"You know the undertaking which these two sisters, while yet young, commenced together. You know also how well it succeeded; how it obtained confidence and stability, and how it won universal respect for its conductors, and how also, after a course of ten years—independent of this institution—they had realised a moderate income; so that they can, if they are so disposed, retire from it, and it will still continue to prosper under the direction of Annette P., who was taken as assistant from the beginning, and who in respect of character and ability has proved herself a person of rare worth. The name of the sisters Frank stood estimably at the head of this useful establishment; but it is a question whether it would have prospered to such an extent, whether it would have developed itself so beautifully and well without the assistance of a person who, however, has carefully concealed his activity from the eye of the public, and whose name, for that reason, was never praised. Without Assessor Munter's unwearied care and assistance—so say the sisters—the undertaking could never have gone forward. What a wonderful affectionate constancy lies in the soul of this man! He has been, and is still, the benefactor of our family; but if you would see and hear him exasperated, tell him so, and see how he quarrels with all thanks to himself. The whole city is now deploring that it is about to lose him. He is going to reside on his estate in the country, for it is impossible that he could sustain much longer the way in which he is at present overworked both night and day. His health has for some time evidently declined, and we rejoice that he can now take some rest, by which he may regain new strength. We all love him from our hearts; but one of us has set on foot a plot to oblige another of us to—ally herself with him, and therefore our good Assessor is now exposed to a secret proceeding, which—but I forget that I was to write about the daughters of the family.
"There is a peculiar little world in the house—a world into which nothing bad can enter—where live flowers, birds, music, and Gabriele. The morning would lose its sweetest charms, if during the same Gabriele's birds and flowers did not play a part, and the evening twilight would be duskier if it were not enlivened by Gabriele's guitar and songs. Her flower-stand has extended itself by degrees into an orangery—not large to be sure, but yet large enough to shelter a beautiful vine, which is now covered with grapes, and many beautiful and rare plants also, so as to present to the family a little Italy, where they may enjoy all the charms of the south, in the midst of a northern winter. A covered way leads from the dwelling-house down into the orangery, and it is generally there that in winter they take their afternoon coffee. The aviary is removed thither; and there upon a table covered with a green cloth, lie works on botany, together with the writings of the Swedish gardening society, which often contain such interesting articles. There stand two comfortable armed chairs, on which the most magnificent birds and flowers are worked, you can easily imagine for whom. There my mother sits gladly, and reads or looks at her 'little lady' (she never grows out of this appellation) as she tends her flowers in the sun, or plays with her tame birds. One may say, in fact, that Gabriele strews the evening of her mother's days with flowers.
"A man dear to the Swedish heart has said, 'that the grand natural feature of northern life is a conquered winter,' and this applies equally to life individually, to family life, and to that of human nature. It so readily freezes and grows stiff, snow so readily falls upon the heart; and winter makes his power felt as much within as without the house. In order to keep it warm within, in order that life may flourish and bloom, it is needful to preserve the holy fire everburning. Love must not turn to ashes and die out; if it do, then all is labour and heaviness, and one may as well do nothing but—sleep. But if fire be borrowed from heaven, this will not happen; then will house and heart be warm, and life bloom incessantly, and a thousand causes will become rich sources of joy to all. If it be so within the house—then may it snow without—then winter thou mayst do thy worst!
"But I return to Gabriele, whose lively wit and joyous temper, united to her affectionate and innocent heart, make her deservedly the favourite of her parents, and the joy of every one. She asserts continually her own good-for-nothingness, her uselessness, and incorrigible love to a sweet 'far niente;' but nobody is of her opinion in this respect, for nobody can do without her, and one sees that when it is necessary, she can be as decided and as able as any one need be. It is now some time since Gabriele made any charades. I almost fancy that the cause of this is a certain Baron L., who was suspected for a long time of having set fire to a house, and who now is suspected of a design of setting fire to a heart, and who, with certain words and glances, has put all sorts of whims into her head—I will not say heart.
"And so then we have nothing bad to say of 'this Petrea,' as one of the friends of the house still calls her, but no longer in anger. This Petrea has had all kind of botherations in the world: in the first place with her own nose, with which she could not get into conceit, and then with various other things, as well within her as without her, and for a long time it seemed as if her own world would never come forth out of chaos.
"It has however. With eyes full of grateful tears I will dare to say this, and some time I may perhaps more fully explain how this has been done. And blessed be the home which has turned back her wandering steps, has healed the wounds of her heart, and has offered her a peaceful haven, an affectionate defence, where she has time to rest after the storms, and to collect and to know herself. Without this home, without this influence, Petrea certainly might have become a witch, and not, as now, a tolerably reasonable person.
"You know my present activity, which, whilst it conducts me deeper into life, discovers to me more beauty, more poetry, than I had ever conceived of it in the dreams of my youth. Not merely from this cause, although greatly owing to it, a spring has began to blossom for me on the other side of my thirty years, which, were it ever to wither, would be from my own fault. And if even still a painful tear may be shed over past errors or present faults; if the longing after what is yet unattainably better, purer, and brighter, may occasion many a pang—what matters it? What matter if the eye-water burn, so that the eye only become clear; if heaven humiliate, so that it only draw us upwards?
"One of Petrea's means of happiness is, to require very few of the temporal things of earth. She regards such things as nearly related to the family of illusions, and will, on that account, have as little as possible to do with them. And thus has she also the means of obtaining for herself many a hearty and enduring pleasure. I will not, however, be answerable for her not very soon being taken by a frenzy of giving a feast up in her garret, and thereby producing all kinds of illusions; such, for example, as the eating little cakes, the favourite illusion of my mother, and citron-soufflé, the almost perfect earthly felicity of 'our eldest,' in which a reconciliation skål with the frenzy-feast might be proposed to her beloved 'eldest.'
"Would you now make a summa summarum of Petrea's state, it stands thus: that which was a fountain of disquiet in her is now become a fountain of quiet. She believes in the actuality of life, and in her own part therein. She does not allow her peace to be disturbed by accidental troubles, be they from within or from without; she calls them mist-clouds, passing storms, after which the sun will come forth again. And should her little garret tumble to pieces one of these days, she would regard even that as a passing misfortune, and hold herself ready, in all humility—to mount up yet a little higher.
"But enough of Petrea and her future ascension.