BOOK 11.-IDEAL. CHAPTER I.-RECOLLECTIONS. This habit of appropriation, however divine it departed from his dear Bubble Girl, and the may be, is sometimes sad enough to earthly happy time disappeared like one of their own hearts! Whether bubbles get loved by the gods, brightest bubbles, and got itself absorbed into the and so also experience a similar early demise, past. remains uncertain. Certain, however, is it that those bubbles which sailed the furthest and lasted the longest were seldom the brightest; while the fairest and clearest reflexed sun, sky, and earth only for a few moments, but then left behind them glowing recollections, more full of beauty and light than were left by those strong, soaring bubbles, which gradually sailed away till they vanished out of sight. Just so do they who die young live young in our hearts, while those who live on grow old together, and when gone are remembered only as last seen. Sometimes, like spirit from beyond the grave, a bubble, long thought resolved into its original elements, will reappear shining afresh, beautiful as ever-even seems, defying decay, to soar happily up into the heavens! Image of those childangel souls, who all their lives are as little children in spirit, as bright, pure, and heaven-seeking as that sun-kissed bubble! Of all the wonderful powers (writes Teufelsdröckh to the present editor), of all the wonderful powers set to work by Infinite Wisdom in this wonderful me, Memory is altogether the wonderfullest! Thou canst not see with other men's eyes, nor hear with the ears of them; but thou canst use their memories, and thine own with them, also may become helpful to history, whatever kind or extent of it may happen to have interest for thee * Memory wanting to us, history were non-extant; the past, darkness; the present, a blank; the future, nowhere; for always our finite ideas can only from past facts deduce faith in futurity. Thou mayst unto thee; yet with memory is thy life not unhapbe deaf as a post; the sun may be thick darkness py, and thy soul full of light. Well did the ancients of all tongues make the waters of oblivion also the waters of death! As, therefore, when we forget all, we are dead; so when we forget the smallest thing, a portion of life is lost to us! And now Brown junior, gazing on his merrily glancing companion, courageously addresses the Memory, therefore, is the highest attribute of wonder-worker, and in his turn becomes inducted life, till it departs, gradually or otherwise, from man-the vivifying soul-fire that lights us through into the mystery. See how carefully, hesitating-us; and in the end becomes a star fixed forever in ly, he breathes through the tube; and when, by the firmament of heaven! assistance of his little teacher, he succeeds, behold his radiant look of joy! He clasps her to his heart-covers her rosy cheeks with kisses! From that moment his affections were all centred in her; and day by day, with arms lovingly entwined round each other, they strove which could blow beautifullest bubbles, and gloried in fierce bubble battles, waged in sunny air to the music of merry laughter. And like the elfin children written about by Frederikh Niemaud, our young Brown and his playfellow also In this wise does our old friend manifest his existence, and memory of us, amid the dirt and tobacco-smoke of that attic of his, in the Waungass of Wiessichnichtwo, and appears by epistles at very uncertain periods, utterly irrespective of reciprocity by the present editor, and apparently depending on the chance advent of some possessing demon of an idea, which, always we observe, once into him, gets itself driven about into strangest contortions, until all life is worried out of it, offensive enough. and he casts it forth a dead carcass, too often In the preceding (for him infinitely lucid) extract, one dimly perceives a sort of meaning, worth, perhaps, some little degree of labor to understand, if, indeed, by any not too gigantic effort, one may anyhow hope to arrive at it. It will, perhaps, be as well here, once for all, to remark one thing which we have with infinite sadness observed in his writings. After much painful labor, we have been forced reluctantly to arrive at the conclusion, that if any meaning does by chance appear on the surface, intended real meaning, if any, is altogether other than that! Had dreams filled with sunlit bubbles, more splendid, if possible, than those they saw by day. Some beautiful bubble flew away, leading them far over hill and valley to enchanted groves and strange wild places, full of sweets and flowers; then vanishing away, left in its place a fairy amid the sunbeams, who loved little children, and knew what most they loved to see and hear. And sometimes, when the bubble