The forebodings of the Baron¹ proved true. In the afternoon the weather changed. The western wind began to blow, and its breath drew a cloud-veil over the face of heaven, as a breath does over the human face in a mirror. Soon the snow began to fall. Athwart the distant landscape it swept like a white mist. The storm-wind came from the Alsatian hills, and struck the dense² clouds aslant³ through the air. And ever faster fell the snow, a roaring torrent⁴ from those mountainous clouds. The setting sun glared wildly from the summit of the hills, and sank like a burning ship at sea, wrecked⁵ in the tempest. Thus the evening set in; and winter stood at the gate wagging his white and shaggy beard, like an old harper, chanting an old rhyme:--"How cold it is! how cold it is!"  
"I like such a storm as this," said Flemming, who stood at the window, looking out into the tempest and the gathering⁶ darkness. "The silent falling of snow is to me one of the most solemn things in nature. The fall of autumnal leaves does not so much affect me. But the driving storm is grand. It startles me; it awakens⁷ me. It is wild and woful, like my own soul. I cannot help thinking of the sea; how the waves run and toss their arms about,--and the wind plays on those great harps⁸, made by the shrouds⁹ and masts of ships. Winter is here in earnest! Whew! How the old churl¹⁰ whistles and threshes the snow! Sleet¹¹ and rain are falling too. Already the trees are bearded with icicles; and the two broad branches of yonder pine look like the white mustache of some old German Baron."
 
"And to-morrow it will look more wintry still," said his friend. "We shall wake up and find that the frost-spirit has been at work all night building Gothic Cathedrals on our windows, just as the devil built the Cathedral of Cologne. Sodraw the curtains, and come sit here by the warm fire."
 
"And now," said Flemming, having done as his friend desired, "tell me something of Heidelberg and its University. I suppose we shall lead about as solitary¹² and studious a life here as we did of yore in little Göttingen, with nothing to amuse us, save our own day-dreams."
 
"Pretty much so," replied the Baron; "which cannot fail to please you, since you are in pursuit of tranquillity¹³. As to the University, it is, as you know, one of the oldest in Germany. It was founded in the fourteenth century by the Count Palatine Ruprecht, and had in the first year more than five hundred students, all busily committing to memory, after the old scholastic¹⁴ wise, the rules of grammar versified by Alexander de Villa¹⁵ Dei, and the extracts made by Peter the Spaniard from Michel Psellus's Synopsis¹⁶ of Aristotle's Organon, and the Categories, with Porphory's Commentaries. Truly, I do not much wonder, that Eregina Scotus should have been put to death byhis scholars with their penknives. They must have been pushed to the very verge¹⁷ of despair."
 
"What a strange picture a University presents to the imagination. The lives of scholars in their cloistered¹⁸ stillness;--literary men of retired¹⁹ habits, and Professors who study sixteen hours a day, and never see the world but on a Sunday. Nature has, no doubt, for some wise purpose, placed in their hearts this love of literary labor²⁰ and seclusion²¹. Otherwise, who would feed the undying lamp of thought? But for such men as these, a blast of wind through the chinks and crannies of this old world, or the flapping of a conqueror's banner, would blow it out forever. The light of the soul is easily extinguished. And whenever I reflect upon these things I become aware of the great importance, in a nation's history, of the individual fame of scholars and literary men. I fear, that it is far greater than the world is willing to acknowledge; or, perhaps I should say, than the world has thought of acknowledging. Blot²² out from England's history the names of Chaucer, Shakspere, Spenser, and Milton only, and how much of her glory would you blot out with them! Take from Italy such names as Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Michel Angelo, and Raphael, and how much would still be wanting to the completeness of her glory! How would the history of Spain look if the leaves were torn out, on which are written the names of Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and Calderon! What would be the fame of Portugal, without her Camoens; of France, without her Racine, and Rabelais, and Voltaire; or Germany, without her Martin Luther, her Goethe, and Schiller!--Nay, what were the nations of old, without their philosophers, poets, and historians! Tell me, do not these men in all ages and in all places, emblazon with bright colors the armorial bearings of their country? Yes, and far more than this; for in all ages and all places they give humanity assurance of its greatness; and say; Call not this time or people wholly barbarous; for thus much, even then and there, could the human mind achieve! But the boisterous²³ world has hardlythought of acknowledging all this. Therein it has shown itself somewhat ungrateful. Else, whence the great reproach, the general scorn, the loud derision, with which, to take a familiar example, the monks²⁴ of the Middle Ages are regarded! That they slept their lives away is most untrue. For in an age when books were few,--so few, so precious, that they were often chained to their oaken shelves with iron chains, like galley-slaves to their benches, these men, with their laborious²⁶ hands, copied upon parchment all the lore²⁷ and wisdom of the past, and transmitted it to us. Perhaps it is not too much to say, that, but for these monks, not one line of the classics would have reached our day. Surely, then, we can pardon something to those superstitious²⁸ ages, perhaps even the mysticism of the scholastic philosophy, since, after all, we can find no harm in it, only the mistaking of the possible for the real, and the high aspirings of the human mind after a long-sought and unknown somewhat. I think the name of Martin Luther, the monk²⁵ of Wittemberg, alone sufficient to redeem²⁹ all monkhoodfrom the reproach of laziness! If this will not, perhaps the vast folios of Thomas Aquinas will;--or the countless³⁰ manuscripts, still treasured in old libraries, whose yellow and wrinkled pages remind one of the hands that wrote them, and the faces that once bent³¹ over them."
 
"An eloquent³² homily," said the Baron laughing, "a most touching³³ appeal in behalf of suffering humanity! For my part, I am no friend of this entire seclusion from the world. It has a very injurious effect on the mind of a scholar. The Chinese proverb is true; a single conversation across the table with a wise man, is better than ten years' mere³⁴ study of books. I have known some of these literary men, who thus shut themselves up from the world. Their minds never come in contact with those of their fellow-men. They read little. They think much. They are mere dreamers. They know not what is new nor what is old. They often strike upon trains of thought, which stand written in good authors some century or so back, and are even current in the mouths of men aroundthem. But they know it not; and imagine they are bringing forward something very original, when they publish their thoughts."
 
"It reminds me," replied Flemming, "of what Dr. Johnson said of Goldsmith, when he proposed to travel abroad in order to bring home improvements;--`He will bring home a wheelbarrow, and call that an improvement.' It is unfortunately the same with some of these scholars."
 
"And the worst of it is," said the Baron, "that, in solitude³⁵, some fixed³⁶ idea will often take root in the mind, and grow till it overshadow all one's thoughts. To this must all opinions come; no thought can enter there, which shall not be wedded³⁷ to the fixed idea. There it

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