its head a glorious flower like a crown. We children were too
small to look down on it, but from a wooden stand we peered down
on the open calyx, and gazed at the spikes of gold, and inhaled the
strange odours that issued from it.

"Yes, A --, not often and not lightly does this heart blossom --
to the best of my recollection it has blossomed but once. . . . And
however splendid the promise of its opening blossom, I fancy that
from want of sunlight and warmth it must have shrivelled miserably,
if it was not actually shattered by a dark wintry blast. But now
it stirs again, and shoots in my breast, and if you suddenly hear a
report -- fear not, silly girl, I have not shot myself -- but my love is
bursting the bud, and is shooting up in lyric flashes, in immortal
dithyrambs, in ebullience of song.

"But if this lofty love is too high for thee, girl, set thyself at ease
and mount the wooden stand, and look down on the blossoming of
my heart."

This brief account of, and the few excerpts from, the
"Harzreise," will afford some idea of the freshness and
beauty of the original: in order to understand, however,
the full extent of this charm it is necessary to know
German, not only for the sake of the clear-cut, nervous
style of the narrative itself, but also so as to comprehend
what a new direction was thereby given to the national
literary prose. The whole of the "Reisebilder" is
brilliantly written, but the "Harzreise" must, in many
respects, be held the most important section, for it was
at once pioneer and leader in a new realm.

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