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She clasped her hands. "Forever! forever! and may G.o.d's blessing be with us!"
"Amen!" said _Heinrich_.
Thus the power of a genuine love had healed the secret conflict in Ottmar. Intellect and sensuous feelings, both equally attracted, equally satisfied, united in the same object, and in the soft atmosphere of a true happiness his shattered nature healed into a symmetrical whole.
The ghostly apparitions of his dual existence disappeared before the reality of an all-reconciling feeling which seized upon the inmost kernel of life, and from this brought forth the source of never-failing joy.
When the whole man was in harmony with himself, his long-scattered and dispersed powers concentrated in the depths of his soul, and now for the first time showed unity of purpose and n.o.ble, honest action: for the first time he became a man. And when he thus once more appeared before the world with head erect, he conquered; for real ability and honest convictions always find allies in the natural instincts of the people, and against these even the hostility of the Jesuits was powerless. The web they had entwined around him was only that of his own cowardice and duplicity. His manly conduct at last tore it asunder. He was now free, and his purified character afforded no opening for a new snare. After a few years he saw the n.o.blest ambition gratified,--that of being useful and accomplis.h.i.+ng some good result. He was the main support of the Party in favor of the const.i.tution, averted a threatening reaction by his ready dialectics, felt the mighty breath of an applauding nation hovering like a vivifying spring-storm about his head, and everywhere, far and wide, saw the seeds springing up which his reawakened philanthropy had sown.
And with inexpressible joy he clasped his blooming wife in his arms, compared the lifeless splendor of the former minister with the warm, evermore richly developing activity of the simple deputy, and his full heart gratefully overflowed in the proud words, "Yes, my wife, you were right; it is not what the world is to us, but what we are to the world, that is the measure of our happiness."
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 1: A Jesuit prayer.]
[Footnote 2: An instrument used by the Jesuits for penance and punishment.]
THE END.
