Fate; and ready for contest, and certain of victory, they went forth to meet the dark powers with the gleaming weapon of courage.

What a period! and what sad gloomy years followed in its track!

The newspapers were at that time full of the events, which chased each other, like phantoms, in quick succession. It was with great excitement that the travelling party which had arrived in Calcutta looked through the pile of English papers which had been collecting for them.

The expedition had been absent from England more than two-and-a-half years; for eighteen months they had been without tidings from house and home; and in spite of the resources which stand at the disposal of the members of a wellequipped expedition, the travellers had had to endure great privations and hardships. The country at the back of India, from the steppes of Upper Asia, whither at that time the thirst for science had not yet penetrated, had been explored by them for historical and philological purposes. It had been an important period to Johannes. A connecting link in the intellectual life of man, in spite of the differences of civilization and the circumstances of the time, was manifestly established. The stormy feelings with which he had quitted

London and torn off the old bonds, had been calmed under the influence of increased mental activity.

The conduct of the expedition, had been assigned to a man of importance and a scholar of repute and, with the exception of a few disturbances, which in such close intercourse are scarcely to be avoided, all the members of the party had co-operated in unity in pursuit of the same object. Johannes had had the satisfaction of not seeing himself slighted; his power of work, his faculty of comprehension, and his good-will, were of use both to himself and to others.

The travellers, however, busy in investigating the traces of human culture and wisdom in language, mind, and history, and in searching out the ruins and monuments left from ages gone by, had gradually come to concern themselves but little about the present. While they became acquainted with a religion and mode of thought dating thousands of years back, and every cra, with its fearful though profound myths, was compressed into an intangible point in the narrow human brain, in the contemplation of this eternal being and passing away, the age to which they belonged appeared to them but as a moment on the great clock of Time.

Johannes, in spite of the strong inclination to profound intellectual life which marked his nature, had preserved a lively interest in the struggles and efforts of our own time. His journals and studies seemed to him not devoid of value, and he rejoiced in the thought of giving them to his country. When he surveyed his life, it seemed to him that fortune had done immeasurably much for him; it had placed him in a position where there was much to see, to hear, to think of, and to work, so that his passionate nature expended itself and grew calmer.

The gentlemen with whom he travelled had many domestic interests; when letters were long delayed, anxiety and memory were aroused; they talked of returning home, and pleasant hopes and expectations were added to the ambition of science and to the brilliant position which some of them saw before them. Each had left somewhat behind, of which he now and then gladly spoke. Johannes alone was among them like an isolated point; a sense of solitude grew up around him, but it oppressed him not; there were days and hours when a desponding feeling of uneasiness came over him; when he attached himself heartily to the travelling party, he would say to himself that he only belonged to them so long as he was useful

and necessary to them; yet he turned from the thought when his imagination pictured to him a world of lost happiness and ruined hopes.

Weeks and months had gone by with the travellers, who floated away on the sea of learning, as in some secure ark, in a time of universal agitation. Much was investigated, worked It was a busy life, and yet a Johannes wished to

at, striven after. sort of dreamlike existence. live out to the full the life that each day presented; and he felt that the desire for happiness, such as youth understands it, is the delusion that robs us of our repose. He rejoiced that he had no longer a heart to disturb and divert him, but a head which gathered and retained with miser-like delight, in order to draw the product of its enjoyment from the treasure gained.

They would have remained still longer on their wanderings, if the illness of the leader of the expedition had not obliged them to seek rest and refreshment for him in Calcutta, and here they found tidings from Europe. With great excitement Johannes read of all that was taking place in Germany. All that for years had been the desire and the hope, and the violently expressed will of the nation, all that had beamed forth to men as the prize and aim in the wars of de

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liverance and in the shaking off of the foreign yoke, now rose to arms everywhere and in every end and corner of the great German kingdom, and demanded its right! The dismembered limbs strove for unity. He would have been no man, no human being, who was not carried away with enthusiasm at the events occurring in Germany!

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What part canst thou take in it? thou art hundreds of miles away; before thou comest there, it will be all over, and they will have settled it without thee.' Such was the language of cool reflection; but he had none to whom he had to pay regard, and he stood by himself alone. The struggle for Holstein allured him. We will reach to the sea,' he thought; 'there is the door of the house; hitherto we have not been able to go in and out at will.' The aspect of things was bad enough according to the last accounts, but still Parliament was sitting. The very scorn and ridicule of the English papers with regard to the great national movement goaded him and made his blood boil. What was he going to do in Germany?' asked the gentleman with whom he was travelling. He would find that all would soon tame down and be brought back into the old order; the equilibrium of Europe, the repose of all existing governments, depended on the re