The Campaner Thal, and Other Writings

by Jean Paul

And now, as the warm, healing springs of the clouds bathed the sick earth, down from the dripping tree to the blades of grass, and as the sky glistened mildly as with a tear of joy, and the thunder went warring away behind the distant mountains, the sick man pointed upwards, and said, "Seest thou the lordliness of God? My son, strengthen now at the last my weary soul with something holy, in the spirit of love, and not of penance; for if our hearts condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. Say something rich in love to me of God and of his works."

Then the eyes of his son overflowed, to think that he should read the Reminiscences which he had prepared for his own death-bed at the death-bed of his father. When he said this to him, the old man answered, "Hasten, my son!" and with a faltering voice, Gottreich began to read:--

"Remember, in the darkening hour, that the glow of the universe once filled thy breast, and that thou hast acknowledged the magnitude of existence. Hast thou not looked forth into one half of infinity by night, and into the other half by day? Think away the nothingness of space, and the earth which is around thee; worlds above, around, and beneath arch thee about as a centre, all impelling and impelled, splendor within splendor, magnitude within magnitude; all brightness centring in the universal Sun. Carry thy thoughts forwards through eternity, toward that universal Sun; thou shalt not arrive at darkness nor emptiness. What is empty dwells only between the worlds, not around the world.

"Remember, in the dark hour, those times when thou hast prayed to God in ecstasy, and when thou hast thought on him,--the greatest thought of finite man,--the Infinite One!"

Here the old man clasped his hands, and prayed low.

"Hast thou not known and felt the existence of that Being, whose infinity consists not only in his strength, in his wisdom, and his eternity, but also in his love and in his justice? Canst thou forget the time when the blue sky by day and the blue sky by night opened on thee, as if the mildness of God was looking down on thee? Hast thou not felt the love of the Infinite, when it veiled itself in its image, in loving hearts of men; as the sun, which casts its light not on our moon alone, for our nights, but on the morning and evening star also, and on every little twinkler, even to the farthest from the earth?

"Remember, in the dark hour, how in the spring of thy life the mounds of earth which are graves appeared to thee only as the mountain-tops of another far and new world; and how in the midst of the fulness of life thou didst acknowledge the value of death. The snow of the grave shall warm the frost-bitten limbs of age to life again. As a navigator who suddenly disembarks from the cold, wintry, and lonely sea, upon a coast which is laden with the warm, rich blossoms of spring, so with one leap from our little bark we pass at once from winter to an eternal springtime.

"Rejoice, in this dark hour, that thy life dwells in the midst of a wider and larger life. The earth-clod of the globe has been divinely breathed upon. A world swarms with life,--for the leaf of every tree is a land of souls; and every little life would freeze and perish, if it were not warmed and borne up by the eddies of life about it. The sea of time glitters, like the sea of space, with countless beings of light: death and resurrection are the valleys and mountains of the ever-swelling ocean. There exists no dead anatomy; what seems to be such is only another body. Without a universal living existence, there would be nothing but a wide, all-encompassing death. We cling like mosses to the Alps of nature, drawing life from the high clouds. Man is the butterfly which flutters up to Chimborazo, but above the butterfly soars the condor: however many, small or great, the giant and the child are free wanderers in one garden; and the fly of a day may retrace its infinite series of progenitors to those first beings of its kind which played over the waters of Paradise before the evening sun.

"Never forget the thought, which is now so clear to thee, that the individuality of man lasts out the greatest suffering and the most entrancing joy alike unscathed, while the body crumbles away in the pains and pleasures of the flesh. Herein are souls like marsh-lights, which shine in the storm and the rain unextinguishable.

"Canst thou forget, in the dark hour, that there have been mighty men amongst us, and that thou art following after them? Raise thyself like the spirits which stood upon their mountains, having the storm of life only about and never above them. Call back to thee the kingly race of sages and of poets, who have inspirited and enlightened nation after nation."