that deepened into form.  In the valley below only the river gleamed, like steel; and here and there the lamps were lighted in the town.  Solemnly stood the leafy lindentrees in the garden near them, their trunks in darkness and their summits bronzed with moonlight; and in his niche in the great round tower, overhung with ivy, like a majestic phantom, stood the gray statue of Louis, with his venerable beard, and shirt of mail, and flowing mantle; and the mild, majestic countenance looked forth into the silent night, as the countenance of a seer, who reads the stars.  At intervals the wind of the summer night passed through the ruined castle and the trees, and they sent forth a sound as if nature were sighing in her dreams; and for a moment overhead the broad leaves gently clashed together, like brazen cymbals, with a tinkling sound; and then all was still, save the sweet, passionate song of nightingales, that nowhere upon earth sing more sweetly than in the gardens of Heidelberg Castle.

The hour, the scene, and the near-approaching separation of the two young friends, had filled their hearts with a pleasant, though at the same time not painless excitement.  They had been conversing about the magnificent old ruin, and the ages in which it had been built, and the vicissitudesof time and war, that had battered down its walls, and left it “tenantless, save to the crannying wind.”

“How sorrowful and sublime is the face of that statue yonder,” said Flemming.  “It reminds me of the old Danish hero Beowulf; for careful, sorrowing, he seeth in his son’s bower the wine-hall deserted, the resort of the wind, noiseless; the knight sleepeth; the warrior lieth in darkness; there is no noise of the harp, no joy in the dwellings, as there was before.”

“Even as you say,” replied the Baron; “but it often astonishes me, that, coming from that fresh green world of yours beyond the sea, you should feel so much interest in these old things; nay, at times, seem so to have drunk in their spirit, as really to live in the times of old.  For my part, I do not see what charm there is in the pale and wrinkled countenance of the Past, so to entice the soul of a young man.  It seems to me like falling in love with one’s grandmother.  Give me the Present;—­warm, glowing, palpitating with life.  She is my mistress; and the Future stands waiting like my wife that is to be, for whom, to tell the truth, I care very little just now.  Indeed, my friend, I wish you would take more heed of this philosophy of mine; and not waste the golden hours of youth in vain regrets for the past, and indefinite, dim longings for the future.  Youth comes but once in a lifetime.”

“Therefore,” said Flemming; “let us so enjoy it as to be still young when we are old.  For my part, I grow happier as I grow older.  When I compare my sensations and enjoyments now, with what they were ten years ago, the comparison is vastly in favor of the present.  Much of the fever and fretfulness of life is over.  The world and I look each other more calmly in the face.  My mind is more self-possessed.  It has done me good to be somewhat parched by the heat and drenched by the rain of life.”