He looked earnestly at the Professor and called Hans to accompany him on a visit to the village, in order to take a grateful leave of his old crones, and to obtain one of the beautiful songs of the people, of which he had discovered traces, to take home with him.
He was gone a long time; for after the song there came to light unexpectedly a wonderful story of a certain Sir Dietrich and his horse, which breathed fire.
When, toward evening, the Professor was looking out for him, he met Ilse who, with her straw hat in her hand, was prepared for a walk.
"If you like," she said, "we will go to meet your friend."
They walked along a meadow between stubble-fields, in which here and there grass was to be seen peeping up amongst the stubble.
"The autumn approaches," remarked the Professor; "that is the first sign."
"Winter-time is tedious to some people," answered Ilse, "but it puts us, like Till Eulenspiegel, in good spirits, for we enjoy its repose, and think of the approaching spring; and when the stormy winds rage round us, and the snow drifts to a man's height in the valleys, we sit at home in warmth and comfort."
"With us in the city the winter passes away almost unheeded. The short days and the white roofs alone remind us of it, for our work goes on independently of changing seasons. Yet the fall of the leaf has from my childhood been depressing to me, and in the spring I always desire to throw aside my books and ramble through the country like a traveling journeyman."
They were standing by a bundle of sheaves. Ilse arranged some of them as a seat, and looked over the fields to the distant hills.
"How different it is with us here," she began after a pause. "We are like the birds which year after year joyously flap their wings and live in contentment. But you think and care about other times and other men that existed long before us. You are as familiar with the past as we are with the rising of the sun and the forms of the stars. If the end of summer is sorrowful to you, it is equally as sorrowful to me to hear and read of past times. Books of history make me very sad. There is so much unhappiness on earth, and it is always the good that come to a sorrowful end. I then become presumptuous, and ask why God has thus ordered it? It is really very foolish to feel thus. But for that reason I do not like to read history."
"I well understand that frame of mind," answered the Professor. "For wherever men seek to enforce their will in opposition to their time and nation, invariably they meet the fate that befalls the weak. Even that which the strongest accomplish has no permanent lastingness. And as men and their works disappear, so do peoples. But we should not irrevocably attach our hearts to the fate of a single man or a single nation, we should rather strive to understand why they have grown great, and why they have perished, and what was the abiding gain that through their life the human race has eternally won. The account of their fortunes will then become but a veil, behind which we discover the operation of other forces and powers of life. We learn that in the men that succumb in this great struggle and in the nations that decline, a still higher hidden life dominates, which lives on creating and destroying in rigid accordance with eternal laws. To discover the laws of this higher life and to feel, to experience the blessing that this creating and destruction has brought into our existence, that is the duty and the ambition of the historian. From this point of view dissolution and death are transformation into new life. And they who have learned thus to look upon and observe the past-for them its study increases their security and ennobles their heart."
Ilse shook her head and cast down her eyes.
"And the Roman whose lost book brought you to us, and of which you have been talking to-day-is he interesting to you because he looked upon the world in the cheerful light that you do?"
"No," answered the Professor, "it is just the reverse that impresses one in his work. His serious mind was never borne aloft by joyful confidence. The fate of his nation, the future of men, lay like a dark impenetrable riddle heavily upon his soul. In the past he saw a better time, freer government, stronger men, purer morals. In his own people and his own state he saw decadence and dissolution, which even good rulers no longer could retard. It is affecting to see how that high-minded, thoughtful man struggled in doubt. For he doubted whether the horrible fate of millions was the punishment of the Deity or the consequence that no God cared for the lot of mortals. Forebodingly and ironically he contemplates the history of individuals. To him the course of wisdom seems to be to bear the inevitable silently and patiently. When, even for a moment, a brief smile curls his lips, one perceives that he is looking into a hopeless desert; one can imagine fear visible in his eyes, and the rigid expression which remains on one who has been shaken to the innermost core by deadly horrors."
"That is sad," exclaimed Ilse.
"Yes, it is fearful. And it is difficult to understand how any one could endure life, burdened by such despair. The joyful satisfaction of belonging to a nation of growing vigor was not then the lot of either heathen or Christian. It is the highest and most indestructible happiness of man to have confidence in that which exists, and to look with hope to the future. And such is our life now. Much that is weak, corrupt, and perishable surrounds us. But with it all there is growing up an endless abundance of youthful vigor. The root and the trunk of our popular life are sound. Everywhere do we find sincerity in family-life, respect for morals and law, sturdy and solid labor, everywhere energetic activity. In many thousands we find the consciousness that they are increasing the national strength, and in millions that are still far behind them the feeling that they also are laboring to contribute to our civilization. This is our pleasure and glory in modern times, and helps to make us valiant and proud. We well know, indeed, that the joyful feeling of this possession may also be saddened; for temporary disturbances come to every nation in the course of its development. But its progress and prosperity of thriving cannot be thwarted, nor its career hindered, so long as these securities of power and soundness exist. It is this that gives happiness to him whose vocation it is to investigate the past, for he looks down from the salubrious air of the heights into the darkness beneath him."
Ilse gazed on him with wonder and admiration, but he bent over the sheaves which were between them and continued with enthusiasm:
"Each one of us derives the judgment and habit of mind with which he regards the great relations of the world, from the sphere of his own personal experience. Look about you. Here at the laughing summer landscape, yonder at the busy workingmen, and then at that which lies nearest your heart-at your own home and the circle in which you have grown to womanhood. How gentle the light, how warm the hearts, how wise and good and true the minds that surround you! And think what an inestimable gain it is for me, to see this, and to enjoy it-enjoy it by your side. And when, poring over my books, I hereafter shall vividly feel how valiant and noble, how sturdy and true is the life of my countrymen about me, I shall evermore in my inmost heart pay, for that, a tribute of thankfulness to you."
He stretched out his hand across the sheaves; Ilse seized it, and clasped it between hers. A warm tear fell upon it. She looked at him with her moistened eyes, while a world of happiness lay in her countenance. Gradually a bright glow suffused her cheeks, she rose, and a look full of devoted tenderness fell upon him; then she walked hastily away from him adown the meadow.
The Professor remained leaning against the sheaves. The meadow-larks on the tips of the ears of grain over his head warbled joyfully. He pressed his cheek against the stack which half concealed him; thus, in happy forgetfulness, he watched the girl descending toward the distant laborers.
When he raised his eyes his friend was standing by him; he beheld a countenance which quivered with inward sympathy, and heard the gentle question:
"What will come of it?"
"Husband and wife," said the Professor decidedly; he pressed his friend's hands, and strode across the fields to the songs of the larks which greeted him from every sheaf.
Fritz was alone. The word had been spoken. A new and awful fate overshadowed the life of his friend. So this was to be the end of it? Thusnelda, instead of Tacitus! Fritz felt alas! that the social custom of marriage might be a very venerable institution. It was inevitable that most men pass through the uprooting struggle which is the consequence of a change in the mutual