FullReads

‘You reason,’ said Walstein. ‘I was myself once fond of reasoning, but the greater my experience, the more I have become convinced that man is not a rational animal. He is only truly good or great when he acts from passion.’

‘Passion is the ship, and reason is the rudder,’ observed Schulembourg.

‘And thus we pass the ocean of life,’ said Walstein. ‘Would that I could discover a new continent of sensation!’

‘Do you mix much in society?’ said the physician.

‘By fits and starts,’ said Walstein. ‘A great deal when I first returned: of late little.’

‘And your distemper has increased in proportion with your solitude?’

‘It would superficially appear so,’ observed Walstein; ‘but I consider my present distemper as not so much the result of solitude, as the reaction of much converse with society. I am gloomy at present from a sense of disappointment of the past.’

‘You are disappointed,’ observed Schulembourg. ‘What, then, did you expect?’

‘I do not know,’ replied Walstein; ‘that is the very thing I wish to discover.’

‘How do you in general pass your time?’ inquired the physician.

‘When I reply in doing nothing, my dear Doctor,’ said Walstein, ‘you will think that you have discovered the cause of my disorder. But perhaps you will only mistake an effect for a cause.’

‘Do you read?’

‘I have lost the faculty of reading: early in life I was a student, but books become insipid when one is rich with the wisdom of a wandering life.’

‘Do you write?’

‘I have tried, but mediocrity disgusts me. In literature a second-rate reputation is no recompense for the evils that authors are heirs to.’

‘Yet, without making your compositions public, you might relieve your own feelings in expressing them. There is a charm in creation.’

‘My sympathies are strong,’ replied Walstein. ‘In an evil hour I might descend from my pedestal; I should compromise my dignity with the herd; I should sink before the first shaft of ridicule.’

‘You did not suffer from this melancholy when travelling?’

‘Occasionally: but the fits were never so profound, and were very evanescent.’

‘Travel is action,’ replied Schulembourg. ‘Believe me, that in action you alone can find a cure.’

‘What is action?’ inquired Walstein. ‘Travel I have exhausted. The world is quiet. There are no wars now, no revolutions. Where can I find a career?’

‘Action,’ replied Schulembourg, ‘is the exercise of our faculties. Do not mistake restlessness for action. Murillo, who passed a long life almost within the walls of his native city, was a man of great action. Witness the convents and the churches that are covered with his exploits. A great student is a great actor, and as great as a marshal or a statesman. You must act, Mr. Walstein, you must act; you must have an object in life; great or slight, still you must have an object. Believe me, it is better to be a mere man of pleasure than a dreamer.’

‘Your advice is profound,’ replied Walstein, ‘and you have struck upon a sympathetic chord. But what am I to do? I have no object.’

‘You are a very ambitious man,’ replied the physician.

‘How know you that?’ said Walstein, somewhat hastily, and slightly blushing.

‘We doctors know many strange things,’ replied Schulembourg, with a smile. ‘Come now, would you like to be prime minister of Saxony?’

‘Prime minister of Oberon!’ said Walstein, laughing; ”tis indeed a great destiny.’

‘Ah! when you have lived longer among us, your views will accommodate themselves to our limited horizon. In the meantime, I will write you a prescription, provided you promise to comply with my directions.’

‘Do not doubt me, my dear Doctor.’

Schulembourg seated himself at the table, and wrote a few lines, which he handed to his patient.

Walstein smiled as he read the prescription.

‘Dr. de Schulembourg requests the honour of the Baron de Walstein’s company at dinner, to-morrow at two o’clock.’

Walstein smiled and looked a little perplexed, but he remembered his promise. ‘I shall, with pleasure, become your guest, Doctor.’

CHAPTER II.