burst, they found themselves alone, far from where they knew their way, and the wicked fairy left them, laughing at their sorrow. And in their dreams they cried and woke. Then in the daytime they told each other these adventures, and tried to dance the dances, and sing the music, the fairies had taught them in dreamland, And they talked about the good bubble fairies and How he has in the above extract quite omitted the bad ones that sometimes led them astray, and these they suppose must have been bubbles blown any but one view of the question, is so contrary by them when they were not good children, and to his usual all-sidedness, and consequent obscuwhich had thus been in the power of a bad fairy, who entered them and liked to tease, perplex, and frighten little children while the good, kind fairies, made glass coaches for themselves of the good bubbles, and joyed to show the good children all the pretty things in fairy land. rity, that it can only be accounted for by supposing that he reserves for another letter some entirely opposite view of it. Memory, doubtless, is charming enough playing delighted amid a past of roses. But unfortunately it can be considerably unpleasant, nay, absolutely It may also So also was it with our little Brown till he hateful under other circumstances. be remarked, that the rosiest of pasts will occa- | Greek lexicon and the like. How many minutes, sionally manifest a few thorns. 66 Beautiful bubble dreams also were dreamt by him; travels and adventures, joys and sorrows, all shared with her. By day also, were not all acts of his considered as to her approbation-his life, all hers? And time steadily going on, through dreams and day-tasks, still flew on, carrying him towards manhood, and at last emancipating him from Greek and Latin poets, and in their stead giving him to learn, and, if possible, to understand prose tasks in cash and credit, discount and interest, exchange and value. O thou young lover! hast thou wasted, secretly To youth, however, Memory is joyous as the forming her worshipped name on thy slate in future of Hope, also in some measure founded choicest caligraphy attainable to thee! on chance upon it. So was it with our young Brown. of other eyes than thine own seeing it, to be Years-long years-through day and night, quickly rubbed out with ready cuff of jacket. dreams in joyful home hours and miserable school Not so easily erasable from thy heart. half-years; amid thousand blooming or fading time-flowers, twined lovingly, and deathless bright tendril memories of her his long-loved Bubble Girl; from that delightful time, seen by him no more, thought of perhaps the oftener. Philosophy," says our old friend Dryasdust―" philosophy, speculating on this, concludes that old associations with her must have been kept alive in mind of Brown junior by the connection between the yellow or Windsor soap, with which he performed his daily ablutions, and that original ingredient in the too-well remembered bubbles!" After a too lengthy metaphysical disquisition on the probable mental effects produced in Brown junior by certain other saponaceous experiences, as being of a too frothy character, Dryasdust continues in his humdrum, sleepy way, to examine at great length into the psychological influences such passages as the past may have had towards inducing Brown junior to a love of soap and lather, and to more frequent ablutions, than boys are apt constitutionally to indulge in. And in his too cogitative, manyworded manner, which one marvels how a man unpossessed of the elixir of life, and with a tooquick coming death, at any rate not far from hin, can be content to think, talk, much more write in! Dryasdust goes on to speculate how near such induced cleanliness might have been akin to godliness, thus causing his youthful bubble-blowing to tend to the furtherance of his eternal welfare; and takes occasion to point out from it, what one well enough knew without his bat-eyed leading, how smallest things often lead on to greatest things, affecting not this life only, but the life to come. And oftenest, he concludes, (not before it is time,) through the kind ministry of woman. To this kind ministry may we hereupon conclude, with our old friend, was Brown junior indebted for hours of sweet musing, dreams of happiness, and thousand healthful thoughts and fancies wafted about purposeless as yet! CHAPTER II.