12. DOG-POST-DAY. Polar Fantasies.--The singular Isle of Union.--One more Bit from previous History.--The Stettin-Apple as Coat-of-Arms. We are living now in the dark middle-ages of this Biography, and reading on toward the enlightened eighteenth century or Dog's-day. Still, even in this twelfth, as in the night before a fair day, great sparks fly. "Spitz," said I, "eat me out of what thou wilt, only enlighten the world." Sebastian hastened on Saturday with joyful soul under an overclouded heaven to the island of Union. He could arrive there, if he did not delay, before the cloudiness was absorbed. Under a blue heaven, like Schickaneder[146] he brought out the Tragedies, but under an ashen-gray one the comedies, of his inner man. When it rained, he absolutely laughed out. Rousseau built up in his brain an _emotional_ stage, because he cared neither to go out of the coulisse nor into a box of actual life; but Victor had in his pay between the bony walls of his head a _comic_ theatre of the Germans, merely for the sake of not ridiculing _actual_ men; his humor was as ideal as the virtue and sensibility of other people. In this mood he delivered (like a ventriloquist) purely internal discourses to all Potentates;--he posted himself on the bench of Knights with church-visitation-discourses,--on the bench of the cities with funeral-discourses,--in the Papal chair he held forth in straw-wreath[147]-discourses to the _virgin_ Europe and the Ecclesiastical _bride_. The potentates had all, to answer him again, but one may imagine _how_--when he, like a minister from his prompter's hole put everything into their mouths;--and then, to be sure, he went his way and made fun of every one of them. Mandeville says in his Travels, that at the North Pole in the winter-half of the year every word freezes, but in the summer-half thaws out again and is audible. This intelligence Victor pictured out to himself on the way to the island; we will lay our ears to his head and listen to the inner buzzing.