FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52  
53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   >>   >|  
I love you, _c'est tout dire_. BISMARCK. (I am forgetting the English verses): "Sad dreams, as when the spirit of our youth Returns in sleep, sparkling with all the truth And innocence, once ours, and leads us back In mournful mockery over the shining track Of our young life, and points out every ray Of hope and peace we've lost upon the way!" By Moore, I think; perhaps Byron. "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing." Cordial remembrances to your parents and the Reddentin folk. Schoenhausen, February 23, '47. _My Angel!_--I shall not send this letter on its way tomorrow, it's true, but I do want to make use of the few unoccupied minutes left me to satisfy the need I am conscious of every hour, to communicate with you, and forthwith to compose a "Sunday letter" to you once more. Today I have been "on the move" all day long. "The Moorish king rode up and down," unfortunately not "through Granada's royal town," but between Havelberg and Jerichow, on foot, in a carriage, and on horseback, and got mighty cold doing so--because, after the warm weather of the last few days, I had not made the slightest preparation to encounter five degrees below freezing, with a cutting north wind, and was too much in haste or too lazy to mount the stairs again when I noticed the fresh air. During the night it had been quite endurable and superb moonlight. A beautiful spectacle it was, too, when the great fields of ice first set themselves massively in motion, with explosions like cannon-shots, shattering themselves against one another; they rear, shoving over and under each other; they pile up house-high, and sometimes build dams obliquely across the Elbe, in front of which the pent stream rises until it breaks through them with rage. Now are they all broken to pieces in the battle--the giants--and the water very thickly covered with ice-cakes, the largest of which measure several square rods, which it bears out to the free sea like shattered chains, with grumbling, clashing noises. This will go on so for about three days more, unt
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52  
53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
tomorrow
 

letter

 

grumbling

 

chains

 

noises

 

freezing

 
clashing
 

cutting

 

endurable

 

superb


moonlight

 

During

 

stairs

 

noticed

 
horseback
 

carriage

 

mighty

 

Jerichow

 

Havelberg

 

slightest


preparation
 

encounter

 

beautiful

 
weather
 
degrees
 

spectacle

 

giants

 

obliquely

 

thickly

 

breaks


broken

 

battle

 

pieces

 

stream

 

covered

 

square

 

massively

 
motion
 

fields

 

explosions


shoving

 

measure

 
cannon
 
largest
 

shattering

 

shattered

 
minutes
 

Tomorrow

 
Creeps
 

candle