the seeds of freedom.
No one can foresee the turn which things may take. The splenetic Briton,
weary of his wife, may put a halter round her neck and sell her in
Smithfield. The flattering Frenchman may perhaps be untrue to his
beloved bride and abandon her, and, singing, dance after the Court dames
(_courtisanes_) of his royal palace (_palais royal_). But the German
will never turn his old grandmother quite out of doors; he will always
find a place for her by his fireside, where she can tell his listening
children her legends. Should Freedom ever vanish from the entire
world--which God forbid!--a German dreamer would discover her again in
his dreams."

While the steamboat, and with it our conversation, swam thus along the
stream, the sun had set, and his last rays lit up the hospital at
Greenwich, an imposing palace-like building which in reality consists of
two wings, the space between which is empty, and a green hill crowned
with a pretty little tower from which one can behold the passers-by. On
the water the throng of vessels became denser and denser, and I wondered
at the adroitness with which they avoided collision. While passing, many
a sober and friendly face nodded greetings--faces whom we had never seen
before, and were never to see again. We sometimes came so near that it
was possible to shake hands in joint welcome and adieu. One's heart
swells at the sight of so many bellying sails, and we feel strangely
moved when the confused hum and far-off dance-music, and the deep voices
of sailors, resound from the shore. But the outlines of all things
vanished little by little behind the white veil of the evening mist, and
there remained visible only a forest of masts, rising long and bare
above it.

The sallow man still stood near me and gazed reflectively on high, as
though he sought for the pale stars in the cloudy heaven. And, still
gazing aloft, he laid his hand on my shoulder, and said in a tone as
though secret thoughts involuntarily became words--"Freedom and
equality! they are not to be found on earth below nor in heaven above.
The stars on high are not alike, for one is greater and brighter than
another; none of them wanders free, all obey a prescribed and iron-like
law--there is slavery in heaven as on earth!"

"There is the Tower!" suddenly cried one of our traveling companions, as
he pointed to a high building which rose like a spectral, gloomy dream
above the cloud-covered London.

*