Phantastes quotes

All the further portions of the room lay shrouded in a mystery whose deepest folds were gathered around the dark oak cabinet which I now approached with a strange mingling of reverence and curiosity.

Perhaps, like a geologist, I was about to turn up to the light some of the buried strata of the human world, with its fossil remains charred by passion and petrified by tears.

Perhaps I was to learn how my father, whose personal history was unknown to me, had woven his web of story; how he had found the world, and how the world had left him.

“Is that all the philosophy you have gained in one-and-twenty years?” said she. “

Form is much, but size is nothing. It is a mere matter of relation.

I suppose your six-foot lordship does not feel altogether insignificant, though to others you do look small beside your old Uncle Ralph, who rises above you a great half-foot at least.

Below lay a sea, still as death and hoary in the moon, sweeping into bays and around capes and islands, away, away, I knew not whither. Alas! it was no sea, but a low fog burnished by the moon. “

Surely there is such a sea somewhere!

” said I to myself. A low sweet voice beside me replied—

But even here I was struck with the utter stillness. No bird sang. No insect hummed. Not a living creature crossed my way.

Yet somehow the whole environment seemed only asleep, and to wear even in sleep an air of expectation.

The trees seemed all to have an expression of conscious mystery, as if they said to themselves, “We could, an’ if we would.” They had all a meaning look about them. Then I remembered that night is the fairies’ day, and the moon their sun;

But even here I was struck with the utter stillness. No bird sang. No insect hummed. Not a living creature crossed my way. Yet somehow the whole environment seemed only asleep, and to wear even in sleep an air of expectation.

The trees seemed all to have an expression of conscious mystery, as if they said to themselves, “We could, an’ if we would.”

They had all a meaning look about them. Then I remembered that night is the fairies’ day, and the moon their sun; and I thought—Everything sleeps and dreams now: when the night comes, it will be different.

“Oh, no, they are very amusing, with their mimicries of grown people, and mock solemnities. Sometimes they will act a whole play through before my eyes, with perfect composure and assurance, for they are not afraid of me.

Only, as soon as they have done, they burst into peals of tiny laughter, as if it was such a joke to have been serious over anything.

These I speak of, however, are the fairies of the garden. They are more staid and educated than those of the fields and woods.

These I speak of, however, are the fairies of the garden. They are more staid and educated than those of the fields and woods.

Of course they have near relations amongst the wild flowers, but they patronise them, and treat them as country cousins, who know nothing of life, and very little of manners.

Now and then, however, they are compelled to envy the grace and simplicity of the natural flowers.”

Yet you would see a strange resemblance, almost oneness, between the flower and the fairy, which you could not describe, but which described itself to you.

Whether all the flowers have fairies, I cannot determine, any more than I can be sure whether all men and women have souls.

The woman and I continued the conversation for a few minutes longer. I was much interested by the information she gave me, and astonished at the language in which she was able to convey it.

and I heard them saying to each other, evidently intending me to hear, but the speaker always hiding behind his tuft, when I looked in his direction, “Look at him! Look at him!

He has begun a story without a beginning, and it will never have any end.

He! he! he! Look at him!”

Wondering what their object could be, I watched one of the beetles, and then I discovered a thing I could not account for.

But it is no use trying to account for things in Fairy Land; and one who travels there soon learns to forget the very idea of doing so, and takes everything as it comes; like a child, who, being in a chronic condition of wonder, is surprised at nothing.

What I saw was this. Everywhere, here and there over the ground, lay little, dark-looking lumps of something more like earth than anything else, and about the size of a chestnut. The beetles hunted in couples for these;

But the most awful of the features were the eyes. These were alive, yet not with life. They seemed lighted up with an infinite greed.

A gnawing voracity, which devoured the devourer, seemed to be the indwelling and propelling power of the whole ghastly apparition.

