Page:The Campaner thal, and other writings.djvu/359

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ANALECTS FROM RICHTER.
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life that he shows in the protection of another's. The mother, who will hazard nothing for herself, will hazard all in defence of her child;—in short, only for the nobility within us—only for virtue, will man open his veins and offer up his spirit: but this nobility—this virtue—presents different phases: with the Christian martyr, it is faith; with the savage, it is honor; with the republican, it is liberty.




FANCY.

FANCY can lay only the past and the future under her copying-paper: and every actual presence of the object sets limits to her power: just as water distilled from roses, according to the old naturalists, lost its power exactly at the periodical blooming of the rose.




THE older, the more tranquil, and pious a man is, so much the more holy does he esteem all that is innate, that is, feeling and power; whereas in the estimate of the multitude whatsoever is self-acquired, the ability of practice and science in general has an undue pre-eminence; for the latter is universally appreciated, and therefore even by those who have it not, but the former not at all. In the twilight and the moonshine the fixed stars, which are suns, retire and veil themselves in obscurity; whilst the planets, which are simply earths, preserve their borrowed light unobscured. The elder races of men, amongst whom man was more, though he had not yet become so much, had a childlike feeling of sympathy with all the gifts of the Infinite—for example, with strength—beauty—and good fortune; and even the involuntary