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The wildest imagination of Scheherezade never dreamed in Arabian Nights of genii that had a tithe of the power of these real forces. Her genii shut up in bottles had to wait centuries for some fisherman to let them out. "Sacra fames auri." The hunger for gold, which in men is called accursed, in metals is justly called sacred.
But now that our Scheherezade has become a scholar instead of a teacher, she seems to be undergoing a remarkable transformation. Astronomy is indeed a noble science. It may well kindle the enthusiasm of a youthful nature. I fancy at times that I see something of that starry light which I noticed in the young man's eyes gradually kindling in hers. But can it be astronomy alone that does it?
Elves and gnomes and air-sprites and genii were no strangers to us, for my sister Emilie she who heard me say my hymns, and taught me to write was mistress of an almost limitless fund of imaginative lore. She was a very Scheherezade of story-tellers, so her younger sisters thought, who listened to her while twilight grew into moonlight, evening after evening, with fascinated wakefulness.
It is whispered that our two young folks are to be married before another season, and that the Lady has asked them to come and stay with her for a while. Our Scheherezade is to write no more stories. It is astonishing to see what a change for the better in her aspect a few weeks of brain-rest and heart's ease have wrought in her. I doubt very much whether she ever returns to literary labor.
Will you go, if we make up a party? I asked the Master. A cold in the head lasts me from three to five days, answered the Master. I am not so very fond of being out in the dew like Nebuchadnezzar: that will do for you young folks. I suppose I must be one of the young folks, not so young as our Scheherezade, nor so old as the Capitalist, young enough at any rate to want to be of the party.
The hunters told tales of wonderful shots and of the butchery of rabbits; and the women racked their brains for ideas without revealing the imagination of Scheherezade. They were about to give up this diversion when a young woman, who was idly caressing the hand of an old maiden aunt, noticed a little ring made of blond hair, which she had often seen, without paying any attention to it.
This frightful speech of mine reached the ear of our Scheherezade, who said that it was perfectly shocking and that I deserved to be shown up as the outlaw in one of her bandit stories. Hush, my dear, said the Lady, you will have to bring John Milton into your story with our friend there, if you punish everybody who says naughty things like that.
I had noticed that the Young Girl the storywriter, our Scheherezade, as I called her looked as if she had been crying or lying awake half the night. I found on asking her, for she is an honest little body and is disposed to be confidential with me for some reason or other, that she had been doing both.
Such subjects have the further advantage, according to Goethe's own illustration, that, like the Arabian thousand and one nights, as conducted by Sultana Scheherezade, "never ending, still beginning," they rarely come to any absolute close, but so interweave one into another, as still to leave behind a large arrear of interest In order to pursue the conversation, Goethe was invited to meet them soon after at Mentz.
If he would only stay a little longer with us when we get talking; but he is busy almost always either in observation or with his calculations and studies, and when the nights are fair loses so much sleep that he must make it up by day. He wants contact with human beings. I wish he would change his seat and come round and sit by our Scheherezade!
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