I lay for a few moments simply imbruted with terror;

The first thing I remember is the sound of a voice above me, full and low, and strangely reminding me of the sound of a gentle wind amidst the leaves of a great tree. It murmured over and over again:

“I may love him, I may love him; for he is a man, and I am only a beech-tree.”

I found I was seated on the ground, leaning against a human form, and supported still by the arms around me, which I knew to be those of a woman who must be rather above the human size, and largely proportioned.

At last I had fallen asleep; for I know nothing more that passed, till I found myself lying under a superb beech-tree, in the clear light of the morning, just before sunrise. Around me was a girdle of fresh beech-leaves.

Alas! I brought nothing with me out of Fairy Land, but memories⁠—memories.

The great boughs of the beech hung drooping around me. At my head rose its smooth stem, with its great sweeps of curving surface that swelled like undeveloped limbs. The leaves and branches above kept on the song which had sung me asleep;

This, after some pondering, I concluded to represent Pygmalion, as he awaited the quickening of his statue.

The sculptor sat more rigid than the figure to which his eyes were turned.

That seemed about to step from its pedestal and embrace the man, who waited rather than expected.

but she slept on. I bethought me of Orpheus, and the following stones; that trees should follow his music seemed nothing surprising now. Might not a song awake this form, that the glory of motion might for a time displace the loveliness of rest?

Sweet sounds can go where kisses may not enter.

I sat and thought.

The nighthawk heightened all the harmony and stillness with his oft-recurring, discordant jar. Numberless unknown sounds came out of the unknown dusk; but all were of twilight-kind, oppressing the heart as with a condensed atmosphere of dreamy undefined love and longing.

The odors of night arose, and bathed me in that luxurious mournfulness peculiar to them, as if the plants whence they floated had been watered with bygone tears.

Earth drew me towards her bosom; I felt as if I could fall down and kiss her. I forgot I was in Fairy Land, and seemed to be walking in a perfect night of our own old nursing earth.

The odors of night arose, and bathed me in that luxurious mournfulness peculiar to them, as if the plants whence they floated had been watered with bygone tears.

Earth drew me towards her bosom; I felt as if I could fall down and kiss her.

I forgot I was in Fairy Land, and seemed to be walking in a perfect night of our own old nursing earth.

The sunny afternoon died into the loveliest twilight. Great bats began to flit about with their own noiseless flight, seemingly purposeless, because its objects are unseen. The monotonous music of the owl issued from all unexpected quarters in the half-darkness around me.

The glowworm was alight here and there, burning out into the great universe.

The nighthawk heightened all the harmony and stillness with his oft-recurring, discordant jar. Numberless unknown sounds came out of the unknown dusk; but all were of twilight-kind, oppressing the heart as with a condensed atmosphere of dreamy undefined love and longing.

My spirits rose as I went deeper into the forest; but I could not regain my former elasticity of mind.

I found cheerfulness to be like life itself⁠—not to be created by any argument.

Afterwards I learned, that the best way to manage some kinds of painful thoughts, is to dare them to do their worst; to let them lie and gnaw at your heart till they are tired;

My spirits rose as I went deeper into the forest; but I could not regain my former elasticity of mind. I found cheerfulness to be like life itself—not to be created by any argument.

Afterwards I learned, that the best way to manage some kinds of painful thoughts, is to dare them to do their worst; to let them lie and gnaw at your heart till they are tired; and you find you still have a residue of life they cannot kill.

So, better and worse, I went on, till I came to a little clearing in the forest. In the middle of this clearing stood a long, low hut, built with one end against a single tall cypress, which rose like a spire to the building.

“What is it?” I said, with a growing sense of horror.

“It is only your shadow that has found you,” she replied.

“Everybody’s shadow is ranging up and down looking for him. I believe you call it by a different name in your world:

then, throwing down his handful of gold, and ceasing all his grimaces, he stood aside to let me pass in peace, and made signs to his companions to do the like.

I had no inclination to observe them much, for the shadow was in my heart as well as at my heels.

