e "The French Revolution" was writ,
twice over, was so dark that I had to grope my way across to the window.
The sash stuck and seemed to have a will of its own, like him who so
often had raised it. But at last it gave way and I flung wide the
shutter and looked down at the little arbor where Teufelsdrockh sat so
often and wooed wisdom with the weed brought from Virginia.

Then I stood before the fireplace, where he of the Eternities had so
often sat and watched the flickering embers. Here he lived in his
loneliness and cursed curses that were prayers, and here for near five
decades he read and thought and dreamed and wrote. Here the spirits of
Cromwell and Frederick hovered; here that pitiful and pitiable long line
of ghostly partakers in the Revolution answered to his roll-call.

The wind whistled down the chimney gruesomely as my footfalls echoed
through the silent chambers, and I thought I heard a sepulchral voice
say:

"Thy future life! Thy fate is it, indeed! Whilst thou makest that thy
chief question, thy life to me and to thyself and to thy God is
worthless. What is incredible to thee thou shalt not, at thy soul's
peril, pretend to believe. Elsewhither for a refuge! Away! Go to
perdition if thou wilt, but not with a lie in thy mouth--by the Eternal
Maker, No!!"

I was startled at first, but stood still listening; then I thought I saw
a faint blue cloud of mist curling up in the fireplace. Watching this
smoke and sitting before it in gloomy abstraction was the form of an old
man. I swept my hand through the apparition, but still it stayed. My lips
moved in spite of myself and I said:

"Hail! hard-headed man of granite outcrop and heather, of fen and crag,
of moor and mountain, and of bleak East wind, hail! Eighty-six years
didst thou live. One hundred years lacking fourteen didst thou suffer,
enjoy, weep, dream, groan, pray and strike thy rugged breast! And yet
methinks that in those years there was much quiet peace and sweet
content; for constant pain benumbs, and worry destroys, and vain unrest
summons the grim messenger of death. But thou didst live and work and
love; howbeit, thy touch was not always gentle, nor thy voice low; but on
thy lips was no lie, in thy thought no concealment, in thy heart no
pollution. But mark! thou didst come out of poverty and obscurity: on thy
battered shield there was no crest and thou didst leave all to follow
truth. And verily she did lead thee a merry chase!

"Thou had