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THE ROSE IN JANUARY.
I had the good fortune to become acquainted, in his old age, with the celebrated Wieland, and to be often admitted to his table. It was there that, animated by a flask of Rhenish, he loved to recount the anecdotes of his youth, and with a gaiety and naivete which rendered them extremely interesting. His age—his learning—his celebrity—no longer threw us to a distance, and we laughed with him as joyously as he himself laughed in relating the little adventure which I now attempt to relate. It had a chief influence on his life, and it was that which he was fondest of retracing, and retraced with most poignancy. I can well remember his very words; but there are still wanting the expression of his fine countenance—his hair white as snow, gracefully curling round his head—his blue eyes, somewhat faded by years, yet still announcing his genius and depth of thought; his brow touched with the lines of reflection, but open, elevated, and of a distinguished character; his smile full of benevolence and candour. “I was handsome enough,” he used sometimes to say to us—and no one who looked at him could doubt it: “but I was not amiable, for a savant rarely is,” he would add laughingly,—and this every one doubted; so to prove it, he recounted the little history that follows:—
“I was not quite thirty,” said he to us, “when I obtained the chair of philosophical professor in this college, in the most flattering manner: I need not tell you that my amour propre was gratified by a distinction rare enough at my age. I certainly had worked for it formerly: but at the moment it came to me, another species of philosophy occupied me much more deeply, and I would have given more to know what passed in one heart, than to have had power to analyze those of all mankind. I was passionately in love; and you all know, I hope, that when love takes possession of a young head, adieu to every thing else; there is no room for any other thought. My table was covered with folios of all colours, quires of paper of all sizes, journals of all species, catalogues of books, in short, of all that one finds on a professor’s table: but of the whole circle of science, I had for some time studied only the article Rose, whether in the Encyclopaedia, the botanical books, or all the gardeners’ calendars that I could meet with. You shall learn presently what led me to this study, and why it was that my window was always open, even during the coldest days. All this was connected with the passion by which I was possessed, and which was become my sole and continual thought. I could not well say at this moment how my lectures and courses got on; but this I know, that more than once I have said, ‘Amelia,’ instead of ‘philosophy.’
“It was the name of my beauty—in fact, of the beauty of the University, Mademoiselle de Belmont. Her father, a distinguished officer, had died on the field of battle. She occupied with her mother a large and handsome house in the street in which I lived, on the same side, and a few doors distant. This mother, wise and prudent, obliged by circumstances to inhabit a city filled with young students from all parts, and having so charming a daughter, never suffered her a moment from her sight, either in or out of doors. But the good lady passionately loved company and cards; and to reconcile her tastes with her duties, she carried Amelia with her to all the assemblies of dowagers, professors’ wives, canonesses, &c. &c., where the poor girl ennuyed herself to death with hemming or knitting beside her mother’s card-table. But you ought to have been informed, that no student, indeed no man under fifty, was admitted. I had then but little chance of conveying my sentiments to Amelia. I am sure, however, that any other than myself would have discovered this chance, but I was a perfect novice in gallantry; and until the moment when I imbibed this passion from Amelia’s beautiful dark eyes, mine, having been always fixed upon Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldaic, &c., understood nothing at all of the language of the heart. It was at an old lady’s, to whom I was introduced, that I became acquainted with Amelia; my destiny led me to her house on the evening of her assembly; she received me—I saw Mademoiselle de Belmont, and from that instant her image was engraven in lines of fire on my heart. The mother frowned at the sight of a well-looking young man: but my timid, grave, and perhaps somewhat pedantic air, re-assured her. There were a few other young persons—daughters and nieces of the lady of the mansion; it was summer—they obtained permission to walk in the garden, under the windows of the saloon, and the eyes of their mammas. I followed them; and, without daring to address a word to my fair one, caught each that fell from her lips.