I walked listlessly and almost hopelessly along, till I arrived one day at a small spring; which, bursting cool from the heart of a sun-heated rock, flowed somewhat southwards from the direction I had been taking.

When I awoke, he slept in the waters, and I went on my silent path beneath a round silvery moon. And a pale moon looked up from the floor of the great blue cave that lay in the abysmal silence beneath.

Why are all reflections lovelier than what we call the reality?⁠—not so grand or so strong, it may be, but always lovelier?

Fair as is the gliding sloop on the shining sea, the wavering, trembling, unresting sail below is fairer still. Yea, the reflecting ocean itself, reflected in the mirror, has a wondrousness about its waters that somewhat vanishes when I turn towards itself.

Fair as is the gliding sloop on the shining sea, the wavering, trembling, unresting sail below is fairer still. Yea, the reflecting ocean itself, reflected in the mirror, has a wondrousness about its waters that somewhat vanishes when I turn towards itself.

All mirrors are magic mirrors.

The commonest room is a room in a poem when I turn to the glass.

Yea, the reflecting ocean itself, reflected in the mirror, has a wondrousness about its waters that somewhat vanishes when I turn towards itself. All mirrors are magic mirrors.

The commonest room is a room in a poem when I turn to the glass.

(And this reminds me, while I write, of a strange story which I read in the fairy palace, and of which I will try to make a feeble memorial in its place.)

for there is no cheating in nature and the simple unsought feelings of the soul. There must be a truth involved in it, though we may but in part lay hold of the meaning.

Even the memories of past pain are beautiful; and past delights, though beheld only through clefts in the gray clouds of sorrow, are lovely as Fairy Land.

But how have I wandered into the deeper fairyland of the soul, while as yet I only float towards the fairy palace of Fairy Land!

It sounded like a welcome already overshadowed with the coming farewell.

As in all sweetest music, a tinge of sadness was in every note.

Nor do we know how much of the pleasures even of life we owe to the intermingled sorrows. Joy cannot unfold the deepest truths, although deepest truth must be deepest joy.

It sounded like a welcome already overshadowed with the coming farewell. As in all sweetest music, a tinge of sadness was in every note. Nor do we know how much of the pleasures even of life we owe to the intermingled sorrows.

Joy cannot unfold the deepest truths, although deepest truth must be deepest joy.

Cometh white-robed Sorrow, stooping and wan, and flingeth wide the doors she may not enter. Almost we linger with Sorrow for very love.

As in all sweetest music, a tinge of sadness was in every note. Nor do we know how much of the pleasures even of life we owe to the intermingled sorrows. Joy cannot unfold the deepest truths, although deepest truth must be deepest joy.

Cometh white-robed Sorrow, stooping and wan, and flingeth wide the doors she may not enter.

Almost we linger with Sorrow for very love.

They who believe in the influences of the stars over the fates of men, are, in feeling at least, nearer the truth than they who regard the heavenly bodies as related to them merely by a common obedience to an external law.

All that man sees has to do with man.

Worlds cannot be without an intermundane relationship. The community of the center of all creation suggests an interradiating connection and dependence of the parts. Else a grander idea is conceivable than that which is already imbodied.

Sometimes it seemed only to represent a simple story of ordinary life, perhaps almost of universal life; wherein two souls, loving each other and longing to come nearer, do, after all, but behold each other as in a glass darkly.

As through the hard rock go the branching silver veins; as into the solid land run the creeks and gulfs from the unresting sea; as the lights and influences of the upper worlds sink silently through the earth’s atmosphere; so doth Faerie invade the world of men, and sometimes startle the common eye with an association as of cause and effect, when between the two no connecting links can be traced.

Cosmo von Wehrstahl was a student at the University of Prague. Though of a noble family, he was poor, and prided himself upon the independence that poverty gives; for what will not a man pride himself upon, when he cannot get rid of it?

