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Nature seems anew to celebrate her awakening into life. The air is so
unusually clear, the clouds sail on so buoyantly, and from the green herbage a
fragrance is exhaled that fills me with delight. For many a year have I not
felt as at this moment."

We see already, by the foregoing effusion, that he is become a poet; to give
further proof of it, however, would in most cases be insipid, for it is a most
foolish notion to fancy a poet different from other men. Among the latter
there may be far more poetical natures than many an acknowledged poet, when
examined more closely, could boast of; the difference only is, that the poet
possesses a better mental memory, on which account he is able to retain the
feeling and the thought till they can be embodied by means of words; a faculty
which the others do not possess. But the transition from a commonplace nature
to one that is richly endowed, demands always a more or less breakneck leap
over a certain abyss which yawns threateningly below; and thus must the sudden
change with the clerk strike the reader.

"The sweet air!" continued he of the police-office, in his dreamy imaginings;
"how it reminds me of the violets in the garden of my aunt Magdalena! Yes,
then I was a little wild boy, who did not go to school very regularly. O
heavens! 'tis a long time since I have thought on those times. The good old
soul! She lived behind the Exchange. She always had a few twigs or green
shoots in water--let the winter rage without as it might. The violets exhaled
their sweet breath, whilst I pressed against the windowpanes covered with
fantastic frost-work the copper coin I had heated on the stove, and so made
peep-holes. What splendid vistas were then opened to my view! What change--what
magnificence! Yonder in the canal lay the ships frozen up, and deserted by
their whole crews, with a screaming crow for the sole occupant. But when the
spring, with a gentle stirring motion, announced her arrival, a new and busy
life arose; with songs and hurrahs the ice was sawn asunder, the ships were
fresh tarred and rigged, that they might sail away to distant lands. But I
have remained here--must always remain here, sitting at my desk in the office,
and patiently see other people fetch their passports to go abroad. Such is my
fate! Alas!"--sighed he, and was again silent. "Great Heaven! What is come to
me! Never have I thought or felt like this before! It must be the summer air
that affects me with feelings almost as disquieting as they are refreshing."

He felt in his pocket for the papers. "These police-reports will soon stem the
torrent of my ideas, and effectually hinder any rebellious overflowing of the
time-worn banks of official duties"; he said to himself consolingly, while his
eye ran over the first page. "DAME TIGBRITH, tragedy in five acts." "What is
that? And yet it is undeniably my own handwriting. Have I written the tragedy?
Wonderful, very wonderful!--And this--what have I here? 'INTRIGUE ON THE

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