courageously soar; if, with love to the Snake, there rise in him belief in the Wonders of Nature, nay, in his own existence amid these Wonders—­then the Snake shall be his.  But not till three youths of this sort have been found and wedded to the three daughters, may the Salamander cast away his heavy burden, and return to his brothers.’—­’Permit me, Master,’ said the Earth-spirit, ’to make these three daughters a present, which may glorify their life with the husbands they shall find.  Let each of them receive from me a Pot, of the fairest metal which I have; I will polish it with beams borrowed from the diamond; in its glitter shall our Kingdom of Wonders, as it now exists in the Harmony of universal Nature, be mirrored in glorious dazzling reflection; and from its interior, on the day of marriage, shall spring forth a Fire-lily, whose eternal blossom shall encircle the youth that is found worthy, with sweet wafting odors.  Soon too shall he learn its speech, and understand the wonders of our kingdom, and dwell with his beloved in Atlantis itself.’

“Thou perceivest well, dear Anselmus, that the Salamander of whom I speak is no other than my father.  Spite of his higher nature, he was forced to subject himself to the paltriest afflictions of common life; and hence, indeed, often comes the mischievous humor with which he vexes many.  He has told me now and then, that, for the inward make of mind, which the Spirit-prince Phosphorus required as a condition of marriage with me and my sisters, men have a name at present, which, in truth, they frequently enough misapply:  they call it a childlike poetic mind.  This mind, he says, is often found in youths, who, by reason of their high simplicity of manners and their total want of what is called knowledge of the world, are mocked by the populace.  Ah, dear Anselmus, beneath the Elder-bush thou understoodest my song, my look; thou lovest the green Snake, thou believest in me, and wilt be mine forevermore!  The fair Lily will bloom forth from the Golden Pot; and we shall dwell, happy, and united, and blessed, in Atlantis together!

“Yet I must not hide from thee that in its deadly battle with the Salamanders and Spirits of the Earth, the black Dragon burst from their grasp and hurried off through the air.  Phosphorus, indeed, again holds him in fetters; but from the black Quills, which, in the struggle, rained down on the ground, there sprung up hostile Spirits, which on all hands set themselves against the Salamanders and Spirits of the Earth.  That woman who so hates thee, dear Anselmus, and who, as my father knows full well, is striving for possession of the Golden Pot; that woman owes her existence to the love of such a Quill (plucked in battle from the Dragon’s wing) for a certain Parsnip beside which it dropped.  She knows her origin and her power; for, in the moans and convulsions of the captive Dragon, the secrets of many a mysterious constellation are revealed to her; and she uses every