they give the sign that our good sun is departed. "'O Julius, Julius!' said I, and embraced his breast, 'the earth is great; but the heart which rests upon it is still greater than the earth, and greater than the sun.... For it alone thinks the _greatest thought_!' "Suddenly there came forth a coolness from the deathbed of the sun, as from a grave. The high sea of the air undulated, and a broad stream, in whose bed woods lay prostrate, came roaring back through the heaven along the path by which the sun had departed. The altars of Nature, the mountains, were veiled in black as at a great mourning. Man was fastened down to the earth by the mist-cloud and separated from heaven. Transparent lightnings licked at the foot of the cloud, and the thunder smote three times at the black arch. But the storm upreared itself and rent it asunder; it drove the flying ruins of the shattered prison through the blue, and flung the dismembered masses of vapor down below the sky,--and for a long time it still continued to roar alone over the open earth, through the bright and cleansed plain.... But above it, behind the curtain which it had torn aside, glistened the all-holiest, the starry night.-- "Like a sun, the greatest thought of man rose in heaven,--my soul was borne down when I looked toward heaven, it was lifted up when I looked upon the earth.-- "For the Infinite has sowed his name in the heavens in burning stars, but on the earth He has sowed his name in tender flowers. "'O Julius,' said I, 'hast thou been good to-day?' He answered: 'I have done nothing but weep.' "'Julius, kneel down and put away every evil thought,--hear my voice quiver, feel my hand tremble;--I kneel beside thee.