Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

CHAPTER III.

Time passes on. Dr. Curtis continued his visits to the gaming houses. Between playing, dashing and flashing in the gayest society, he already began to feel the want of more money. His parties were the most brilliant in the city, but his practice was gone, his character was soiled-for it can not long be concealed, when a man habitually visits a gambling house. He was falling, by degrees, into the fatal habit of drink. Several times he had gone home to the arms of his lovely wife, nearly intoxica ted! At such times he was snarlish, disagreeable, insinuating, disgusting. She bore all this like an angel, hoping for the best.

As often

Sterling continued his visits to Beatrice. as propriety would allow, he was by her side. His love grew almost turbulent, simply because he could. not disclose it. Never had he dared to avow it. Everybody except Beatrice could see his passion. Devotion of person is the best declaration of love. That Beatrice began to be charmed, need not be denied. The time with him was delightful-away from him, dull. How could she fail to feel the difference between the harsh insinuating phrases of a snarling tyrant, and the soft tones of a tremulous tongue, whose sad voice was freighted with gentleness and deference? Did Sterling love her? Would she ask

herself this question? Why not? Where is the heart that ever refused to be loved by an equal-a supposed superior? Unavowed love is free to rove whithersoever it listeth. And who, in trying to control the heart, ever failed to nurse the passion?

Had Sterling avowed his passion, or offered improprieties, Beatrice would have driven him forever from her presence.

Her virtue was in her honor. Her husband was crushing her hopes-not her heart;-that monarch of life, with elastic spirit, lifts its bright eye undimmed amid the saddest ruins, and looks beyond the fallen temple of fortune, into the far, but ever-green, vales of hope. In accidental misfortune the heart of man and woman may go hand in hand to the grave, and cease their harmonious unison only in death; but ingratitude disrobes sympathy of its richest garments, while suspected virtue arms itself in honor and scorn, not thinking how surely revenge becomes a dangerous hand-maid.

66

How do you like the book?" said Sterling. "Amazingly," answered Beatrice.

It was Wilhelm Meister. Sterling had sent it with desires that she should read it critically.

• 6

"For the philosophical development of character,” said Beatrice, I know no romance equal to it. It is a book to be read more than once.

As in a great reading.. It

poem, new beauties appear upon every is suited to every class of society. There is love for the sentimental, adventure for the romantic, acute criticism for the scholar, and poetry for the imagina

tive. In it every phase of society is mirrored. It reflects the whole of Germany, and the picture is full of life. The prince, the peasant, the merchant, the actor, the minstrel, the mimic, the artist, the phi losopher, the astronomer in the heavens, and the geologist in the earth." "No wonder," she continued, "that this book has such complete possession of the German reader, and there is as little wonder that it does not take hold of the American reader. The scenes are not American; the theatre in Germany is a part of real life, in America it is an incidental recreation. In Germany the enjoyment of the stage is habitual and intellectual, in America it is occasional. Wilhelm Meister is read in America only by scholars, artists and poets; for the general reader I should think it had few charms. It is not a book for coaches or steamboats."

"do not

"All minds in America," said Sterling, remain American. The books first read shape the early impressions. The dreaming school-boy under foreign pedagogues, with an occasional leisure or stolen hour, for the perusal of eastern romances, will grow up a foreigner in thought if not in habit. The bright boy with restless imagination, turns from his native sky, to view through the telescope of fancy, the poetic clouds that curtain Italian sunsets. He leaves his native hills to rove in idea around the base of Parnassus. From his own grand wilderness, where every tree is a minstrel, and every mound a poem, he flies to the ancient haunts of Pan and Orpheus; and for the every day sight of his mystic

trees and mighty cataracts, he paints in panoramic magnificence the gorgeous scenery of the Rhine. To such readers Wilhelm Meister is always a feast. What romantic boy does not find himself sketched to the life in Wilhelm's description of his passion for puppets, and his longings for theatricals. What youthful poet of true genius is not himself painted, as Wilhelm, in despair of excellence in art, throws his manuscripts into the fire? What lover, as his heart whispers its sorrows to the meek-eyed moon, does not see himself in Wilhelm, as afar off in the cool night, he sits alone watching the lattice of his beloved, to see if her gown or the wings of her long hair should cast a shadow on the glass?" Here Sterling read from the volume:

"At such times, Wilhelm's thoughts were beautiful as the spirits of twilight; rest and desire alternated within him; love ran with a quivering hand in a thousand moods, over all the chords of his soul; it was as if the spheres stood mute above him, suspending their eternal song, to watch the low melodies of his heart.'"'

so.

"Very beautiful," said Beatrice; "surpassingly

Indeed there are many such passages in the work. Not too many, but just enough to lift us from the common places of minute descriptions into the pillowy realms of fancy. The relief thus offered is delightful; the mind soars away as the imagination grows tremulous with emotion. The perfection of art is in nothing more clearly displayed than in the magical skill with which Goethe adorns his life

pages with the sparkling gems of poetry. It is so natural, too; there is no appearance of straining after beauty; all is ease and grace, showing itself without effort."

"Now, indeed," exclaimed Sterling, "you are a poet; I knew it all along; how could I mistake you." "I love the beautiful in nature and excellent in art; so far I am a poet," said Beatrice.

66

Goethe was a true man as well as a great genius. He worships nature, and if he turns aside the veils in which it is mysteriously garbed, it is only to see and to admire. But he worshiped genius in man with equal fervency and was without jealousy. See what he says of Shakespeare as he spoke of the great poet to a young countryman:

6

"I will lend you a volume of Shakespeare; it can do no harm to see what is extraordinary with your own eyes. You can not better spend your time than by casting everything aside, and retiring to the solitude of your old habitation to look into the magic lantern of that unknown world.'

66 6

*

*

*

In this moode of mind Wilhelm received the promised book, and ere long, as may be easily supposed, the stream of that mighty genius laid hold of him and led him down to a shoreless ocean where he soon forgot and lost himself completely.'

"There is a vein of criticism upon Hamlet," continued Sterling, "running through the second volume of Wilhelm Meister, which is an unsurpassed effort of the art of reviewing."

These conversations were frequent but brief.

« VorigeDoorgaan »