-DREAMS. Nevertheless, through columns of Arabian figures, between fret-work of rose tint and azure, and amid Vallombrosa-thick leaves of heavy ledgers, still shone her form to him. Still in the pleasant clink of cash spoke remembrance of her silver voice. Did not the very paper thou wrotest on remind thee of her purity, the black ink of the darkness of her hair, the red ink of the rosiness of her lips? And whenever thou acceptedst a bill, didst thou not, O lover! wish that thou also wert accepted? Thus does love encompass all things with remembrance of the loved one; make all actions subservient to thoughts of her ever present in the heart of the lover, his life is with her, and lives for her. So lived our young Brown, surrounded, doubtless, by beautiful forms, lovely faces, and loving hearts; yet knowing them not, or seeing in them only "walking clothes-horses," and "patent digesting apparatuses!" Yet unconsciously out of these did he build for himself an ideal of all love and beauty, and forgetting time and change, worship her only, fondly believing that form to be his loved Bubble Girl! Foolish lover! yet, perhaps, not more foolish than others; for have not most men to get through some such star-worship, some such ideal love-fire, before they arrive at true living and loving? Rising into such love of a non-extant thing, believed, nevertheless, to be extant and visible to him in some dark-eyed shrine, only, on discovery of contrary facts, precipitates him into an abyss of despair, whence, after a time of sarcastic savage-mindedness, he comes up with eyes unscaled, and now having insight into the nonentity of his ideal, and into the value of truth, as outwardly manifested in the actual, over truth as inwardly visible in the ideal! And thereupon straightway falls into love, after a fashion found infinitely preferable, and altogether more consonant with happiness in this life of ours, than rising into love of some impossibly Dream on, thou young unconscious one! Happy divine ideality. From such discovery and recovery, in thy reveries, even anid the too-stern realities may we not date the real useful existence of any of getting into thee sufficient Latin grammar, man ? He then finds content in relinquishing the Bubble-like thoughts, sparkling through sunny boyhood, led him constantly on towards her. And as the fairies, in his dreams of old, sailed within their glittering bubbles, so in his glowing thoughts ever floated, glory-shrined, her who had taught him then to make those fairy chariots, now to think these pleasant thoughts. Always her form hovered amid his dreams; always was she the light and life of those fair palaces of joy Hope builds for him, on that uncertain cloudland the future, on this side the grave. ideal which is unattainable, for that wnich dwells | payment is rare enough; and when met with, not amid the real, and arises out of it. Brown junior, however, cannot yet do this desirable thing; not even think it to be desirable; but dwells idly in a misty dream-world, principally occupied by his Bubble Girl and himself, lighted by countless prismatic bubbles, or ghosts of them, floating on towards him from out the past; which also may serve to show us to what end his dreams are tending. CHAPTER III.-LOVE. In the present generally too-half-cultivated state for which solitary reader, however fit audience, But when this magnetic love has mutually attracted through time and space, and at length brings its two objects into actual juxtaposition, how will the sought-for one manifest her love? How much more precious were such love freely, truthfully given, than if only to be won from its concealment by dint of importunate adjurations! Here also, as in most things, we may perceive the use of credit. Beautiful is a faithful heart, full of faith in some other heart! More beautiful is the soul whose faith, although never even so much as a grain of mustard seed, comfortingly teaches her how small a portion of it is, by Infinite Goodness, permitted to be sufficient to save her from eternal death. Unfortunately, however, in this actual, viandiferous life of ours, amid conflicting political systems, endeavoring each to get itself to work, commercial and domestic financial crises, and general derangement of things, faith in aught beside cash improbably discouraged-nay, even, perhaps, gazed at with idiotic wonder by idolatrous Mammon-worshippers. Among such teachers of worldly wisdom was our young Brown working his way on through time towards the upshot of that love of his ; thought and fancy meanwhile forming for him a bright haloed future, dim amid rosy mist, but surely enclosing her who was the Psyche of his world. Woods, winds, fields, flowers-everything was full of thoughts of her; and all the world was glorious to him because she also was of it, and was his. What had I Passively existing thus, amid daily cares and nightly visions, his life as yet but a bubble, more useful if resolved into its original soap, dreamed our young Brown. At length, however, common sense chancing to get into him, he bethought himself, "Fool that I am, thus