Cosmo von Wehrstahl was a student at the University of Prague.

Though of a noble family, he was poor, and prided himself upon the independence that poverty gives; for what will not a man pride himself upon, when he cannot get rid of it?

A favorite with his fellow students, he yet had no companions; and none of them had ever crossed the threshold of his lodging in the top of one of the highest houses in the old town.

When he walked in the streets, he always felt as if reading a tale, into which he sought to weave every face of interest that went by; and every sweet voice swept his soul as with the wing of a passing angel.

He was in fact a poet without words; the more absorbed and endangered, that the springing waters were dammed back into his soul, where, finding no utterance, they grew, and swelled, and undermined.

He used to lie on his hard couch, and read a tale or a poem, till the book dropped from his hand;

and the world of night, which had lain drowned in the cataract of the day, rose up in his soul, with all its stars, and dim-seen phantom shapes. But this could hardly last long.

Some one form must sooner or later step within the charmed circle, enter the house of life, and compel the bewildered magician to kneel and worship.

One afternoon, towards dusk, he was wandering dreamily in one of the principal streets, when a fellow-student roused him by a slap on the shoulder, and asked him to accompany him into a little back alley to look at some old armor which he had …

But although his fancy delighted in vagaries like these, he indulged his imagination with far different fare.

His mind had never yet been filled with an absorbing passion; but it lay like a still twilight open to any wind, whether the low breath that wafts but odors, or the storm that bows the great trees till they strain and creak.

He saw everything as through a rose-colored glass. When he looked from his window on the street below, not a maiden passed, but she moved as in a story, and drew his thoughts after her till she disappeared in the vista.

Cosmo was now in a state of extravagant delight.

Most men have a secret treasure somewhere.

The miser has his golden hoard; the virtuoso his pet ring; the student his rare book; the poet his favorite haunt; the lover his secret drawer; but Cosmo had a mirror with a lovely lady in it.

Cosmo was now in a state of extravagant delight. Most men have a secret treasure somewhere.

The miser has his golden hoard; the virtuoso his pet ring; the student his rare book; the poet his favorite haunt; the lover his secret drawer; but Cosmo had a mirror with a lovely lady in it.

And now that he knew by the skeleton, that she was affected by the things around her, he had a new object in life:

But her beauty shone down all its adornment. “If I might have but one of her feet to kiss,” thought Cosmo, “I should be content.”

Alas! he deceived himself, for passion is never content.

Nor did he know that there are two ways out of her enchanted house.

This night she was dressed in an evening costume, resplendent with diamonds. This could add nothing to her beauty, but it presented it in a new aspect; enabled her loveliness to make a new manifestation of itself in a new embodiment.

For essential beauty is infinite; and, as the soul of Nature needs an endless succession of varied forms to embody her loveliness, countless faces of beauty springing forth, not any two the same, at any one of her heartthrobs; so the individual form needs an infinite change of its environments, to enable it to uncover all the phases of its loveliness.

Diamonds glittered from amidst her hair, half hidden in its luxuriance, like stars through dark rain-clouds; and the bracelets on her white arms flashed all the colors of a rainbow of lightnings, as she lifted her snowy hands to cover her burning face.

these might cross my eyes, but the unseen filled my brain. I wandered long, up and down the silent space: no songs came. My soul was not still enough for songs.

Only in the silence and darkness of the soul’s night, do those stars of the inward firmament sink to its lower surface from the singing realms beyond, and shine upon the conscious spirit.

Here all effort was unavailing. If they came not, they could not be found.

the quick interweaving crowd shook, lost its form, divided; each figure sprang to its pedestal, and stood, a self-evolving life no more, but a rigid, lifelike, marble shape, with the whole form composed into the expression of a single state or act.

Silence rolled like a spiritual thunder through the grand space.

