se with women; but now, that end could be
attained only by intercourse with noble men.

They soon passed into those mutual unfoldings of views which are like a
perpetual greeting, when two persons have pursued the same spiritual
ends apart from each other, in wholly different relations of life, and
yet with the same essential tendencies.

The Professorin had known Clodwig's first wife, and recalled her to
remembrance in affectionate words. Clodwig looked round to see if Bella
was near, for he had never spoken before her of his former wife. It was
pure calumny, when it was said that he had promised Bella never to
speak of the deceased, for Clodwig was not so weak, nor Bella so hard,
as this; it was only out of consideration for her, that he never did
it.

In low, half-whispered tones, the conversation flowed on; and finding
in each other the same fundamental trait, they agreed that it was happy
for human beings here below to pass lightly over what was untoward in
their lot, and retain in lively remembrance only what was felicitous.

"Yes," said the Professorin in confirmation, "my husband used often to
say, that a Lethe stream flows through the soul buoyant with life, so
that the past is forgotten."

It was a season of purest, interchange of thought, and of true
spiritual communion, for Clodwig and the mother. They were like two
beings in the spirit-world, surveying calmly and clearly what had
passed in this state of existence. There was nothing painful in the
mutual awakening of their recollections, but rather an internal
perception of the inexhaustible fulness of life; on this elevated
height the sound of desire and plaint was no longer heard, and the
individual life with all its personal relations was dissolved into the
one element of universal being.

But now there was a diversion, and Clodwig expressed regret at having
lived so much a mere spectator, and that he had without throwing
himself into the great current of influence, waited passively in the
confident expectation that the idea which was stirring in the world
would accomplish, of itself, its own grand fulfilment. He expressed his
satisfaction that the young men of to-day were of a different stamp,
and that Eric was to him an inspiring representative of youth as
thoughtful as it was bold, as moderate as it was active.

Bella entered just as they happened to refer again to the statistics of
love. She was pale, but Clodwig did not perceive it; sitting d