When the two soldiers appointed to
remove it took it up, they felt it to be considerably heavier than
usual, and one of them asked, jestingly, "Have we got the Arminian
himself here?" to which the ready-witted wife replied, "Yes,
perhaps some Arminian books." The chest reached Gorcum in safety;
the captive was released; and Grotius escaped across the frontier
into Brabant, and afterwards into France, where he was rejoined
by his wife.
Trial and suffering are the tests of married life. They bring out
the real character, and often tend to produce the closest union.
They may even be the spring of the purest happiness.
Uninterrupted joy, like uninterrupted success, is not good for
either man or woman. When Heine's wife died, he began to reflect
upon the loss he had sustained. They had both known poverty, and
struggled through it hand-in-hand; and it was his greatest sorrow
that she was taken from him at the moment when fortune was
beginning to smile upon him, but too late for her to share in his
prosperity. "Alas I" said he, "amongst my griefs must I reckon
even her love--the strongest, truest, that ever inspired the
heart of woman--which made me the happiest of mortals, and yet
was to me a fountain of a thousand distresses, inquietudes, and
cares? To entire cheerfulness, perhaps, she never attained; but
for what unspeakable sweetness, what exalted, enrapturing joys, is
not love indebted to sorrow! Amidst growing anxieties, with the
torture of anguish in my heart, I have been made, even by the loss
which caused me this anguish and these anxieties, inexpressibly
happy! When tears flowed over our cheeks, did not a nameless,
seldom-felt delight stream through my breast, oppressed equally
by joy and sorrow!"
There is a degree of sentiment in German love which seems strange
to English readers,--such as we find depicted in the lives of
Novalis, Jung Stilling, Fichte, Jean Paul, and others that might
be named.
Pages:
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437