" And we walked
back through the woods.
I went to see Pickering the next day, at his inn, and on knocking, as
directed, at his door, was surprised to hear the sound of a loud voice
within. My knock remained unnoticed, so I presently introduced myself. I
found no company, but I discovered my friend walking up and down the room
and apparently declaiming to himself from a little volume bound in white
vellum. He greeted me heartily, threw his book on the table, and said
that he was taking a German lesson.
"And who is your teacher?" I asked, glancing at the book.
He rather avoided meeting my eye, as he answered, after an instant's
delay, "Madame Blumenthal."
"Indeed! Has she written a grammar?"
"It's not a grammar; it's a tragedy." And he handed me the book.
I opened it, and beheld, in delicate type, with a very large margin, an
_Historisches Trauerspiel_ in five acts, entitled "Cleopatra." There
were a great many marginal corrections and annotations, apparently from
the author's hand; the speeches were very long, and there was an
inordinate number of soliloquies by the heroine. One of them, I
remember, towards the end of the play, began in this fashion--
"What, after all, is life but sensation, and sensation but
deception?--reality that pales before the light of one's dreams as
Octavia's dull beauty fades beside mine? But let me believe in some
intenser bliss, and seek it in the arms of death!"
"It seems decidedly passionate," I said.
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