My song had ceased, scared at its own influences. But I saw in the hand of one of the statues close by me, a harp whose chords yet quivered. I remembered that as she bounded past me, her harp had brushed against my arm;

you shan’t have her; he! he! he! She’s for a better man; how he’ll kiss her! how he’ll kiss her!”

The galvanic torrent of this battery of malevolence stung to life within me a spark of nobleness, and I said aloud, “Well, if he is a better man, let him have her.”

They instantly let go their hold of me, and fell back a step or two, with a whole broadside of grunts and humphs, as of unexpected and disappointed approbation.

for I scarcely thought about that. I went on with a dull endurance, varied by moments of uncontrollable sadness; for more and more the conviction grew upon me that I should never see the white lady again.

It may seem strange that one with whom I had held so little communion, should have so engrossed my thoughts; but benefits conferred awaken love in some minds, as surely as benefits received in others.

Besides being delighted and proud that my songs had called the beautiful creature to life, the same fact caused me to feel a tenderness unspeakable for her, accompanied with a kind of feeling of property in her;

A cold, deathlike wind swept across the shore, seeming to issue from a pale mouth of cloud upon the horizon. Sign of life was nowhere visible. I wandered over the stones, up and down the beach, a human imbodiment of the nature around me.

The wind increased; its keen waves flowed through my soul; the foam rushed higher up the stones; a few dead stars began to gleam in the east; the sound of the waves grew louder and yet more despairing.

A dark curtain of cloud was lifted up, and a pale blue rent shone between its foot and the edge of the sea, out from which rushed an icy storm of frozen wind, that tore the waters into spray as it passed, and flung the …

The aureole of the sun yet shot the extreme faint tips of its longest rays above the horizon-waves, and withdrew them not. It was a perpetual twilight.

The stars, great and earnest, like children’s eyes, bent down lovingly towards the waters; and the reflected stars within seemed to float up, as if longing to meet their embraces.

But when I looked down, a new wonder met my view. For, vaguely revealed beneath the wave, I floated above my whole past. The fields of my childhood flitted by; the halls of my youthful labors; the streets of great cities where I had dwelt;

My heart, softened by the dreams through which it had passed, overflowed in a sad, tender love towards them.

They looked to me like children impregnably fortified in a helpless confidence.

The sun stood halfway down the western sky, shining very soft and golden; and there grew a second world of shadows amidst the world of grasses and wild flowers.

My heart, softened by the dreams through which it had passed, overflowed in a sad, tender love towards them. They looked to me like children impregnably fortified in a helpless confidence.

The sun stood halfway down the western sky, shining very soft and golden; and there grew a second world of shadows amidst the world of grasses and wild flowers.

The cottage was square, with low walls, and a high pyramidal roof thatched with long reeds, of which the withered blossoms hung over all the eaves. It is noticeable that most of the buildings I saw in Fairy Land were cottages.

Amazing store of old ballads rippled from her lips, over the pebbles of ancient tunes; and the voice that sang was sweet as the voice of a tuneful maiden that singeth ever from very fullness of song.

The songs were almost all sad, but with a sound of comfort.

One I can faintly recall. It was something like this:

At length she paused in her spinning and singing, and glanced towards me, like a mother who looks whether or not her child gives signs of waking. She smiled when she saw that my eyes were open. I asked her whether it was day yet.

She answered, “It is always day here, so long as I keep my fire burning.”

I felt wonderfully refreshed; and a great desire to see more of the island awoke within me. I rose, and saying that I wished to look about me, went towards the door by which I had entered.

I rushed out of the house, I knew not why, sobbing and crying bitterly. I ran through the fields in aimless distress, till, passing the old barn, I caught sight of a red mark on the door.

The merest trifles sometimes rivet the attention in the deepest misery; the intellect has so little to do with grief.

I went up to look at this mark, which I did not remember ever to have seen before. As I looked at it, I thought I would go in and lie down amongst the straw, for I was very weary with running about and weeping.

