Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/225

Rh love them; and that he can best do when he can picture them to himself as loving husbands, tender parents, devoted brothers, and true friends. At that time all happiness had been wished and prophesied; and to-day it was seen fulfilled in the first-born son, to whom everybody was well inclined on account of his handsome, youthful form, and upon whom the world set the greatest hopes, on account of the great qualities that he showed.

We had become quite absorbed in the past and future, when some friends who came in recalled us to the present. They were of that class of people who know the value of novelty, and therefore hasten to announce it first. They were even able to tell of a fine humane trait in those exalted personages whom we had seen go by with the greatest pomp. It had been concerted that on the way, between Heusenstamm and the great tent, the emperor and king should find the Landgrave of Darmstadt in the forest. This old prince, now approaching the grave, wished to see once more the master to whom he had been devoted in former times. Both might remember the day when the landgrave brought over to Heidelberg the decree of the electors, choosing Francis as emperor, and replied to the valuable presents he received with protestations of unalterable devotion. These eminent persons stood in a grove of firs; and the landgrave, weak with old age, supported himself against a pine, to continue the conversation, which was not without emotion on both sides. The place was afterward marked in an innocent way, and we young people sometimes wandered to it.

Thus several hours had passed in remembrance of the old and consideration of the new, when the procession, though curtailed and more compact, again passed before our eyes; and we were enabled to observe and mark the detail more closely, and imprint it on our minds for the future.