< Page:Poet Lore, volume 4, 1892.djvu
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436

Poet-lore.

pseudo-science, I simply replied that I knew of no one who would buy that which he offered for sale.

A partial proof, at least, that I was not mistaken, was his second letter. He declared that after all his endeavors to forsake and forget his folly,—escamotage,—he could not but try if he could rid himself of his passion by selling his apparatus; but that, as soon as he sent the letter, he felt sorry for having written it, and he added that even in case a purchaser had been found, he would not have sold his instruments. In times of leisure, he wrote, he always thought of constructing his automatons; and he assured me that, if his exhibition of them should ever take place, it would be magnificent.

Shortly before the Austro-Prussian war was declared, I received one more letter from my friend,—the last one. It was again written in a gay, almost frivolous tone. I give here the following passage:—

“In a few days, perhaps, we shall be ordered to go to the battlefield. Pity your unhappy friend. Without any apparatus, cards, mirrors, tinctures, and other necessaries, he will have to murmur: ‘Spiriti miet, ubbidite!’ and the ‘spirits,’ always obedient, will, mayhap, for the first time refuse obedience. In the midst of a rain of bullets a small piece of lead is more powerful than magic formule, and my sword and my revolver will, perhaps, make many a one familiar with the mysterious truth that no human power can. Eh! why fall into sentimentality? Sooner or later each of us will learn, as have those innumerable millions of creatures who have preceded us, whether life ends with death. Why this useless philosophizing? And when the last. fierce struggle shall come, I shall, perhaps, mournfully beg: ‘Spiriti miei, ubbidite!’ or, it may be, I shall not think of my ‘spiriti’ at all. Yet there is one thing I beg of you: should I get killed, don’t mourn! Call our old friends together, and then think of me with cups of wine in your hands! If you grant this request, you may be sure that, even after that, I shall once more at least call on you.”

Reading the last lines I smiled as we smile at a paradox. From then on I heard nothing more of my friend until after the battle of Königgrätz. Just before the complete stoppage of the mails I received the following letter:—

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