( ever holy to us; a certain orthodox Anthropomorphism connects 'my Me with all Thees in bonds of Love: but it is in this approximation of the Like and Unlike, that such heavenly attraction, as between Negative and Positive, first burns out into a flame. 'Is the pitifulest mortal Person, think you, indifferent to us? Is 'it not rather our heartfelt wish to be made one with him; to 'unite him to us, by gratitude, by admiration, even by fear; or 'failing all these, unite ourselves to him? But how much more, ' in this case of the Like-Unlike! Here is conceded us the higher 'mystic possibility of such a union, the highest in our Earth; 'thus, in the conducting medium of Fantasy, flames forth that 'fire-development of the universal Spiritual Electricity, which, as 'unfolded between man and woman, we first emphatically denom'inate LOVE.

'In every well-conditioned stripling, as I conjecture, there al'ready blooms a certain prospective Paradise, cheered by some 'fairest Eve; nor, in the stately vistas, and flowerage and foliage ' of that Garden, is a Tree of Knowledge, beautiful and awful in 'the midst thereof, wanting. Perhaps too the whole is but the lovelier, if Cherubim and a Flaming Sword divide it from all 'footsteps of men; and grant him, the imaginative stripling, only 'the view, not the entrance. Happy season of virtuous youth, 'when Shame is still an impassable celestial barrier; and the sa'cred air-cities of Hope have not shrunk into the mean clay-ham'lets of Reality; and man, by his nature, is yet infinite and free!

'As for our young Forlorn,' continues Teufelsdröckh, evidently meaning himself, 'in his secluded way of life, and with his 'glowing Fantasy, the more fiery that it burnt under cover, as in 'a reverberating furnace, his feeling towards the Queens of this 'Earth was, and indeed is, altogether unspeakable. A visible 6 Divinity dwelt in them; to our young Friend all women were holy, were heavenly. As yet he but saw them flitting past, in 'their many-coloured angel-plumage; or hovering mute and inac 'cessible on the outskirts of Esthetic Tea: all of air they were, all 'Soul and Form; so lovely, like mysterious priestesses, in whose 'hand was the invisible Jacob's-ladder, whereby man might mount ' into very Heaven. That he, our poor Friend, should ever win 'for himself one of these Gracefuls (Holden) Ach Gott! how could

'he hope it; should he not have died under it? bere was a 'certain delirious vertigo in the thought.

'Thus was the young man, if all sceptical of Demons and An'gels such as the vulgar had once believed in, nevertheless not unvisited by hosts of true Sky-born, who visibly and audibly 'hovered round him whereso he went; and they had that reli'gious worship in his thought, though as yet it was by their mere เ earthly and trivial name that he named them. But now, if on a 'soul so circumstanced, some actual Air-maiden, incorporated into 6 tangibility and reality, should cast any electric glance of kind eyes, saying thereby, "Thou too mayest love and be loved;" and 'so kindle him, good Heaven, what a volcanic, earthquake-bring'ing, all-consuming fire were probably kindled !'

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Such a fire, it afterwards appears, did actually burst forth, with explosions more or less Vesuvian, in the inner man of Herr Diogenes; as indeed how could it fail? A nature, which, in his own figurative style, we might say, had now not a little carbonised tinder, of Irritability; with so much nitre of latent Passion, and sulphurous Humour enough; the whole lying in such hot neighbourhood, close by a reverberating furnace of Fantasy:' have we not here the components of driest Gunpowder, ready, on occasion of the smallest spark, to blaze up? Neither, in this our Life-element, are sparks anywhere wanting. Without doubt, some Angel, whereof so many hovered round, would one day, leaving the outskirts of Esthetic Tea,' flit nigher; and, by electric Promethean glance, kindie no despicable firework. Happy, if it indeed proved a Firework, and flamed off rocket-wise, in successive beautiful bursts of splendour, each growing naturally from the other, through the several stages of a happy Youthful Love; till the whole were safely burnt out; and the young soul relieved, with little damage! Happy, if it did not rather prove a Conflagration and mad Explosion; painfully lacerating the heart itself; nay perhaps bursting the heart in pieces (which were Death); or at best, bursting the thin walls of your reverberating furnace,' so that it rage thenceforth all unchecked among the contiguous combustibles (which were Madness): till of the so fair and manifold internal world of our Diogenes, there remained Nothing, or only the 'crater of an extinct volcano!'

From multifarious Documents in this Bag Capricornus, and in the adjacent ones on both sides thereof, it becomes manifest that our Philosopher, as stoical and cynical as he now looks, was heartily and even franticly in Love: here therefore may our old doubts whether his heart were of stone or of flesh give way. He loved once; not wisely but too well. And once only: for as your Congreve needs a new case or wrappage for every new rocket, so each human heart can properly exhibit but one Love, if even one; the 'First Love which is infinite' can be followed by no second like unto it. In more recent years, accordingly, the Editor of these Sheets was led to regard Teufelsdröckh as a man not only who would never wed, but who would never even flirt; whom the grand-climacteric itself, and St. Martin's Summer of incipient Dotage, would crown with no new myrtle garland. To the Professor, women are henceforth Pieces of Art; of Celestial Art, indeed; which celestial pieces he glories to survey in galleries, but has lost thought of purchasing.

