Page:Zawis and Kunigunde (1895).djvu/18

 sions existed on the other sides, until the entire collection constituted a small hamlet of itself, but constructed around and attached to an original residence now forming the center of the group. Each addition seemed to constitute a separate abode, and to have been added on as ason introduced a daughter-in-law to the original family, or a daughter had settled down with her husband beside her parents, who ruled the increasing family in real patriarchal form, and with full patriarchal cordiality. The present chamber seemed to be habitually occupied by some members of the family, and contained a small rough box set on end, with one shelf, in which were some twenty books, old and worn and discolored. One volume lay on the top of the box and had evidently been recently used. It was a fair manuscript copy of the gospels in Greek, and contained some illumination in that exceedingly delicate tracery which interwove flowing lines and patterns so frequently into themselves in their endless convolution that pattern became lost, and a general sense of beauty without fixedness or form was presented. This book was opened by the younger man and examined by both with joyful surprise.

“See,” said the elder, “an apt symbol of the wisdom which pervades all things, and diffuses itself everywhere alike from the infinite treasury of nature. All this commingled beauty without beginning, without end, spreads a charm all over whereof each part is a constituent portion, by which each part is produced as it is, and to which each lends its aid in turn. So