WHAT THE MOON SAW. 373

them with his hands, and looked at the brisk little lad. ‘Why,
that is Bertel, said he. And my eye quitted the poor room, for
I have so much to see. At the same moment I looked at the
halls of the Vatican, where the marble gods are enthroned. I
shone upon the group of the Laocoon: the stone seemed to sigh.
I pressed a silent kiss on the lips of the Muses, and they seemed
to stirand move. But my rays lingered longest about the Nile
group with the colossal god. Leaning against the Sphinx, he
lies there thoughtful and meditative, as if he were thinking on
the rolling centuries; and little love-gods sport with him and
with the crocodiles. In the horn of plenty sits with folded arms
a little tiny love-god contemplating the great solemn river-god, a
true picture of the boy at the spinning-wheel,—the features were
exactly the same. Charming and lifelike stood the little marble
form, and yet the wheel of the year has turned more than a
thousand times since the time when it sprang from the stone.
Just as often as the boy in the little room turned the spinning-
wheel had the great wheel murmured, before the age could again
call forth marble gods equal to those he afterwards formed.

“Years have passed since all this happened,”.the Moon went
on to say. “Yesterday I looked upon a bay on the eastern coast
of Denmark. Glorious woods are there, and high trees, an old
knightly castle with red walls, swans floating in the ponds, and
in the background appears, among orchards, a little town with a
church, Many boats, the crews all furnished with torches, glided
over the silent expanse—but these fires had not been kindled for
catching fish, for everything had a festive look. Music sounded,
a song was sung, and in one of the boats a man stood erect, to
whom homage was paid by the rest, a tall, sturdy man, wrapped
in a cloak. He had blue eyes and long white hair. I knew him,
and thought of the Vatican, and of the group of the Nile, and
the old marble gods. I thought of the simple little room where
little Bertel sat in his nightshirt by the spinning-wheel. The
wheel of time has turned, and new gods have come forth from
the stone. From the boats there arosea shout: ‘Hurrah! hurrah
for Bertel Thorwaldsen!’”

TWENTY-FOURTH EVENING.

“T will now give you a picture from Frankfort,” said the Moon,
“T especially noticed one building there. It was not the house
in which Goethe was born, nor the old council-house, through
whose grated windows peered the horns of the oxen that were
roasted and given to the people when the Emperors were crowned.
No, it was a private house, plain in appearance, and painted
sae It stood near the old Jews’ Street. It was Rothschild’s

ouse.

“T looked through the open door. The staircase was brilliantly

~~