For once, however, it is only in the opening verses that the dean is jocose; and he soon turns aside from his strain of levity to bid Stella accept some serious lines “from not the gravest of divines.” Schleiermacher, in one of his rather gushing letters,—for he, too, though nothing of a Swift, and though of real weight in divinity, was not in all senses the gravest of divines,—implores his “dearest Jette” not to look so much into the future. He cannot beg this too earnestly and too often, he says,—so depressed is Jette apt to be by anticipation of things to come, and from a perverse habit of condensing advent difficulties. “It is easy to see through _one_ pane of glass, but through ten placed one upon another we cannot see. Does this prove that each one is not transparent? or are we ever called upon to look through more than one at a time? Double panes we only have recourse to for warmth; and just so it is with life. We have but to live _one_ moment at a time. Keep each one isolated, and you will easily see your way through them.” So again writes good Frederick Perthes to his wife, whose fearful and hopeful longings, he tells her, are indeed guarantees for the great future beyond the grave, but whom he urges to bear in mind that a vigorous grasp of the present is our duty so long as we are upon earth. It is the present moment, he reminds her, that supplies the energy and decision that fit us for life; retrospect brings sadness, and the dark future excites fears, so that we should be crippled in our exertions were we not to lay a vigorous grasp upon the present. And “Labour with what zeal you will, Something still remains undone; Something uncompleted still Waits the rising of the sun. By the bedside, on the stair, At the threshold, near the gates, With its menace or its prayer, Like a mendicant it waits; Waits, and will not go away; Waits, and will not be gainsaid: By the cares of yesterday Each to-day is heavier made; Till at length the burden seems Greater than our strength can bear; Heavy as the weight of dreams Pressing on us everywhere. And we stand from day to day, Like the dwarfs of times gone by, Who, as Northern legends say, On their shoulders held the sky.” Quite exceptional is the temperament impersonated by Wordsworth in one who seemed a man of cheerful yesterdays and confident to-morrows. Longfellow has his midnight reflection on To-morrow; himself a watcher and contemplative, his little ones asleep: and thus the _pensées_ end: “To-morrow! the mysterious, unknown guest, Who cries to me, ‘Remember Barmecide, And tremble to be happy with the rest.’ And I make answer, ‘I am satisfied; I dare not ask; I know not what is best; God hath already said what shall betide.’”