"There sits the old Frau Himmelhahn, perched up in her owl¹-tower," said the Baron² to Flemming, as they passed along the Hauptstrasse. "She looks down through her round-eyed spectacles from her nest up there, and watches every one that goes by. I wonder what mischief³ she is hatching now? Do you know she has nearly ruined your character in town? She says you have a rakish look, because you carry a cane⁴, and your hair curls. Your gloves, also, are a shade too light for a strictly⁵ virtuous⁶ man."  
"It is very kind in her to take such good care of my character, particularly as I am a stranger in town. She is doubtless learned in the Clothes-Philosophy."
 
"And ignorant of every thing else. She asked a friend of mine the other day, whether Christ was a Catholic or a Protestant."
 
"That is really too absurd!"
 
"Not too absurd to be true. And, ignorant as she is, she contrives⁷ to do a good deal of mischief in the course of the year. Why, the ladies already call you Wilhelm Meister."
 
"They are at liberty to call me what they please. But you, who know me better, know that I am something more than they would imply by the name."
 
"She says, moreover, that the American ladies sit with their feet out of the window, and have no pocket-handkerchiefs."
 
"Excellent!"
 
They crossed the market-place and went up beneath the grand terrace into the court-yard of the castle.
 
"Let us go up and sit under the great linden-trees, that grow on the summit of the Rent Tower," said Flemming. "From that point as from awatch-tower we can look down into the garden, and see the crowd below us."
 
"And amuse ourselves, as old Frau Himmelhahn does, at her window in the Hauptstrasse," added the Baron.
 
The keeper's daughter unlocked for them the door of the tower, and, climbing the steep stair-case, they seated themselves on a wooden bench under the linden-trees.
 
"How beautifully these trees overgrow the old tower! And see what a solid mass of masonry⁸ lies in the great fosse down there, toppled from its base by the explosion of a mine! It is like a rusty⁹ helmet cleft¹⁰ in twain, but still crested¹¹ with towering plumes¹²!"
 
"And what a motley crowd in the garden! Philisters and Sons of the Muses¹³! And there goes the venerable Thibaut, taking his evening stroll. Do you see him there, with his silver hair flowing over his shoulders, and that friendly face, which has for so many years pored over the Pandects. I assure you, he inspires me with awe¹⁴. And yet he is a merry old man, and loves his joke, particularly at the expense of Moses and other ancient lawgivers."
 
Here their attention was diverted by a wild-looking person, who passed with long strides under the archway in the fosse, right beneath them, and disappeared among the bushes. He was ill-dressed,--his hair flying in the wind,--his movements hurried and nervous, and the expression of his broad countenance¹⁵ wild, strange, and earnest.
 
"Who can that be!" asked Flemming. "He strides away indignantly, like one of Ossian's ghosts?"
 
"A great philosopher, whose name I have forgotten. Truly a strange owl!"
 
"He looks like a lion with a hat on."
 
"He is a mystic, who reads Schubert's History of the Soul, and lives, for the most part, in the clouds of the Middle Ages. To him the spirit-world is still open. He believes in the transmigration of souls; and I dare say is now followingthe spirit of some departed friend, who has taken the form of yonder pigeon."
 
"What a strange hallucination! He lives, I suppose, in the land of cloud-shadows. And, as St. Thomas Aquinas was said to be lifted up from the ground by the fervor¹⁶ of his prayers, so, no doubt, is he by the fervor of his visions."
 
"He certainly appears to neglect all sublunary things; and, to judge from certain appearances, since you seem fond of holy similitudes, one would say, that, like St. Serapion the Sindonite, he had but one shirt. Yet what cares he? he lives in that poetic¹⁷ dream-land of his thoughts, and clothes his dream-children in poetry."
 
"He is a poet, then, as well as a philosopher?"
 
"Yes; but a poet who never writes a line. There is nothing in nature to which his imagination does not give a poetic hue¹⁸. But the power to make others see these objects in the same poetic light, is wanting. Still he is a man of fine powers and feelings; for, next to being a greatpoet, is the power of understanding one,--of finding one's-self in him, as we Germans say."
 
Three figures, dressed in black, now came from one of the green alleys¹⁹, and stopped on the brink²⁰ of a little fountain, that was playing among the gay flowers in the garden. The eldest²¹ of the three was a lady in that season of life, when the early autumn gives to the summer leaves a warmer glow, yet fades them not. Though the mother of many children, she was still beautiful;--resembling those trees, which blossom in October, when the leaves are changing, and whose fruit and blossom are on the branch at once. At her side was a girl of some sixteen years, who seemed to lean upon her arm for support. Her figure was slight; her countenance beautiful, though deadly white; and her meek²² eyes like the flower of the night-shade, pale and blue, but sending forth²³ golden rays. They were attended by a tall youth of foreign aspect, who seemed a young Antinous, with a mustache and a nose à la Kosciusko. In other respects a perfect hero of romance.
 ............