d Manna, as Eric paused for a moment.

She sipped the wine that stood before her.

Eric continued:--

"I have a poetic friend, a peculiar man, who takes everything terribly
hard: he is a man, who, with his whole soul, unreservedly and
exclusively, forgetful of all else, loves his calling. He complained to
me once how empty, lonely and forsaken he seemed to himself, when he
had put the finishing stroke to a work which was then about to go forth
from him into the wide world, to find its home everywhere, and to
remain with him no more. He had devoted all his thought and feeling,
night and day, to the creations of his fancy, and now they had wandered
across the sea into another world, there to be no longer his. He could
not withdraw his thoughts from them, and yet he could do nothing more
for them, for their clearer presentation, for their perfect
development. Yes, my dear Fraeulein, and these are only creations of the
fancy that forsake the man and make him so lonely. How much stronger
must the feeling be then, when a living man, who has taken root in our
soul, has forsaken us."

Manna was gazing full at him; big tears hung on her long eye-lashes,
and she saw a dewy lustre in his; she folded her hands on the table,
and quietly looked into Eric's countenance.

He felt this look, and said confusedly:--

"Forgive my egotism in speaking only of myself. I would not put any
further burden upon the sister, and I can straightway give you the
consolation which I have found for myself, and which will serve for you
too. We have no right to give our soul one exclusive interest, and in
that way lose sight of all the world beside; our soul must be satisfied
to feel that there are other things in the world, of which account must
be taken. Only, in the sense of desertion, while this inevitable wound
still bleeds, one can do nothing else than wait quietly, and compose
one's self in the thought of the fullness of the powers of the world,
and the fullness of the duties and joys which lie in our fitness to use
those powers. Ah, my dear Fraeulein," he said, interrupting himself, "my
mother likes to tell of an old parson, who cried out to his
congregation:--'Children, I preach not for you alone, I preach also for
myself; I have need of it.'"

A smile flitted across Manna's countenance, and Eric smiled too.

"Yes, so it is!" he continued, "it is not to the isolated, to the
wandering, to the changeable, but to the Everlasting, we should