And so Delirium dyed for itself rosy wings in the Aurora of life, and fanned the panting soul,—and shook down golden butterfly-dust from its plumage on the path, on the flowerage of the suffering man;—in the far distance rose lovely tones, in the distance floated lovely clouds,—O, his heart was like to fall in pieces, but only into fluttering flower-stamina, into soft sentient nerves; his eyes were like to melt away, but only into dewdrops for the cups of joy-blossoms, into blooddrops for loving hearts; his soul was floating, palpitating, drinking and swimming in the warm relaxing rose-perfume of the brightest delusion....
The rapture bridled his feverish heart; and his mad pulse grew calm. Next morning, his mother, when she saw that all was prospering, would have had the church-bells rung, to make him think that the second Sunday was already here. But his wife (perhaps out of shame in my presence) was averse to the lying; and said it would be all the same if we moved the month-hand of his clock (but otherwise than Hezekiah's Dial) eight days forward; especially as he was wont rather to rise and look at his clock for the day of the month, than to turn it up in the Almanac. I for my own part simply went up to the bedside, and asked him: "If he was cracked—what in the world he meant with his mad death-dreams, when he had lain so long, and passed clean over the Cantata-Sunday, and yet, out of sheer terror, was withering to a lath?"
A glorious reinforcement joined me; the Flesher or Quartermaster. In his anxiety, he rushed into the room, without saluting the women, and I forthwith addressed him aloud: "My gossip here is giving me trouble enough, Mr. Regiments-Quartermaster: last night, he let them persuade him he was little older than his own son: here is the child's fall-hat he was for putting on." The Guardian deuced and devilled, and said: "Ward, are you a parson or a fool?—Have not I told you twenty times, there was a maggot in your head about this?"—
At last he himself perceived that he was not rightly wise, and so grew better; besides the guardian's invectives, my oaths contributed a good deal; for I swore I would hold him as no right gossip, and edit no word of his Biography, unless he rose directly and got better....
—In short, he showed so much politeness to me that he rose and got better.—He was still sickly, it is true, on Saturday; and on Sunday could not preach a sermon (something of the sort the Schoolmaster read, instead); but yet he took Confessions on Saturday, and at the altar next day he dispensed the Sacrament. Service ended, the feast of his recovery was celebrated, my farewell-feast included; for I was to go in the afternoon.
This last afternoon I will chalk out with all possible breadth, and then, with the pantagraph of free garrulity, fill up the outline and draw on the great scale.
During the Thanksgiving-repast, there arrived considerable personal tribute from his catechumens, and fairings by way of bonfire for his recovery; proving how much the people loved him, and how well he deserved it: for one is oftener hated without reason by the many, than without reason loved by them. But Fixlein was friendly to every child; was none of those clergy, who never pardon their enemies except in—God's stead; and he praised at once the whole world, his wife and himself.
I then attended at his afternoon's catechising; and looked down (as he did in the first Letter-Box) from the choir, under the wing of the wooden cherub. Behind this angel, I drew out my note-book, and shifted a little under the cover of the Black Board, with its white Psalm-ciphers,[64] and wrote down what I was there—thinking. I was well aware, that when I today, on the twenty-fifth of May, retired from this Salernic[65] spinning-school, where one is taught to spin out the thread of life, in fairer wise, and without wetting it by foreign mixtures,—I was well aware, I say, that I should carry off with me far more elementary principles of the Science of Happiness, than the whole Chamberlain piquet ever muster all their days. I noted down my first impression, in the following Rules of Life for myself and the press:
[64] Indicating to the congregation what Psalm is to be sung.—Ed.
[65] Salerno was once famous for its medical science; but here, as in many other cases, we could desire the aid of Herr Reinhold with his Lexicon-Commentary.—Ed.