Suddenly I saw approaching me, a little way off, a form well known to me (well-known!—alas, how weak the word!) in the years when I thought my boyhood was left behind, and shortly before I entered the realm of Fairy Land.

Wrong and Sorrow had gone together, hand-in-hand, as it is well they do.

Unchangeably dear was that face. It lay in my heart as a child lies in its own white bed; but I could not meet her.

in the years when I thought my boyhood was left behind, and shortly before I entered the realm of Fairy Land. Wrong and Sorrow had gone together, hand-in-hand, as it is well they do. Unchangeably dear was that face.

It lay in my heart as a child lies in its own white bed; but I could not meet her.

“Anything but that,” I said, and, turning aside, sprang up the steps to a door, on which I fancied I saw the mystic sign. I entered—not the mysterious cottage, but her home. I rushed wildly on, and stood by the door of her room.

A warm kiss alighted on my lips through the dark. And I said, “The dead kiss well; I will not be afraid.” And a great hand was reached out of the dark, and grasped mine for a moment, mightily and tenderly.

I said to myself: “The veil between, though very dark, is very thin.”

Groping my way further, I stumbled over the heavy stone that covered the entrance of the vault: and, in stumbling, descried upon the stone the mark, glowing in red fire. I caught the great ring. All my effort could not have moved the huge slab;

“

The old woman smiled. ‘Past tears are present strength,’ said she.

“ ‘Oh!’ said my brother, ‘I saw you weep once over an eagle you shot.’

“ ‘Wait a while,’ said the woman; ‘if I mistake not, he will make you weep till your tears are dry forever.

Tears are the only cure for weeping.

And you may have need of the cure, before you go forth to fight the giants. You must wait for him, in your tower, till he comes.’

“No, no; we will not work today.

Rest is as needful as toil.

Bring the wine, brother; it is your turn to serve today.”

For my own part, I did not dread death, for I had nothing to care to live for; but I dreaded the encounter because of the responsibility connected with it. I resolved however to work hard, and thus grow cool, and quick, and forceful.

The time passed away in work and song, in talk and ramble, in friendly fight and brotherly aid.

I would not forge for myself armor of heavy mail like theirs, for I was not so powerful as they, and depended more for any success I might secure, upon nimbleness of motion, certainty of eye, and ready response of hand.

As the old woman had promised, I tried to repay them with song; and many were the tears they both shed, over my ballads and dirges. The songs they liked best to hear were two which I made for them.

They were not half so good as many others I knew, especially some I had learned from the wise woman in the cottage; but what comes nearest to our needs we like the best.

The king sat on his throne, Glowing in gold and red; The crown in his right hand shone, And the gray hairs crowned his head.

On the third day of my journey, I was riding gently along a road, apparently little frequented, to judge from the grass that grew upon it. I was approaching a forest.

Everywhere in Fairy Land forests are the places where one may most certainly expect adventures.

As I drew near, a youth, unarmed, gentle, and beautiful, who had just cut a branch from a yew growing on the skirts of the wood, evidently to make himself a bow, met me, and thus accosted me:

I watched her light slowly descending the wall, as I might have watched, adown the sky, the long, swift approach of a helping angel. Her rays touched me, and I was free. Thus night after night passed away. I should have died but for this.

Every night the conviction returned, that I was free. Every morning I sat wretchedly disconsolate.

At length, when the course of the moon no longer permitted her beams to touch me, the night was dreary as the day. When I slept, I was somewhat consoled by my dreams;

yet it was only the voice of a woman singing. My whole frame quivered with joy, surprise, and the sensation of the unforeseen. Like a living soul, like an incarnation of Nature, the song entered my prison-house.

Each tone folded its wings, and laid itself, like a caressing bird, upon my heart.

It bathed me like a sea; inwrapt me like an odorous vapor; entered my soul like a long draught of clear spring-water; shone upon me like essential sunlight; soothed me like a mother’s voice and hand.