Psychological readers are not without curiosity to see how Teufelsdröckh, in this for him unexampled predicament, demeans himself; with what specialities of successive configuration, splendour and colour, his Firework blazes off. Small, as usual, is the satisfaction that such can meet with here. From amid these confused masses of Eulogy and Elegy, with their mad Petrarchan and Werterean ware lying madly scattered among all sorts of quite extraneous matter, not so much as the fair one's name can be deciphered. For, without doubt, the title Blumine, whereby she is here designated, and which means simply Goddess of Flowers, must be fictitious. Was her real name Flora, then? But what was her surname, or had she none? Of what station in Life was she; of what parentage, fortune, aspect? Specially, by what Pre-established Harmony of occurrences did the Lover and the Loved meet one another in so wide a world; how did they behave in such meeting? To all which questions, not unessential in a Biographic work, mere Conjecture must for most part return 'It was appointed,' says our Philosopher, 'that the high 'celestial orbit of Blumine should intersect the low sublunary one 'of our Forlorn; that life, looking in her empyrean eyes, should 'fancy the upper Sphere of Light was come down into this nether

answer.

'sphere of Shadows; and finding himself mistaken, make noise ' enough.'

We seem to gather that she was young, hazel-eyed, beautiful, and some one's Cousin; highborn and of high spirits; but unhappily dependent and insolvent; living, perhaps, on the not too gracious bounty of monied relatives. But how came 'the Wanderer' into her circle? Was it by the humid vehiele of Esthetic Tea, or by the arid one of mere Business? Was it on the hand of Herr Towgood; or of the Gnädige Frau, who, as an ornamental Artist, might sometimes like to promote flirtation, especially for young cynical Nondescripts? To all appearance, it was chiefly by Accident, and the grace of Nature.

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Thou fair Waldschloss,' writes our Autobiographer, what 'stranger ever saw thee, were it even an absolved Auscultator, officially bearing in his pocket the last Relatio ex Actis he would 'ever write; but must have paused to wonder! Noble Mansion! 'There stoodest thou, in deep Mountain Amphitheatre, on umbrageous lawns, in thy serene solitude; stately, massive, all of 'granite; glittering in the western sunbeams, like a palace of El Doredo, overlaid with precious metal. Beautiful rose up, in 'wavy curvature, the slope of thy guardian Hills of the green'est was their sward, embossed with its dark-brown frets of crag, or spotted by some spreading solitary Tree and its shadow. To 'the unconscious Wayfarer thou wert also as an Ammon's Tem'ple, in the Libyan Waste; where, for joy and woe, the tablet of 'his Destiny lay written. Well might he pause and gaze; in 'that glance of his were prophecy and nameless forebodings.'

But now let us conjecture that the so presentient Auscultator has handed in his Relatio ex Actis; been invited to a glass of Rhine-wine; and so, instead of returning dispirited and athirst to his dusty Town-home, is ushered into the Gardenhouse, where sit the choicest party of dames and cavaliers; if not engaged in Æsthetic Tea, yet in trustful evening conversation, and perhaps Musical Coffee, for we hear of harps and pure voices making the stillness live.' Scarcely, it would seem, is the Gardenhouse inferior in respectability to the noble Mansion itself. Embowered 'amid rich foliage, rose-clusters, and the hues and odours of thou'sand flowers, here sat that brave company; in front, from the

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wide-opened doors, fair outlook over blossom and bush, over grove and velvet green, stretching, undulating onwards to the ' remote Mountain peaks: so bright, so mild, and everywhere the 'melody of birds and happy creatures: it was all as if man had 'stolen a shelter from the Sun in the bosom-vesture of Summer 'herself. How came it that the Wanderer advanced thither with 'such forecasting heart (ahndungsvoll), by the side of his gay 'host? Did he feel that to these soft influences his hard bosom 'ought to be shut; that here, once more, Fate had it in view to 'try him; to mock him, and see whether there were Humour in ' him?

'Next moment he finds himself presented to the party; and 'especially by name to-Blumine! Peculiar among all dames 'and damosels, glanced Blumine, there in her modesty, like a star 'among earthly lights. Noblest maiden! whom he bent to, in 'body and in soul; yet scarcely dared look at, for the presence 'filled him with painful yet sweetest embarrassment.

'Blumine's was a name well known to him; far and wide was 'the fair one heard of, for her gifts, her graces, her caprices: 'from all which vague colourings of Rumour, from the censures 'no less than from the praises, had our Friend painted for him'self a certain imperious Queen of Hearts, and blooming warm 'Earth-angel, much more enchanting than your mere white 'Heaven-angels of women, in whose placid veins circulates too 'little naphtha-fire. Herself also he had seen in public places ; 'that light, yet so stately form; those dark tresses, shading a 'face where smiles and sunlight played over earnest deeps: but 'all this he had seen only as a magic vision, for him inaccessible, 'almost without reality. Her sphere was too far from his; how 'should she ever think of him; O Heaven! how should they so 'much as once meet together? And now that Rose-goddess sits ' in the same circle with him; the light of her eyes has smiled on เ him, if he speak she will hear it! Nay, who knows, since the 'heavenly Sun looks into lowest valleys, but Blumine herself 'might have aforetime noted the so unnotable; perhaps, from his 'very gainsayers, as he had from hers, gathered wonder, gathered 'favour for him? Was the attraction, the agitation mutual, 'then; pole and pole trembling towards contact, when once