Page:Tales from the German - Oxenford.djvu/450

 whether the leaves of the lime trees, the pines, the plane trees, might "be truer to nature, whether the back ground might be more misty, or the water might be clearer; but the spirit that breathes from the whole raised you into a higher region, the reflection of which you seemed to behold. Therefore, study nature in the mechanical part, sedulously and carefully, that you may attain the practice of representation; but do not take the practice for the art itself. If you have penetrated into the deep import of nature, her pictures will arise within you in bright magnificence.' The Maltese was silent; but when Berthold, deeply moved by what he had heard, stood with downcast eyes, and incapable of uttering a word, the Maltese left him, saying, 'I had no intention of interrupting you in your calling, but I know that a higher spirit is slumbering in you. I called upon it. with strong words, that it might awake, and move its wings with freshness and vigour. Farewell.'

"Berthold felt as if the Maltese had only clothed in words that which had already been fermenting in his soul. The inner voice broke forth. 'No! All this striving, this constant endeavour, is but the uncertain, deceptive groping of the blind. Away with all that has hitherto dazzled me.' He was not in a condition to accomplish a single other stroke. He left his master, and wandered about full of wild uneasiness, loudly imploring that the high knowledge of which the Maltese had spoken might be revealed to him.

"'Only in sweet dreams was I happy—yes, truly blessed! Then every thing that the Maltese had spoken became true. I lay in the green hedge, while magical exhalations played around me, and the voice of nature sounded audibly and melodiously through the dark forest. 'Listen, listen, oh! thou initiated one. Hear the original tones of creation, which fashion themselves to beings accessible to thy mind.' And when I heard the chords sound plainer and plainer, I felt as though a new sense was awakened in me, and apprehended with wonderful perspicuity, that which had appeared unfathomable. As if in strange hieroglyphics I drew in the air the secrets that had been revealed to me with characters of fire; and this hieroglyphic writing was a strange landscape, upon which trees, hedges, flowers, and waters moved, as it seemed, in loud delightful sounds.'

"But it was only in dreams that poor Berthold felt real happiness, for his strength was broken, and his mind was more disturbed than it had been in Rome, when he wished to be an historical painter. If he strode through the dark wood, an unpleasant sensation of awe came over him; if he went out and looked into the distant mountains, he felt as though icy cold claws grasped his heart—his breath was stopped—and he felt as if he perished from internal anguish. All nature, which used to smile kindly upon him, became a threatening monster, and her voice, which used to greet him sweetly in the murmuring of the evening breeze, in the bubbling of the brook, in the rustling of the leaves, now told him of nothing but per-