I dared not ask her to stay; in fact, I could hardly speak to her. Between her and me, there was a great gulf. She was uplifted, by sorrow and well-doing, into a region I could hardly hope ever to enter.

I watched her departure, as one watches a sunset.

She went like a radiance through the dark wood, which was henceforth bright to me, from simply knowing that such a creature was in it. She was bearing the sun to the unsunned spots.

I watched her departure, as one watches a sunset. She went like a radiance through the dark wood, which was henceforth bright to me, from simply knowing that such a creature was in it.

She was bearing the sun to the unsunned spots.

The light and the music of her broken globe were now in her heart and her brain. As she went, she sang; and I caught these few words of her song;

“I have failed,” I said, “I have lost myself—would it had been my shadow.” I looked round: the shadow was nowhere to be seen. Ere long, I learned that it was not myself, but only my shadow, that I had lost.

I learned that it is better, a thousandfold, for a proud man to fall and be humbled, than to hold up his head in his pride and fancied innocence.

I learned that he that will be a hero, will barely be a man; that he that will be nothing but a doer of his work, is sure of his manhood. In nothing was my ideal lowered, or dimmed, or grown less precious;

I learned that it is better, a thousandfold, for a proud man to fall and be humbled, than to hold up his head in his pride and fancied innocence.

I learned that he that will be a hero, will barely be a man; that he that will be nothing but a doer of his work, is sure of his manhood.

In nothing was my ideal lowered, or dimmed, or grown less precious; I only saw it too plainly, to set myself for a moment beside it. Indeed, my ideal soon became my life;

Doubtless, this self must again die and be buried, and again, from its tomb, spring a winged child; but of this my history as yet bears not the record.

Self will come to life even in the slaying of self; but there is ever something deeper and stronger than it, which will emerge at last from the unknown abysses of the soul: will it be as a solemn gloom, burning with eyes? or a clear morning after the rain? or a smiling child, that finds itself nowhere, and everywhere?

I stripped off all my armor, piled it under the tree, just where the lady had been seated, and took my unknown way, eastward through the woods. Of all my weapons, I carried only a short axe in my hand.

Then first I knew the delight of being lowly; of saying to myself, “I am what I am, nothing more.”

“I have failed,” I said, “I have lost myself—would it had been my shadow.” I looked round: the shadow was nowhere to be seen. Ere long, I learned that it was not myself, but only my shadow, that I had lost.

Its back was of corrugated skin, of a purple hue. Its belly was similar in nature, but its color was leaden, dashed with blotches of livid blue. Its skinny, bat-like wings and its tail were of a dull gray.

It was strange to see how so many gorgeous colors, so many curving lines, and such beautiful things as wings and hair and scales, combined to form the horrible creature, intense in ugliness.

The knight was passing me with a salutation; but, as I walked towards him, he reined up, and I stood by his stirrup.

No doubt he was soon convinced of its truth; but all the time I was with him, not a word crossed his lips with reference to what he evidently concluded I wished to leave unnoticed, if not to keep concealed.

“Squire and knight should be friends,” said he: “can you take me by the hand?”

And he held out the great gauntleted right hand. I grasped it willingly and strongly. Not a word more was said. The knight gave the sign to his horse, which again began his slow march, and I walked beside and a little behind.

If there are great splendors, there are corresponding horrors; heights and depths; beautiful women and awful fiends; noble men and weaklings.

All a man has to do, is to better what he can.

And if he will settle it with himself, that even renown and success are in themselves of no great value, and be content to be defeated, if so be that the fault is not his;

On what the attention of the multitude was fixed, we could not tell, for the sun had set before we arrived, and it was growing dark within. It grew darker and darker. The multitude waited in silence.

The stars began to shine down into the enclosure, and they grew brighter and larger every moment.

A wind arose, and swayed the pinnacles of the treetops; and made a strange sound, half like music, half like moaning, through the close branches and leaves of the tree-walls.