Chapter 18 - Page 2

when a boy, we will here introduce.

A child of one of the domestics, a little merry boy with whom Otto associated a good deal, was playing with him in his garret. Otto was then writing his play. The boy bantered him, pulling the paper at the same time. Otto forbade him with the threat,--"If thou dost that again I will throw thee out of the window!" The boy again immediately pulled at the paper. In a moment Otto seized him by the waist, swung him toward the open window, and would certainly have thrown him out, had not Rosalie fortunately entered the room, and, with an exclamation of horror, seized Otto's arm, who now stood pale as death and trembling in every limb.

In this manner had Napoleon awoke Otto's interest for France. Rosalie also spoke, next to her Switzerland, with most pleasure of this country. The Revolution had livingly affected her, and therefore her discourse regarding it was living. It even seemed to the old preacher as though the Revolution were an event which he had witnessed. The Revolution and Napoleon had often fed his thoughts and his discourse toward this land. Otto had thus, without troubling himself the least about politics, grown up with a kind of interest about France. The mere intelligence of this struggle of the July days was therefore not indifferent to him. He still only knew what the horse-dealer had related; nothing of the congregation, or of Polignac's ministry: but France was to him the mighty world-crater, which glowed with its splendid eruptions, and which he admired from a distance.

The old preacher shook his head when Otto imparted this political intelligence to him. A king, so long as he lived, was in his eyes holy, let him be whatever sort of a man he might. The actions of a king, according to his opinion, resembled the words of the Bible, which man ought not to weigh; they should be taken as they were. "All authority is from God!" said he. "The anointed one is holy; God gives to him wisdom; he is a light to whom we must all look up!"

"He is a man like ourselves!" answered Otto. "He is the first magistrate of the land, and as such we owe him the highest reverence and obedience. Birth, and not worth, gives him the high post which he fills. He ought only to will that which is good; to exercise justice. His duties are equally great with those of his subjects."

"But more difficult, my son!" said the old man. "It is nothing, as a flower, to adorn the garland; more difficult is it to be the hand which weaves the garland. The ribbon must be tight as well as gently tied; it must not cut into the stems, and yet it must not be too loose. Yes, you young men talk according to your wisdom! Yes, you are wise! quite as wise as the woman who kept a roasted chicken for supper. She placed it upon a pewter plate upon the glowing coals, and went out to attend to her affairs. When she returned the plate was