O ye eternal spirits! Could one but be with you and utter a word, a sound, that should pass into infinity! In yonder gallery, eyes that never close, look down upon the coming and departing generations. And here there are undying harmonies and imperishable words.
Oh ye blessed spirits, ye who through art create a second world! The world confuses and perplexes us, but ye make everything clear as the light of day. Ye are the blessed genii who ever offer mankind the wine of life in the golden chalice which, though millions drink from it, is never emptied.
It is with deep pain that I depart from the realm of color and that of sound. This, and this only, is indeed a deprivation.
And now for the last halting-place.
We wandered on in the direction of the summer palace. We walked up and down before the park railing. Up by the chapel, and under the weeping ash, I could see the court ladies sitting on the ornamented chairs and busy with their embroidery. Ah, there is many a one there, no better than I am, and yet she jests and laughs, is happy and respected. Aye, there lies the misery. We are constantly blunting our moral sense and saying to ourselves: "Look about you; others are no better than you are."
Presently they all arose and bowed profoundly. The gates were opened and the queen drove out, the prince sitting beside her. She looked at me and the little pitchman, and greeted us. My eyes failed me.
I know not. Did I see aright? The queen looked cheerful.
The prince has become a fine boy. He has kept the promise of his infancy.
My little pitchman conversed with a stone-breaker, who was working on the road. He was loud in his praises of the queen and her only child, the crown prince. So she has only one child--