d as a condition of
marriage with me and my sisters, men have a name at present, which,
in truth, they frequently enough misapply: they call it a childlike
poetic mind. This mind, he says, is often found in youths, who, by
reason of their high simplicity of manners and their total want of
what is called knowledge of the world, are mocked by the populace. Ah,
dear Anselmus, beneath the Elder-bush thou understoodest my song, my
look; thou lovest the green Snake, thou believest in me, and wilt be
mine forevermore! The fair Lily will bloom forth from the Golden
Pot; and we shall dwell, happy, and united, and blessed, in Atlantis
together!

"Yet I must not hide from thee that in its deadly battle with the
Salamanders and Spirits of the Earth, the black Dragon burst from
their grasp and hurried off through the air. Phosphorus, indeed,
again holds him in fetters; but from the black Quills, which, in the
struggle, rained down on the ground, there sprung up hostile Spirits,
which on all hands set themselves against the Salamanders and Spirits
of the Earth. That woman who so hates thee, dear Anselmus, and who,
as my father knows full well, is striving for possession of the
Golden Pot; that woman owes her existence to the love of such a Quill
(plucked in battle from the Dragon's wing) for a certain Parsnip
beside which it dropped. She knows her origin and her power; for, in
the moans and convulsions of the captive Dragon, the secrets of many a
mysterious constellation are revealed to her; and she uses every means
and effort to work from the Outward into the Inward and unseen; while
my father, with the beams which shoot forth from the spirit of the
Salamander, withstands and subdues her. All the baneful principles
which lurk in deadly herbs and poisonous beasts, she collects; and,
mixing them under favorable constellations, raises therewith many
a wicked spell, which overwhelms the soul of man with fear and
trembling, and subjects him to the power of those Demons, produced
from the Dragon when it yielded in battle. Beware of that old woman,
dear Anselmus! She hates thee because thy childlike, pious character
has annihilated many of her wicked charms. Keep true, true to me; soon
art thou at the goal!"

"O my Serpentina! my own Serpentina!" cried the student Anselmus, "how
could I leave thee, how should I not love thee forever!" A kiss was
burning on his lips; he awoke as from a deep dream; Serpentina had
vanished; six o'clock was