wandering and sudden meteors that disport, as with an impish life, along
the noiseless and solemn heaven; the peculiar radiance of the stars; and
even the sterile and severe features of the earth, which those stars light
up with their chill and ghostly serenity, serve to deepen the effect of
the wizard tales which are instilled into the ear of childhood, and to
connect the less known and more visionary impulses of life with the
influences, or at least with the associations, of Night and Heaven.

To Volktman, more alive than even his countrymen are wont to be, to
superstitious impressions, the science on which he had chanced came with
an all-absorbing interest and fascination. He surrendered himself wholly
to his new pursuit. By degrees the block and the chisel were neglected,
and, though he still worked from time to time, he ceased to consider the
sculptor's art as the vocation of his life and the end of his ambition.
Fortunately, though not rich, Volktman was not without the means of
existence, nor even without the decent and proper comforts: so that he was
enabled, as few men are, to indulge his ardour for unprofitable
speculations, albeit to the exclusion of lucrative pursuits. It may be
noted, that when a man is addicted to an occupation that withdraws him
from the world, any great affliction tends to confirm, without hope of
cure, his inclinations to solitude. The world, distasteful, in that it
gave no pleasure, becomes irremediably hateful when it is coupled with the
remembrance of pain. Volktman had married an Italian, a woman who loved
him entirely, and whom he loved with that strong though uncaressing
affection common to men of his peculiar temper. Of the gay and social
habits and constitution of her country, the Italian was not disposed to
suffer the astrologer to dwell only among the stars. She sought,
playfully and kindly, to attract him towards human society; and Volktman
could not always resist--as what man earth-born can do?--the influence of
the fair presider over his house and hearth. It happened, that on one day