16 * THE OLD CHURCH BELL.*

Meanwhile the old church bell had been almost-completely-
forgotten. But it was to be presumed that the bell would find
its way into the furnace, and what would become of it then? It
was impossible to say, and equally impossible to tell what sounds
would come forth from the bell that kept echoing through the
young heart of the boy from Marbach; but that bell was of bronze,
and kept sounding so loud that it must at last be heard out in the
wide world ; and the more.cramped the space within the school
walls, and the more deaféning the dreary shout of “ March! halt!
front!” the louder did the sound ring through the youth’s breast;
and he sang what he felt in the circle of his companions, and the
sound was heard beyond the boundaries of the principality. But
it was not for this that they had given him a presentation to the
military school, and board, and clothing. Had he not been
already numbered and destined to beacertain wheel in the great
watchwork to which weall belong as pieces of practical machinery?
How imperfectly’ do we understand ourselves ! and how, then,
shall others, even the best men, understand us? But it is the
pressure that forms the precious stone. There was pressure
enough here; but would the world be able, some day, to recognize
the jewel?

In the capital of the prince of the country,a great festival was
being celebrated. Thousands of candles and lamps gleamed
brightly, and rockets flew towards the heavens in streams of fire.
The splendour of that day yet lives in the remembrance of men,
but it lives through him, the young scholar of the military school,
who was trying in sorrow and tears to escape unperceived from
the land: he was compelled to leave all—mother, native country,
those he loved—-unless he could resign himself to sink into the
stream of oblivion among his fellows,

- The old bell was better off than he, for the bell would remain
peaceably by the churchyard wall in Marbach, safe, and almost
forgotten. The wind whistled over it,and might have tolda fine
tale of him at whose birth the bell had sounded, and over whom
the wind had but now blown cold in the forest of a neighbouring
land, where he had sunk down, exhausted by fatigue, with his
whole wealth, his only hope for the future, the written pages of
his tragedy “ Fiesco :” the wind might have told of the youth’s
only patrons, men who were artists, and who yet slunk away to
amuse themselves at skittles while his play was being read: the
wind could have told of the pale fugitive, who sat for weary weeks
and months in the wretched tavern, where the host brawled and
drank, and coarse boozing was going on while he sang of the
ideal. Heavy days, dark days! The heart must suffer and
endure for itself the trials it is to sing.

_ Dark days and cold nights also passed over the old bell. The
iron frame did not feel them, but the bell within the heart of man
is affected by gloomy times. How fared it with the young man?