of the past, but of present work
and life.

"One," I continued, taking up the thread, "I met in Southern Italy,
dreaming; as I was dreaming, by the dark grotto of Pausilippo.
Meeting upon classic ground, it seemed strange to talk of old times,
but we did. And sitting down upon the promontory of Baiae, looking off
upon the blue sea, we told each other our respective stories; just as
ships will shift their course to come within speaking distance,
compare longitude, and exchange letters, and--part. I have not heard
from Eckerman since."

My dreams were pleasant that night, and the next morning there was
another surprise for me. Gretchen's brother was the pastor of a little
church just above them; I must not go without seeing him, Gretchen
said. How could I? Euler was my classmate; together we labored for
knowledge, and our first manly sympathies run in the same channel.

On Sabbath I saw my friend in the pulpit. "How like his father," I
whispered to Gretchen; the poetry in him warming his soul into a
burst of fervid eloquence, and his face glowing with the beautiful
truths he was unfolding to his hearers. An uncouth church of rough
stone, with quaint windows and curious carvings, the ceiling arched,
with a blue ground on which blazed innumerable stars. Strange and
novel as it was, my eye never wandered from the speaker; the voice and
expression so like the kind and generous man who had presided over the
college, and who carried with him the affections of each succeeding
class. This seems to me more of a triumph now, than it did then. A
cultivated mind may challenge respect, but there is need of a noble
one to win affection.

It was a week before I could think of leaving, and then the clouds
twisted through and around the severed pyramids of the Alps, and the
rain began. In such weather the scenery is not only shrouded, but the
people are shut up in their homes. Pastor Euler had an ample study
however, and here we read and wrote, and talked; with his wife, a
pleasant-voiced woman, to enliven the pauses with music, and children
dashing into the study giving abrupt and sudden turnings to our
dreaming. Christmas was near, and I was easily persuaded to see more
of a people, shut in as they were from the noise and commotion of the
lower world, and still not so far as to be unknowing of all that was
taking place, whether in deliberative bodies, state policies, or the
lighter chit-chat of the day.

"You will have an opport