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28 my hero. I will do it how, as he stands looking down on the glorious landscape;—but in few words. Both in person and character he resembled Harold the Fair-Hair of Norway, who is described, in the old Icelandic Death-Song of Regner Hairy-Breeches, as “the young chief so proud of his flowing locks; he who spent his mornings among the young maidens; he who loved to converse with the handsome widows.” This was an amiable weakness; and it sometimes led him into mischief. Imagination was the ruling power of his mind. His thoughts were twin-born; the thought itself, and its figurative semblance in the outer world. Thus, through the quiet, still waters of his soul each image floated double, “swan and shadow.”

These traits of character, a good heart, and a poetic imagination, made his life joyous and the world beautiful; till at length Death cut down the sweet blue flower that bloomed beside him, and wounded him with that sharp sickle, so that he bowed his head, and would fain have been bound up in the same sheaf with the sweet blue flower. Then the world seemed to him less beautiful, and life became earnest. It would have been well, if he could