“Did I not tell you?” he cried. “Did I not feel the mysterious summons that brought me to this spot? Do you see her? It is she! It is her soul and mine that will abide together through all eternity.”
The startled monks rose to their feet. The great arches of the Cathedral threw back his voice in terrible groans. Quick as thought I sprang toward him, but was hurled off with the ease of a giant. He stooped for a moment and put one hand to his head, as if a sudden faintness might have swept over him; but he did not touch the casket. Then, dropping on one knee beside it, he raised his face and said softly, so softly that the last word seemed to come to us from a great distance,—
“O, beautiful soul, part of my spirit, I will not keep you waiting!”
We gathered around and raised him up. It needed no force now; and when they laid him down again, with a great throbbing in my breast, I folded his hands. He had taken his life.
O, Germany! like this fair day you lured a bird high up into your sunshine, a bird with brilliant plumes in its wings; then, before it had sung one song from the pinnacle where it rested, blackening suddenly into a storm, you killed it. Reinhart, poor Reinhart! you lured high up into the fantastic light of psychology; then before he had reared one minaret upon the temple where he climbed, you darkened suddenly into a gigantic gloom that, rising up like a storm, overwhelmed him.
Yes, better had it been for Reinhart were the Suabians still dancing their dryad dances.
SILVER ISLET.
In Lake Superior, near its northern shore, a mere speck of land, scarcely two hundred feet square, barely shows itself above the water. This is Silver Islet, and on it sinks the shaft of the richest silver mine in the world. Covering almost its entire dimensions, stand two buildings. One, a low frame house, encloses the mouth of the mine, and the other, immediately adjacent, a small wooden structure, forms the watch-tower.