foot upon the steps which
he has laid down for the heart-thrilling ceremonial, as the goldsmith
may only adore from far off the _monstrance_ whose enamel and whose
jewels he has himself set together. The builder surrenders to the rich
man, with the key of his palace, all pleasure and all right there, and
never shares with him in the enjoyment of it. And must not art in this
way, step by step, draw off from the artist, when the work, like a child
who is provided for, has no more to fall back upon its father? And what
a power there must be in art itself for its own self-advancing, when it
has been obliged to shape itself almost solely out of what was open to
all, only out of what was the property of every one, and therefore also
of the artist!"

"There is a conception among old nations which is awful, and may almost
seem terrible. They pictured their forefathers to themselves sitting
round on thrones, in enormous caverns, in silent converse; when a new
comer entered, if he were worthy enough, they rose up, and inclined
their heads to welcome him. Yesterday, as I was sitting in the chapel,
and other carved chairs stood round like that in which I was, the
thought of this came over me with a soft, pleasant feeling. Why cannot
you stay sitting here? I said to myself; stay here sitting meditating
with yourself long, long, long, till at last your friends come, and you
rise up to them, and with a gentle inclination direct them to their
places. The colored window panes convert the day into a solemn twilight;
and some one should set up for us an ever-burning lamp, that the night
might not be utter darkness."

"We may imagine ourselves in what situation we please, we always
conceive ourselves as _seeing_. I believe men only dream that they may
not cease to see. Some day, perhaps, the inner light will come out from
within us, and we shall not any more require another.

"The year dies away, the wind sweeps over the stubble, and there is
nothing left to stir under its touch. But the red berries on yonder tall
tree seem as if they would still remind us of brighter things; and the
stroke of the thrasher's flail awakes the thought how much of
nourishment and life lie buried in the sickled ear."

CHAPTER IV

How strangely, after all this, with the sense so vividly impressed on
her of mutability and perishableness, must Ottilie have been affected by
the news which could not any longer be kept concealed from her, that
Edward