"And now let us at least hear from you again, my dear old boy. All we have heard about you has rejoiced our hearts. You are about to enter upon a new phase of life, and to put in order that part of the world which has been assigned to you. I wish you all success. After all, it is your proper calling; and if the wise saying of our friend Rossel is correct, that real happiness is merely that condition in which we are most keenly conscious of our individuality, you certainly must be esteemed happy, and will make happy the noble heart that has surrendered to you. Dear old fellow, what a splendid prize each of us has drawn! That we had to work hard to deserve it, is all the better. All that is not deserved humiliates. And we still have an excess of happiness given us by the gods, whom we ought not to be too proud to thank.

"But here I am talking about our own fates, and passing by, without a single word, the great and mighty event in the world's history which has just been concluded. Though, to be sure, there are no words capable of expressing its greatness and importance. In the consciousness of this dumb amazement the feeling can scarcely be avoided that the Muses, who are usually silent mid the clash of arms, will not recover their voices very soon. You men of action have the lead for some time to come; for the revolution that has taken place in the public mind, and the movement which has extended to all conditions of life and of civil society, is far more wonderful, far more pregnant with consequences than you, who took an active part in it, can appreciate in the first pause after your final blows. We who are lookers-on are in a position to get a more comprehensive view, for we can also see how the recoil, of whose force you can have no conception, acts upon our neighbors.

"The truth is, this is a period of reconstruction of all political and social conditions; whatever is essential asserts itself, and whatever is real clamors everywhere for the place that belongs to it by nature. Consequently, those who are called upon to rearrange our new life have the first and last word; while those who, like us artists, have to do with dreams, stand aloof and thank fortune if their names are still mentioned now and then. You know that, with all due respect for politics, I cannot regard them as belonging to the highest problems of the human mind. The possible and the useful, the expedient and the necessary are, and must ever be, relative aims; it should be the task of the statesman to make himself less and less necessary, to educate the public sense of justice so that the greatest possible number of free individuals can live in harmony with one another; and each, alone or in conjunction with some fellow-workman, can occupy himself with the eternal problems. Shall we live to see the time when the arts which have heretofore flourished like wild flowers upon ruins, shall adorn the symmetrical, inhabited, and solid walls of the new structure of the state with their foliage of undying green? Who can say? Mankind lives quickly in these days. In the mean while let each one do his best.

"Farewell, and make up your mind to live, and to let your fellow-men know that you live. I wish you could all--dear, good, and faithful friends--wrap yourselves in the mantle of Faust and be set down among us at this very moment. I am writing this letter in a villa on the slope of the splendid hill that bears upon its summit old Fiesole. Julie is walking up and down the garden carrying our Bimba in her arms, while little Frances walks by her side, busily studying her lesson. How beautiful the world is all around me! And with what still, pure, silent joy do I think of you, dear friends! Come and give us a sight of your happiness, and rejoice with us in ours!

"And then we will make the old 'Paradise' to live again under another heaven and on a new soil."

THE END.

REMORSE.

From the French of TH. BENTZON.