"But are not the thoughts that there abound projected from the realm of death into that of life, and is that any better than monastic self-mortification?"
"It is just the contrary. They praise death, or, at all events, extol it, because, after it, life is to begin. I am not one of those who deny a future life. I only say, in the words of my master: 'Our knowledge is of life and not of death,' and where my knowledge ceases, my thoughts must cease. Our labors, our love, are all of this life. And because God is in this world and in all that exist in it, and only in those things, have we to liberate the divine essence, wherever it exists. The law of love should rule. What the law of nature is in regard to matter, the moral law is to man."
"I cannot reconcile myself to your dividing the divine power into millions of parts. When a stone is crushed, every fragment still remains a stone; but when a flower is torn to pieces, the parts are no longer flowers."
"Let us take your simile as an illustration, although in truth no example is adequate. The world, the firmament, the creatures that live on the face of the earth, are not divided--they are one; thought regards them as a whole. Take, for instance, the flower. The idea of divinity which it suggests to us, and the fragrance which ascends from it, are yet part and parcel of the flower: attributes without which it is impossible for us to conceive of its existence. The works of all poets, all thinkers, all heroes, may be likened to streams of fragrance, wafted through time and space. It is in the flower that they live forever. Although the eternal spirit dwells in the cell of every tree or flower, and in every human heart, it is undivided and, in its unity, fills the world. He whose thoughts dwell in the infinite, regards the world as the mighty corolla from which the thought of God exhales."
For some time, the queen kept her face buried in her hands. Gunther quietly withdrew.
CHAPTER XVI.
The king returned from the hunt. His courageous wanderings among the Highlands had reinvigorated him. He, too, was in a changed frame of mind. He had already received a full account of what had happened at the lake. "That's over," thought he; "I can't always be dragging the past about with me."
He was informed that the queen had not left her apartments since the receipt of the dreadful news. He sent for Gunther, who informed him of the queen's condition, and recommended that she be treated with great indulgence.
The king fancied that the doctor's manner was more reserved than usual. He would have liked to ask him as to the queen's thoughts, how she had received the sad news, and whether she had conquered her grief; but it was Gunther's duty to tell him all this, without waiting to be questioned. At last, the king asked him:
"Is the queen's mind composed?"