But no; no quarrel ensued this evening between the two. The Assessor had tidings to announce to her which appeared difficult for him to communicate, and which filled her eyes with tears--Pyrrhus was dead!
"He was yesterday quite well," said the Assessor, "and licked my hand as I bade him good night. To-day he took his morning coffee with a good appetite, and then lay down on his cushion to sleep. As I returned home, well pleased to think of playing with my little comrade, he lay dead on his cushion!"
Mrs. Gunilla and he talked for a long time about the little favourite, and appeared in consequence to become very good friends.
Jeremias Munter was this evening in a more censorious humour than common. His eyes rested with a sad expression on the newly betrothed.
"Yes," said he, as if speaking to himself, "if one had only confidence in oneself; if one was only clear as to one's own motives--then one might have some ground to hope that one could make another happy, and could be happy with them."
"One must know oneself thus well, so far," said Louise, not without a degree of confidence, "that one can be certain of doing so, before one would voluntarily unite one's fate with that of another."
"_Thus well!_" returned he, warmly. "Yes, prosit! Who knows thus well? You do not, dear sister, that I can assure you. Ah!" continued he, with bitter melancholy, "one may be horribly deceived in oneself, and by oneself, in this life. There is no one in this world who, if he rightly understand himself, has not to deplore some infidelity to his friend--his love--his better self! The self-love, the miserable egotism of human nature, where is there a corner that it does not slide into? The wretched little _I_, how it thrusts itself forward! how thoughts of self, designs for self, blot actions which otherwise might be called good!"
"Do you then acknowledge no virtue? Is there, then, no magnanimity, no excellence, which you can admire?" asked some one. "Does not history show us----"
"History!" interrupted he, "don't speak of history--don't bring it forward! No, if I am to believe in virtue, it is such as history cannot meddle with or understand; it is only in that which plays no great part in the world, which never, never could have been applauded by it, and which is not acted publicly. Of this kind it is possible that something entirely beautiful, something perfectly pure and holy, might be found. I will believe in it, although I do not discover it in myself. I have examined my own soul, and can find nothing pure in it; but that it _may_ be found in others, I believe. My heart swells with the thought that there may exist perfectly pure and unselfish virtue. Good heaven, how beautiful it is! And wherever such a soul may be found in the world, be it in palace or in hut, in gold or in rags, in man or in woman, which, shunning the praise of the world, fearing the flattery of its own heart, fulfils unobserved and with honest zeal its duties, however difficult they may be, and which labours and prays in secrecy and stillness--such a being I admire and love, and set high above all the Cæsars and Ciceros of the world!"