song of the grasshopper and the hum of the bee; and when at evening the
singing lark, up from the sweet-smelling vineyards rises, or in the
later hours of night Orion puts on his shining armour, to walk forth in
the fields of heaven. But in the soul of man alone is this longing
changed to certainty and fulfilled. For lo! thelight of the sun and the
stars shines through the air, and is nowhere visible and seen; the
planets hasten with more than the speed of the storm through infinite
space, and their footsteps are not heard, but where the sunlight
strikes the firm surface of the planets, where the stormwind smites the
wall of the mountain cliff, there is the one seen and the other heard.
Thus is the glory of God made visible, and may be seen, where in the
soul of man it meets its likeness changeless and firm-standing. Thus,
then, stands Man;--a mountain on the boundary between two worlds;--its
foot in one, its summit far-rising into the other. From this summit the
manifold landscape of life is visible, the way of the Past and
Perishable, which we have left behind us; and, as we evermore ascend,
bright glimpses of the daybreak of Eternity beyond us!"
Flemming would fain have interrupted this discourse at times, to answer
and inquire, but the Professor went on, warming and glowing more
andmore. At length, there was a short pause, and Flemming said;
"All these indefinite longings,--these yearnings after an unknown
somewhat, I have felt and still feel within me; but not yet their
fulfilment."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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