to feed useless Fancy with moonshine and bags of wind! legs, arms, head for, unless to use them to some more profitable purpose? What, after all, do I actually know of her, this Bubble Girl, as she now is? Absolutely nothing. Go, then, thou canst find her if extant, nor dream again till thou canst dream true." Hereupon Brown junior, determining to act, immediately packed carpet-bag, donned paletôt, and set forth, another pilgrim of love, full of thoughts that, bubble-like arose and burst, not without a certain beauty first manifested, to solve the first great enigma, of his life. Did she, his long-loved, remember him-love him? Heart-palpitatingly entered he that well-remembered portal-saw there, as of old, the curtained window of the door that led to where she was; and, lo! once again from it came forth- -is it? can it be ?-his Bub ble Girl! BOOK III. ACTUAL. CHAPTER I.-CHANGE. : It must, at some time in the life of every man, have been a source of more or less anxiety to him, whether she he endeavors to obtain will be his or not. Pity for any man if, for more worldly reasons than affection, careless certainty be his more pity for him if, with trusting simplicity, relying on manifestations of love for him, he lives in a heaventower of hope, surrounded by pleasant thoughts of past and future-only, on actual presentation of suit, to find himself, from motives connected with the non-existence of any idea worth other than pounds sterling suddenly precipitated into a horrid Barathrum abyss of untrust in the truth of her love; until, at length, all want of truth in it becoming palpable to him, love changes into other than it, and once more he becomes a free soul. Changes such as these he is fortunate who escapes-or rather, say unfortunate; not having thus gone through the fire if he come purified therefrom. This experience also, however dearly bought it may at the time appear, becomes matter of after thankfulness for escaped peril. possessed of sundry valuable papers relative to your Oliver Cromwell and his doings, yet sacrifices ther to strange fears of old ghosts of feelings-deaths heads, long since proved to be nothing but such, and only to miserablest idiot-ludicrous enough, truly, hobgoblins frightful, one had hitherto believed, Milissus never could have been a lover when he argued that all change was simply illusion. Is not this life all change, crowned by death, the greatest of all surely no illusion. Philosophers and physiologists also teach us that these bodies of ours renew blood and tissue at least once in" as well as very lamentable!" The most charitable every seven years, so that seven years ago thou wast altogether a different man from what thou now art. This wonderful fact, should it any time come to be acted upon in society, might occasion somewhat disagreeably strange things. Behold," says, for instance, the wife of thy bosom to thee, behold, I am in no way bound to obey thee! He whom (so many) years ago, that which was then I, did vow to love, honor, and obey, was quite other than thou, as I am other than she; therefore," &c. Should chance of such scene ever become probable, it might not be amiss (or not, as found desirable) to get ourselves re-married every seven years or so. Even as at present, on some physical and constitutional grounds, and for similar reasons founded on the relative value of prevention and cure, physicians recommend such periodical vaccination. 66 Law, as well as physic, also appears to have considered certain statutes with an eye to these physical facts. The Statute of Limitation is evidently based on the fact that he who contracted the debt was quite another person than he of whom it may be claimed a certain number of years afterwards. Unless this reason be accepted, how can such law be reconciled with justice? The termn of transportation for seven years may have been instituted on the same grounds. conclusion arrivable at in this case is that the soul of such man gets itself born, absurdly enough, twe centuries or so later than it ought, from what possible cause remains undiscovered-nay, even unsurmised. At all times, perhaps, some such after-born century having been usurped by some other cunning soul may manifest itself, place of such in its own soul, which contrived to get itself born instead, and so passed for a genius, philosophical discoverer, &c. &c., being to such extent what we call in "advance of the age." Whose soul it was that made a name for itself in that seventeenth century, impossible to determine-conjecture, also, were instead of the soul of this Mr. So-and-So, it is now unnecessarily hazardous. May we not also hold that such manifestation of fear was significant of prophetic foresight of the upturning revolution, disturbances, &c., which