clay-given mandate, Eat thou and be filled, at the same time, persuasively proclaims itself through every nerve,-must there not be a confusion, a contest, 'before the better Influence can become the upper?

'To me nothing seems more natural than that the Son of Man, when such God-given mandate first 'prophetically stirs within him, and the Clay must now 'be vanquished or vanquish,-should be carried of the 'spirit into grim Solitudes, and there fronting the 'Tempter do grimmest battle with him; defiantly setting 'him at nought, till he yield and fly. Name it as we