"Really, a salam in _optima forma_," said Oldenburg, smiling; "a couple of old gray-bearded sons of Mohammed could not do it better. Nothing is wanting but that we should now kiss the tips of our fingers. But come into the house; we'll be more-comfortable there." They stepped into a small hall, from which they reached, by means of an easy, wide staircase, a larger hall in the upper story, which was lighted from above. From here they went into a large, quite high room; a glass door opened upon the broad gallery, which afforded an uninterrupted view upon the sea, and seemed to overhang the steep precipice, although there was still a distance of about thirty yards between it and the brink. Below was the surf howling between the shingle and huge blocks of stone. The view from this elevated point out upon the blue, boundless sea, and upon the high white chalk-cliffs, which stretched far to the left, and ended finally in a cape crowned with the beech forest of Grenwitz, was indescribably grand, and Oswald could not suppress a loud cry of admiration. "Well," said Oldenburg, leaning over the railing of the gallery by Oswald's side, "was it not a good idea of my worthy grandfather's to build a house at this point, which, by the way, is one of the highest in the whole island. I recall the old gentleman yet, with his long snow-white beard, and can see him even now sitting here on this gallery, and looking out with his dying eye upon the sea, like the king of Thule. He revered it as a grandson reveres his grandmother, and loved it as a young man loves the idol of his heart. I wish he could have bequeathed to me, beside his size, also his capacity of enjoying the beauties of nature. Unfortunately I have missed inheriting that." "Are you in earnest?" asked Oswald. "Certainly," said Oldenburg. "I have often enough regretted it in travelling, and been heartily ashamed of my æsthetic stupidity, which kept me from feeling anything at places where others would make summersets for pleasure or weep sentimental tears. I tried in vain to do like the English misses and sob: Beautiful, very fine indeed! I read in vain in Byron and Lamartine till I knew them nearly by heart,--it was all in vain. I never could do more than poor Werther, who saw in nature but a well-varnished picture; and a couple of beggar-boys, who fought in the sand by the sea-shore, or a poor fellah turning his heavy water-wheel, were more interesting to me than the Gulf of Naples and the Nile. I delight in men and the manners of men,--Nature is beyond me." "But why do you exile yourself into this solitude? Why do you, who could so easily afford it, not rather live on the _Boulevard des Capucines_, or in Pall-Mall, London, than on this northern shore?"