Page:The genius - Carl Grosse tr Joseph Trapp 1796.djvu/137

 and robust hands; a dagger against a thousand swords!

"Thou certainly carriest poison about thee, which would shorten thy sufferings. But hast thou aught to keep off their insulting pity, their placid contempt? Better were it for thee, to fancy some means of escaping them, instead of going in quest of their infernal cavern with all the madness and ill success of knight-errantry."

Amidst these reflections I met a traveller in a wood on the confines of the valley of Placentia. We entered into conversation about the forest, the dangers of travelling, and hit at last on the proprietor of the whole district, My fellow-traveller, a plain but talkative man, now informed me, that the owner was a widow-lady, whose husband had on a sudden disappeared. After a thousand fruitless researches, she was still left in the cruel uncertainty of what was become of him, and resolved to spend her life to mourn his loss in solitary retirement.

Night drew on apace; no inn was near; and my companion telling me, that the wi-