haniel formed a strong attachment for each other, and no one in
the world having any objection to make, they were betrothed, when
Nathaniel left the place to pursue his studies in G----. He is,
according to the date of his last letter, hearing the lectures of the
celebrated professor of physics, Spalanzani.

Now I could proceed in my story with confidence, but at this moment
Clara's image stands so plainly before me, that I cannot look another
way, as indeed was always the case when she gazed at me, with one of
her lively smiles. Clara could not by any means be reckoned beautiful;
that was the opinion of all who are competent judges of beauty, by
their calling. Nevertheless, the architects praised the exact symmetry
of her frame, and the painters considered her neck, shoulders, and
bosom almost too chastely formed, but then they all fell in love with
her wondrous Magdalen-hair, and above every thing prated about
_battonisch_ colouring. One of them, a most fantastical fellow,
singularly compared Clara's eyes to a lake by Ruysdael, in which the
pure azure of a cloudless sky, the wood and flowery field, the whole
cheerful life of the rich landscape are reflected. Poets and composers
went still further. "What is a lake--what is a mirror!" said they,
"can we look upon the girl without wondrous, heavenly songs and tunes
flashing towards us from her glances, and penetrating our inmost soul,
so that all there is awakened and stirred. If even then we sing
nothing that is really sensible, there is not much in us, and that we
can feelingly read in the delicate smile which plays on Clara's lips,
when we presume to tinkle something before her, which is to pass for a
song, although it is only a confused jumble of tones." So it was.
Clara had the vivid fancy of a cheerful, unembarrassed child, a deep,
tender, feminine disposition, an acute, clever understanding. The
misty dreams had but a bad chance with her, since, though she did not
talk,--as indeed talking would have been altogether repugnant to her
tacit nature, her bright glance and her firm ironical smile would say
to them: "Good friends, how can you imagine that I shall take your
fleeting shadowy images for real forms with life and motion?" On this
account Clara was censured by many as cold, unfeeling and prosaic;
while others, who conceived life in its clear depth, greatly loved the
feeling, acute, childlike girl, but none so much as Nathaniel, whose
perception in ar