LADY EUREKA;
OR,
THE MYSTERY:
A PROPHECY OF THE FUTURE.

BY THE AUTHOR
OF
“MEPHISTOPHELES IN ENGLAND.”

IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.

LONDON:

LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, & LONGMANS,
PATERNOSTER-ROW.

1840.

INTRODUCTION.

“Guten Morgen, Wilhelm!” said I, as I entered the chamber of my fellow student. “How are you this morning? You look better—your eyes are brighter, and your cheek possesses more colour than usual.”

“I am better, mein Freund,” observed the youth, raising himself up from the bed till his back rested upon the pillows. “But what have you there?”

“A fresh supply of flowers for you, Wilhelm,” I replied; “and I bought them of the prettiest Mädchen I ever saw in the market place.”

“Ich danke Ihnen für das Geschenk,” murmured the grateful student. “You know I love flowers better than any thing upon earth. They always fill me with ideas of beauty and purity and splendour, above all other earthly things; and I love them because they are so impartial in bestowing their favours: they confer their fragrance and their loveliness with equal liberality on all who venture within their influence. Put them in the vase, mein freund, and let me again thank you for so welcome a gift.”

“And now let us converse, Wilhelm, if you feel strong enough;” I exclaimed, as I took a seat by the bedside of the invalid. “Has the physician been this morning? And what said he.”

“He preceded you but a few minutes, mein freund,” replied Wilhelm, “and he said nothing. He shook his head, however, when he looked at me, which I considered a bad sign.”

“There’s nothing in it, be assured,” said I, earnestly.

“In the head, or in the sign?” inquired my fellow student, with a look of mock gravity.

“In both,” cried I, laughing; “in both, no doubt. But I am glad to see you so cheerful. Your appearance this morning makes me entertain hopes of your speedy recovery, and I can almost convince myself, that in a few days we shall be together pursuing our studies and our ramblings, as we have so often and so happily done.”

“I have been entertaining a similar idea, mein freund,” observed Wilhelm; “I feel more cheerful than I have felt for a long time past; and I was beginning to flatter myself into a belief, that the insidious disease was about evacuating its territory. I shall roam among the walls of old Göttingen again. I shall associate with my ancient comrades—shall I not?”

“’Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished by others as well as myself,” said I; “but how liked you the book I lent you?”

“’Tis a brilliant production,” replied my friend; “and of that class of works which affords me most pleasure. ‘Give me the enjoyment of perusing a succession of new works from the graceful pen of Crébillon, and I shall have no other want,’ said Gray. I exclaim, ‘Give me the gratification of reading the finest productions in the imaginative literature of every civilised nation, and there will be little left for me to wish for.’ Nothing elevates and delights me so much as the best of these works, especially if they be tinged with a tone of high romantic feeling. What can be so charming as this mingling of the ideal and the natural? What can take a firmer hold of the mind and of the heart?”

“They certainly do, when ably written, create very powerful impressions;” I observed.

“I have read a considerable portion of the imaginative literature of almost every European nation,” said Wilhelm; “and an extraordinary power of genius it evinces. The prose fictions of the present age produced in Germany and England are wonderfully excellent and abundant. I think the English exceed all others in the combination of judgment with imagination, as seen in the best efforts of Scott, Bulwer, and Godwin. After them come the Germans, and we can proudly boast of Göthe, Lafontaine, Novalis, and Hoffmann. The French have much imagination and very little judgment, as exhibited in the writings of Victor Hugo, Mérimée, Paul de Kock, and Balzac, and are usually distinguished by their sins against good taste. Of Italian imaginative literature, the works I have met with that rise above mediocrity, are, ‘I Promessi Sposi,’ of Manzoni, ‘Ettore Fieramosca,’ of Massino D’Azeglio, and ‘Franco Allegri,’ which do not soar very high. Of the modern fictions of Spain, Portugal, and Holland, I know nothing; nor do I believe that there is any thing to know; but I have seen one or two romantic novels from Russia that possess considerable merit. What I object to in works of this nature, written at the present time, is the too apparent satisfaction of their authors in remaining in the beaten track.