The whole castle of Ehrenstein was still as the grave. There are times when distant murmurs of busy life, when the hum of insects in the air, when the scarce heard voice of the distant nightingale, when the whisper of a passing breeze, that speaks as if but to make the stillness felt, seem to increase the sensation of the silence. But there is a deeper, deader silence than that, when all is so profoundly tranquil that it seems as if no sound would ever wake again, when death itself seems powerful over all; and the absence of all activity makes us feel as if our own being was the only living principle left existent upon earth. But it brings with it no idea of annihilation. It seems but the utter exclusion of all mortal things, as if the animation of clay were over, and the noiseless reign of spirit were begun. The soul, no longer jostled by the life of flesh, seems to walk forth at large, and to have freer communication with things as immaterial as itself. The essence within us feels as if a thick and misty veil were withdrawn, and things unseen in the dull glare of the animal day were apparent to the kindred spirit in the hour of temporary death. But this is only felt when entire silence pervades all things; when there is no voice of bird or insect, no whispered breeze, no distant sound of those that watch at night; when all is still, and, to the ignorance of individual being, it seems that the one who feels is the only one who lives. Then is the hour of expectation; for if, according to the old philosophy, nature abhors a vacuum, the void she most abhors is the absence of all action. The heart of every living thing is ever asking, "What next?" and the deepest conviction implanted in the mind of man is, that want of activity is extinction. Even sleep itself has its sensation and its dream; and to him who wakes while all the rest are buried in forgetfulness, there is a constant looking for something assimilating in solemnity with the hour, and the darkness, and the silence, to break the unnatural lack of busy life that seems around. Oh! how fancy then wanders through the wide unoccupied extent, and seeks for something active like itself, and, debarred all communion with beings of earth, ventures into the unsubstantial world, and perchance finds a responding voice to answer her cry for companionship.