have since shaken the world to the profit of mankind, only as extant in newspaper editors, short-hand writ ers, and the like? From which fact doubts may arise in these affairs-a question worth, perhaps, inquiry as to what hand proprietors and editors of such had into, as matter for a History of Public Opinion, or a portion of it. What hand, also, the above obscurelyalluded-to individual may have had in such affairs, or yet may have, will also, doubtless, in time become manifest. Meanwhile, one may surmise that this fine arts, or whatever other name is bestowed on Mr. So-and-So is a member of your committee of that body of men who have decided, as far as in them lies, to entirely do away with and abolish your The Septennial Act also, by instinctive or other Oliver Cromwell from English history-at any rate "wisdom of our ancestors," determined the dura- will do so as shown in statues and paintings in your tion of parliament as not exceeding seven years- new houses of parliament. Such man, or, indeed, reasons for which, now become clear by help of such body of men, existing in this anno Domini aforesaid physical fact, according to which, after surely either a phenomenon worth looking at, or a with feelings belonging to two centuries ago, such assigned lapse of time, members cease alto- sight pitiable to behold. One thing, however, of gether to be they who were elected, consequently those Cromwell Letters, &c., is consolatory to durequire reëlection. This harmony between nat-bious historian—namely, that they are in no way ural and artificial law, is it not confirmatory of the rectitude of such? It is also an argument, hitherto unused, against annual or triennial parliaments. For is it not best that, where practicable, human and divine law be made to coincide? This one point of the charter we may hereupon consider rounded off and vanished into invisibility. indispensable to history, consequently may rest satisfied with their present position as a curiosity of literature. Thus far Teufelsdröckh, with whom we entirely coincide in much that he has said, particularly as to the extraordinary character called by him Mr. So-and So, of whom, after his funereal pile of burnt papers, we may believe that any change, septennial or other, that may now take place in him must be alike uncomfortable to himself as useless to history. Besides your charter, however, (writes Teufelsdröckh,) is there not now abroad among you some new sect, more of schoolboy than schoolmaster, calling itself Young England, which, after much research, I hesitatingly believe goes back to feudality and such extinct ideas-one might have hoped In addition to the before-mentioned elucidations dead enough by this time? Of this antique sect now of the laws of justice and physic, by means of the existing among your modern improved society, thaumaturgical changes constantly going forward perhaps not the least remarkable specimen is that in the environments of these souls of ours, doubtMr. So-and-So obscurely alluded to in your Fraser's less to patient investigation, reasons for other thing Magazine, under date of December, 1847, such num- would also in time become evident, as well as, perber of it having only of late reached me, with apol-haps, some facts, not of the least wonderful sort, ogetic note of regret from Messrs. Stillschweigen be made known to us. and Co., in whose warehouse it seems to have long Are we not, for instance, heavily slumbered. In this number I find, with constantly more or less dying? On which fact infinite surprise, and no little sadness, mention of (whether sad or otherwise) most people would de above-named Mr. So-and-So as an individual who, worse than reflect. CCXCIV. LIVING AGE. VOL. XXIV. 3 To such revivifying power struggling with adverse fate to reestablish a lost member, may we not also attribute that unfortunate propensity in a departed limb of still continuing to trouble the body it once belonged to, with its too-well remembered aches or rheumatism? This idiocrasy in legs were sufficient in itself to render an exchange of flesh for wood altogether undesirable. Change, however, whether pleasant or otherwise, inward or outward, governs all things. There is no remaining stationary. Either retrograde or advance; for" he goeth back," says Saint Augustine, "who continueth not." There is nothing fixed save in heaven, and that thou must die! Change, nevertheless, often creeps over us so softly and imperceptibly that we take no note of it or its effects. But when, as it occasionally will, it comes suddenly upon us from afar back amid the past, and cloudy years rolling aside display again those sweet star-hours, now in immediate contact, as it were, with the day-lighted present! Here, O change, thou