fullness and completion.

"These are the images, these are the deeds of genius, wrought in
consecrated moments.

"Art does not console sorrow, it does not heal directly, but it brings
before the eyes, it sounds in the ear, saying, 'Attend! there is a
life, pure and perfect, that we carry within us. Art is an image of
strength, of joy, of content, of courage; it does not reach out its
hand to us, it simply enables us to compose ourselves in the knowledge,
in the consciousness, in the perception of an existence reposing in
itself outside of us; this we comprehend.'"

Eric interrupted himself, saying:--

"Here the remark is made: 'I knew a woman once, who would neither make
nor listen to music during her period of mourning, showing what art was
to her.'"

A pause followed.

Eric continued his reading:--

"In the hours of deepest tribulation I have found consolation, peace,
restoration, solely in wandering among ancient works of art; others may
derive the same benefit from music that I have from viewing these forms
of antiquity. It was not the thought of the grand world which had here
become bronze and marble; it was not the remembrance of the soul
speaking out of these forms that held me fast, but something far
different from either. Behold here, they seemed to say to me, a
blissful repose, which has nothing in common with thee, and yet is with
thee. A breath of the Eternal was wafted over me, a peaceful rest
flowed into my troubled heart, filled my gaze, and calmed my emotions.
In listening to music I could always dwell dreamily upon my own life
and thought, but never here.

"If I were only able to unfold whither this led me, how I wandered in
the infinite, and then how I went abroad into the tumultuous whirl of
life, feeling that I was attended by these steadfast, peaceful, godlike
forms; that I was----"

Eric broke off abruptly.

Manna begged:--

"Do read on."

"There is nothing further. My beloved father, alas! left only fragments
behind him."

"This is no fragment, it is complete and perfect. No man could say or
write anything further," said Manna; "nothing else is needed but to
allow it to have its inward work. Ah, I have one request--give me the
sheet."

Eric looked towards his mother, who said that she had never yet parted
with a single line of her husband's.

"But you, my child," she said, "you shall have it. Eric shall copy it
for us so that we may not lose it."

She gave the manuscript t