American telegraph. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1851-1851, 1851-10-04
MY Godfather's Prophecy,
OR, THE wITHERED BOUQUET.


"Thou art silly fellow, Karl, and fancful,"
said my godfather somewhat angrily to me.
If Nina is not fooling thee, thou art fooling thy
SELF"
But | smiled TRANQUILITY and said to myself,
" If it be fooling to feel the light Of her smiles
beaming upon me, let me fool myself thus for
ever" And then l thought Of some lines of
love poetry written by Schiller, and my heart
grew elate. | doubted nothing, but adored the
almost shadowy face of Nina, as it appeared to
me in my day dream, silently.
g Thou art but a child, Karl, in manner OF
speaking, as compared with her" continued
my venerable godfather who supplied to me
the place of father and mother, brother and
sister-for / once had all these, but now they
sleep in q solemn rest under the great linden
trees of the old church that lay in a slope of
the Rhine, as you leave Kolu and plunge into
the mountain passes; s'for" added he, " she
is thy senior by some years twain or more, and
that maketh girls women, whilst thou at this
age art but, as it were, n boy, and for some
years will remain so--and know she is the ma
gician to thee, Karl while thou shouldst be con-
ming thy lessons with Father Peter, and poring
over monkish Latin and pagan Greek. There's
rare poetry in these old tones, too, Karl; for
my uncle was no mean scholar in his day. |
say she will be bewitching thee, and thou wilt
the ground she walks upon; and some day,
he added, with sigh, "thou wilt see her give
her hand to another, and laugh, without malice,
it may be, at thy great, yet silent anguish, and
then sorely stricken thou wilt 60 into thy
chamber among thy glorious old books, and
thou wilt finally give to them the remains OF
heart Of which Nina will still hold part; and
with last moan and farewell to all thy most
cherished hopes, thou wilt close the world out
from thee forever-as others have done before
thee"
| listened to him silently, with mingled doubt
and incredulity; but Nina was to me the ao-
sorbing object in which l had concentrated
every thought, feeling, and emotion. 1t was
that period of which every man has experienced
the force once, and once only, with results more
less acting upon the whole of his after-life
than he cares to acknowledge, perhaps, or is
aware of-when love was worship, JOY unutter-
able sublime madness; when its infusion was
an indescribable sense of beauty, an apprecia
ton of things that spoke majestcally to the
soul, whether animate or inanimate, whether
in those thrilling words sounded imperiously on
the chords of the heart or whether they were
the mere mutterings of the forest trees as the
wind moved their branches. l loved Nina, as
may be imagined, with passion entirely des
potic Woe to him who should endeavor to take
her from me! Hate to him who shall seek to
dissuage me from loving her, and God pardon
me | think | actually did hate for the time
nv great hearted godfather, but expiated this
unholy feeling afterwards in remorse and with
many tears.
/ was n shy lad-a plodding student and
destined for one of the learned professions, no
matter which, and hence the book-worm was
well known in the cloisters Of Gottengen, as
well as in the streets of my native town-a
clean, picturesque old relic of the middle ages,
lying on the side of the eaping Rhine, with
woods and mountains behind, and monster
towers and old abbey walls within. And Nina
was the daughter of a near neighbor-fair as
the Margaret of "Faust''-gentle as young
fawn, with love-light in her eyes, with beauty
on cheek and lips, and white, open brow, not to
be rivalled, and with n music in her voice that
could subdue me unto tears and trembling when
its touching depths were giving utterance to
pity or compassion.
Nina was the goddess Of my idolatry there
fore, and she was loved without rivalry or re
servaton. | loved my books and my studies,
but these now became the mere auxiliaries OF
my passion for her. 1t was through these me-
diums that conveyed to her the overpowering
sense that changed my nature, and made me
the willing bondsave of her dear face. Night
and day, present or absent, 1t mattered not, she
was never from my thoughts; and yet all this
time-strange to say never told her of my
affection 1t did not strike me as being neces-
sary. So long as / enjoyed her society, sat
with her in her chamber, sang to her the love
hcdcrs of our land which had been the exponents
Of love to the thousands gone before, and would
be again the same to thousands after me; so
long as | wandered with her in the woods and
sat at her feet by the bubbling streams to read
to her-so long as we gathered the wild spring
flowers in the meadows-so long as was wholly