delightest to manifest thyself in magnificentest proportions! Here thus did Brown junior also prove thy such time only occasionally troubling thee with reality! For the vision of his life was before him! Yet not the vision, the substance; yet again not that reality which formed his dreams, but somewhat far other than that. Oh, miserable Brown! have, then, all thy fond imaginings ended foolishly in this? Have all thy thoughts been of her? O disappointment! not of her were they, or surely they had not been what thou foundest them. No, they were the vision thy fancy formed to inhabit with thee thy inner life, where she may still dwell with as much satisfaction as may remain for thee. "Is not a man's universe within his head," says Jean Paul, whether a king's diadem or a torn skull-cap be without?" In this universe thou mayst yet find a certain degree of pleasure with companionship of thy ideal, but out of it none. Therefore, for all practical purposes, might it not be as well to do away with it as quickly as may be and henceforth and forever have done with Bubbles? Capacity to do this, however, is not yet afforded, reflections still crowding on him, melancholy and despairing; for to lose in a moment the hope of years can be at no time a very exhilarating process to go through. And now, thus had the brilliant Bubble of his life, that so long led him on with deceitful beauty, burst, and vanished forever into infinite space, whither Brown also seems not uninclined to follow. CHAPTER 11.-LIFE. For what, after all, has this life for us, that we so deprecate dying out of it? Is it not altogether a warfare, sometimes pitiful enough, with Death? What, for instance, is that digesting apparatus of thine, that, to keep it in order for some few days Jonger than Nature, if left alone, would do so, thou shovellest into it whole cart-loads of pills, pourest into it puncheons of nauseous draughts, all at best only to obtain some few more miserable hours of pain? Why, then, do it? Is it for benefit of quack or other doctors, philanthropically to support trade? or is it that thy soul, like roddeserving urchin, dreading the just wrath of his father, delays to the latest moment entering his home? Canst thou, under such circumstances, be said to more than exist, sadly enough? To be unconscious of aught but an all-pervading, God-given life, is the joy of living. To be conscious of possessing a foot, (with the gout in it,) a head, ear, tooth, or limb, (with an ache in it,) concentrates life to that one member; all the rest of the body becomes secondary and subject to it, and, to a certain extent, ceases to live, is, in fact, useless for other purposes than appertain to the ailing member. How long, then, O my brother, thus reckoning hast thou lived? Thou hast been so many years a mouth, a head; so many a foot, an ear, and so many years a tooth. Besides which, thou hast been, perhaps, half thy life a mere self-acting bellows, or breathing-machine; thy mind during dreams, horrible or otherwise. What, then, remains of true life in thee? and how small fraction of that little remnant has been devoted to the welfare of thy immortal soul? Perhaps all the care thou hast ever taken of it, has been perforce squeezed out of thee, by this self-same pain. Effect transient enough, nevertheless of some use, (for there is no good thought but leaves an aftergleam in the heart it has visited,) proving also how good is this pain for thee. Our Brown junior, however, felt himself to be conscious of living by means of a different species of ache, namely, that of the heart. Often more tedious in getting itself cured, but when cured, all the more permanently established in firmer than pristine health. Time, the destroyer of all things, will destroy this heart-ache of thine for thee if thou wilt let him. For, unfortunately, hitherto no other elixir of un-loving has been discovered. Has not Time (if thou wouldst but believe it) also in store for thee some fair reality, who will one day become thy companion and thoughtsharer; with whom thou wilt at length find a home for thy now weary soul? Till such life-dawn shall break for him, must our lover remain in the thick night this vanishing of his love (whether moon or mere horn lantern) has left him; and, lighted by no kind star, stumble about over the fragments of those airbuilt castles now precipitated to earth from their no foundation in vague cloudland. For the present must he be content to dwell amid these ruins, and meditate thereon, not, it it may be hoped, without advantage. CHAPTER III.-DEATH. "O Death, where is thy sting?" Correctly speaking, nowhere; for not Death, but the fear of him, is the sting to that earth-fettered portion of the imprisoned soul which refused to hearken |