Seite:Marsh Hallig 1856.djvu/260

260THE HALLIG.

he called sadness at parting from his friends ; but it was
more than this separation which moved him so deeply.
All the dreams of his youth had been awakened by his
conversations with those visitors from the great world
in which he had himself formerly moved, so rich in hope,
so full of life. His early friends, from whom he had quite
disappeared since his transfer to the hallig, beckoned
him anew into their circle. The lands through which he
had traveled by their side, lay once more before him in
all their beauty. The active movement of the political
world, of which now and then a solitary journal fur-
nished a very meager account, presented itself again to
his mind, like a magical picture which suddenly shines
before us bright in the midst of darkness. The rich
field of knowledge spread out its blossoms and perfumes
before his soul, in the most attractive manner ; but like
a beautiful garden which we may look at through grat-
ings, and yet into which we can not enter. And here
was this barren hallig, with this living waste around it
— this dense fog which enveloped him as if to shut him
out forever from the world. Had he placed to his
thirsty lips the cup of Djemschid upon whose brim the
past, the present, and the future, were painted, only now
to pine his life away for another draught. With what
entirely different feelings, with what fair hopes for his
earthly life, had he trod the mountains of Switzerland,
wandered along the river-banks of his native country,
from which he was now perhaps banished forever, for-
gotten on a miserable sod, surrounded by a turbid sea,
obliged to submit to every variety of privation and self-
denial. He went down to the beach. He gazed wist-
fully into the mist, as if his eye could penetrate it, and