Page:The German Novelists (Volume 2).djvu/401

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La Motte Fouqé.
391

fix not your eye so sternly, so reproachfully upon me, much less turn away your sympathy from my sorrows; for know, God be praised, I have never either denied or misapplied what is holy by any instigation or pursuit of mine.” At the same time he stretched out his right hand in token of such assurance, which the good master with a look of compassion accepted and motioned to him to proceed; as he did in the following words:—

“I knew that it has been conceived possible through a fit conjunction of times and circumstances, so to fabricate a magical mirror, that it shall retain the moon’s beams in such a manner, as to exhibit by secret reflexion on the surface, every thing that passes upon the earth’s sphere in succession, according as such magic mirror shall be directed and applied. This wonderful piece of mechanism I succeeded with infinite labour and great expence in procuring; and once in the garden of this your, but formerly my house, I began, when the moon was shining clear in the heavens, and at the full, about the eleventh hour of night, to try my secret experiment. That my own apparition would be seen, in case my image fell upon my glass; seen even from the farthest corner of the earth, I was well aware; but my whole soul was so intent upon learning the fate and residence of Agnes, that I could dwell upon nothing else.

“It now seemed as if some assistant being were