It was a gloomy day; dismal clouds swept over a leaden sky, the yellow leaves fell sorrowfully from the trees, heavy tear-drops hung on the last flowers that drooped down in a sad faded way their dying little heads, the nightingales had long since died away, from every side the image of transitoriness stared at me--and my heart was ready to break as I read how the noble knight lay on the ground, stunned and bruised, and through his closed visor said, in tones faint and feeble, as if he was speaking from the grave, "Dulcinea is the fairest lady in the world, and I the unhappiest knight on earth, but it is not meet that my weakness should disown this truth--strike with your lance, Sir Knight." Ah me! that brilliant knight of the silver moon, who vanquished the bravest and noblest man in the world, was a disguised barber! That was long ago. Many new springs have bloomed forth since then, yet their mightiest charm has always been wanting, for, alas! I no longer believe the sweet deceits of the nightingale, Spring's flatterer; I know how soon his magnificence fades, and when I look at the youngest rosebuds I see them in spirit bloom to a sorrowful red, grow pale, and be scattered by the winds. Everywhere I see a disguised Winter. In my breast, however, still blooms that flaming love, which soared so ardently above the earth, to revel adventurously in the broad yawning spaces of heaven, and which, pushed back by the cold stars, and sinking home again to the little earth, was forced to confess, with sighing and triumph, that there is in all creation nothing fairer or better than the heart of man. This love is the inspiration that fills me, always divine, whether it does foolish or wise deeds.--And so the tears the little boy shed over the sorrows of the silly knight were in no wise spent in vain, any more than the later tears of the youth, as on many a night he wept in the study over the deaths of the holy heroes of freedom--over King Agis of Sparta, over Caius and Tiberius Gracchus of Rome, over Jesus of Jerusalem, and over Robespierre and Saint Just of Paris. Now that I have put on the _toga virilis_, and myself desire to be a man, the tears have come to an end, and it is necessary to act like a man, imitating my great predecessors; in the future, if God will, to be wept also by boys and youths. Yes, upon these one can still reckon in our cold age; for they can still be kindled by the breezes that blow to them from old books, and so they can comprehend the flaming hearts of the present. Youth is unselfish in its thoughts and feelings, and on that account it feels truth most deeply, and is not sparing, where a bold sympathy is wanted, with confession or deed. Older people are selfish and narrow-minded; they think more of the interest of their capital than of the interest of mankind; they let their little boat float quietly down the gutter of life, and trouble themselves little about the sailor who