*

We rejoice in the ardent, pure and confiding affection of these two
angelic beings: but our feeling is changed and made more poignant,
when we think that the inexorable hand of Destiny is already lifted to
smite their world with blackness and desolation. Thekla has enjoyed
'two little hours of heavenly beauty;' but her native gaiety gives
place to serious anticipations and alarms; she feels that the camp of
Wallenstein is not a place for hope to dwell in. The instructions and
explanations of her aunt disclose the secret: she is not to love Max;
a higher, it may be a royal, fate awaits her; but she is to tempt him
from his duty, and make him lend his influence to her father, whose
daring projects she now for the first time discovers. From that moment
her hopes of happiness have vanished, never more to return. Yet her
own sorrows touch her less than the ruin which she sees about to
overwhelm her tender and affectionate mother. For herself, she waits
with gloomy patience the stroke that is to crush her. She is meek, and
soft, and maiden-like; but she is Friedland's daughter, and does not
shrink from what is unavoidable. There is often a rectitude, and quick
inflexibility of resolution about Thekla, which contrasts beautifully
with her inexperience and timorous acuteness of feeling: on
discovering her father's treason, she herself decides that Max 'shall
obey his first impulse,' and forsake her.

There are few scenes in poetry more sublimely pathetic than this. We
behold the sinking but still fiery glory of Wallenstein, opposed to
the impetuous despair of Max Piccolomini, torn asunder by the claims
of duty and of love; the calm but broken-hearted Thekla, beside her
broken-hearted mother, and surrounded by the blank faces of
Wallenstein's desponding followers. There is a physical pomp
corresponding to the moral grandeur of the action; the successive
revolt and departure of the troops is heard without the walls of the
Palace; the trumpets of the Pappenheimers reecho the wild feelings of
their leader. What follows too is equally affecting. Max being forced
away by his soldiers from the side of Thekla, rides forth at their
head in a state bordering on frenzy. Next day come tidings of his
fate, which no heart is hard enough to hear unmoved. The effect it
produces upon Thekla displays all the hidden energies of her soul. The
first accidental hearing of the news had almost overwhelmed her; but
she summons up her strength: she