Page:The Campaner thal, and other writings.djvu/39

 waterfalls, shepherd huts, marble blocks, woods and grottoes, animated by the vascular system of the many-branched Adour, passed beautifully before our eyes, and we were forced to leave them behind, like the bright years of youth changed into dreams by the stern hand of Time.

Ah, Victor, travelling alone is life, as life, on the contrary, is only a journey. And if, like certain shell-fish, I could only push myself on with one foot, or, like sea-nettles and women, I could only progress six lines in a quarter of an hour, or if I lived under Fritz II. or Fritz I. (Lycurgus), who both forbade a long journey, I would make a short one, that I might not perish like the loach, which languishes in every vessel, if not shaken.

How spirited, how poetical, how inventive can we not be while we run onwards. As Montaigne, Rousseau, and the sea-nettle only shine when they move on. By Heaven! it is no wonder that man rises and will go on; for does not the sun follow the pedestrian from tree to tree? does not its reflected likeness swim after him in the water? do not landscapes, mountains, hills, men, rapidly changing, come and go? and does not Freedom's breath blow on the ever-varying Eden, when, released from the neck and heart-breaking chains of narrow circumstances, we fly freely and gladly, as in dreams, over ever-new scenes.

For unfortunately the bell-glass over men and melons, which at first is covered by a broken bottle, must always be raised higher and higher, and at last removed entirely. At first, a man will go into the next town, then to the university, then to an important residency, then—if he has only written twenty lines—to Weimar, and finally, to Italy or to heaven. And if the planets were stringed together on a cord, and near each other, or if the rays of