asure, is more attributable to the world about us than to ourselves;
we make partisans to console us for the loss of one who was our
confidant, and in the violence of _their_ passions we are carried away
as in a current. The students were no exception to this theory; scarcely
had they ceased to regard each other as friends when they began to feel
as enemies. Alas! is it not ever so? Does not the good soil, which,
when cultivated with care, produce the fairest flowers and the richest
fruits, rear up, when neglected and abandoned, the most noxious weeds
and the rankest thistles? And yet it was love for another--that passion
so humanising in its influence, so calculated to assuage the stormy and
vindictive traits of even a savage nature--it was love that made them
thus. To how many is the 'light that lies in woman's eyes 'but a beacon
to lure to ruin? When we think that but one can succeed where so many
strive, what sadness and misery must not result to others?

Another change came over them, and a stranger still. Eisendecker, the
violent youth, of ungovernable temper and impetuous passion, who loved
the wildest freak of student-daring, and ever was the first to lead the
way in each mad scheme, had now become silent and thoughtful; a gentle
sadness tempered down the fierce traits of his hot nature, and he no
longer frequented his old haunts of the cellar and the fighting school,
but wandered alone into the country, and spent whole days in solitude.
Von Muhry, on the other hand, seemed to have assumed the castaway mantle
of his once friend: the gentle bearing and almost submissive tone of his
manner were exchanged for an air of conscious pride--a demeanour that
bespoke a triumphant spirit; and the quiet youth suddenly seemed changed
to a rash, high-spirited boy, reckless from very happiness. During this
time, Eisendecker had attached himself particularly to me; and although
I had always hitherto preferred Von Muhry, the feeling of the other's
unhappiness, a sense of compassion for suffering, which it was easy
to see was great, drew me closer in my friendship towards him; and,
at last, I scarcely saw Adolphe at all, and when we did meet, a mutual
feeling of embarrassment separated and estranged us from each other.
About this time I set off on an excursion to the Hartz Mountains, to
visit the Brocken, and see the mines; my absence, delayed beyond what I
first intended, was above four weeks, and I returned to Gottingen just
as