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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14521 ***
+
+Transcriber's note:  This book contains several brief passages in German,
+                     each of which is followed by an English translation.
+                     Several of the German words contain "o-umlaut",
+                     which has been rendered as "oe".  Several others
+                     contain the German "Eszett" character, which has
+                     been rendered as "ss".
+
+
+
+
+MEMORIES
+
+A Story of German Love
+
+Translated from the German of
+
+MAX MULLER
+
+by
+
+George P. Upton
+
+Chicago
+A. C. McClurg & Co.
+
+1902
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+  TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
+  AUTHOR'S PREFACE
+  FIRST MEMORY
+  SECOND MEMORY
+  THIRD MEMORY
+  FOURTH MEMORY
+  FIFTH MEMORY
+  SIXTH MEMORY
+  SEVENTH MEMORY
+  LAST MEMORY
+
+
+
+TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
+
+The translation of any work is at best a difficult task, and must
+inevitably be prejudicial to whatever of beauty the original possesses.
+When the principal charm of the original lies in its elegant
+simplicity, as in the case of the "Deutsche Liebe," the difficulty is
+still further enhanced.  The translator has sought to reproduce the
+simple German in equally simple English, even at the risk of
+transferring German idioms into the English text.
+
+The story speaks for itself.  Without plot, incidents or situations, it
+is nevertheless dramatically constructed, unflagging in interest,
+abounding in beauty, grace and pathos, and filled with the tenderest
+feeling of sympathy, which will go straight to the heart of every lover
+of the ideal in the world of humanity, and every worshipper in the
+world of nature.  Its brief essays upon theology, literature and social
+habits, contained in the dialogues between the hero and the heroine,
+will commend themselves to the thoughtful reader by their clearness and
+beauty of statement, as well as by their freedom from prejudice.
+"Deutsche Liebe" is a poem in prose, whose setting is all the more
+beautiful and tender, in that it is freed from the bondage of metre,
+and has been the unacknowledged source of many a poet's most striking
+utterances.
+
+As such, the translator gives it to the public, confident that it will
+find ready acceptance among those who cherish the ideal, and a tender
+welcome by every lover of humanity.
+
+The translator desires to make acknowledgments to J. J. Lalor, Esq.,
+late of the Chicago _Tribune_ for his hearty co-operation in the
+progress of the work, and many valuable suggestions; to Prof. Feuling,
+the eminent philologist, of the University of Wisconsin, for his
+literal version of the extracts from the "Deutsche Theologie," which
+preserve the quaintness of the original, and to Mrs. F. M. Brown, for
+her metrical version of Goethe's almost untranslatable lines, "Ueber
+allen Gipfeln, ist Ruh," which form the keynote of the beautiful
+harmony in the character of the heroine.
+
+  G.P.U.
+  Chicago, November, 1874.
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
+
+Who has not, at some period of his life, seated himself at a
+writing-table, where, only a short time before, another sat, who now
+rests in the grave?  Who has not opened the drawers, which for long
+years have hidden the secrets of a heart now buried in the holy peace
+of the church-yard?  Here lie the letters which were so precious to
+him, the beloved one; here the pictures, ribbons, and books with marks
+on every leaf.  Who can now read and interpret them?  Who can gather
+again the withered and scattered leaves of this rose, and vivify them
+with fresh perfume?  The flames, in which the Greeks enveloped the
+bodies of the departed for the purpose of destruction; the flames, into
+which the ancients cast everything once dearest to the living, are now
+the securest repository for these relics.  With trembling fear the
+surviving friend reads the leaves no eye has ever seen, save those now
+so firmly closed, and if, after a glance, too hasty even to read them,
+he is convinced these letters and leaves contain nothing which men deem
+important, he throws them quickly upon the glowing coals--a flash and
+they are gone.
+
+From such flames the following leaves have been saved.  They were at
+first intended only for the friends of the deceased, yet they have
+found friends even among strangers, and, since it is so to be, may
+wander anew in distant lands.  Gladly would the compiler have furnished
+more, but the leaves are too much scattered and mutilated to be
+rearranged and given complete.
+
+
+
+
+FIRST MEMORY.
+
+Childhood has its secrets and its mysteries; but who can tell or who
+can explain them!  We have all roamed through this silent
+wonder-wood--we have all once opened our eyes in blissful astonishment,
+as the beautiful reality of life overflowed our souls.  We knew not
+where, or who, we were--the whole world was ours and we were the whole
+world's.  That was an infinite life--without beginning and without end,
+without rest and without pain.  In the heart, it was as clear as the
+spring heavens, fresh as the violet's perfume--hushed and holy as a
+Sabbath morning.
+
+What disturbs this God's-peace of the child?  How can this unconscious
+and innocent existence ever cease?  What dissipates the rapture of this
+individuality and universality, and suddenly leaves us solitary and
+alone in a clouded life?
+
+Say not, with serious face.  It is sin!  Can even a child sin?  Say
+rather, we know not, and must only resign ourselves to it.
+
+Is it sin, which makes the bud a blossom, and the blossom fruit, and
+the fruit dust?
+
+Is it sin, which makes the worm a chrysalis, and the chrysalis a
+butterfly, and the butterfly dust?
+
+And is it sin, which makes the child a man, and the man a gray-haired
+man, and the gray-haired man dust?  And what is dust?
+
+Say rather, we know not, and must only resign ourselves to it.
+
+Yet it is so beautiful, recalling the spring-time of life, to look back
+and remember one's self.  Yes, even in the sultry summer, in the
+melancholy autumn and in the cold winter of life, there is here and
+there a spring day, and the heart says: "I feel like spring."  Such a
+day is this--and so I lay me down upon the soft moss of the fragrant
+woods, and stretch out my weary limbs, and look up, through the green
+foliage, into the boundless blue, and think how it used to be in that
+childhood.
+
+Then, all seems forgotten.  The first pages of memory are like the old
+family Bible.  The first leaves are wholly faded and somewhat soiled
+with handling.  But, when we turn further, and come to the chapters
+where Adam and Eve were banished from Paradise, then, all begins to
+grow clear and legible.  Now if we could only find the title-page with
+the imprint and date--but that is irrevocably lost, and, in their
+place, we find only the clear transcript--our baptismal
+certificate--bearing witness when we were born, the names of our
+parents and godparents, and that we were not issued _sine loco et anno_.
+
+But, oh this beginning!  Would there were none, since, with the
+beginning, all thought and memories alike cease.  When we thus dream
+back into childhood, and from childhood into infinity, this bad
+beginning continually flies further away.  The thoughts pursue it and
+never overtake it; just as a child seeks the spot where the blue sky
+touches the earth, and runs and runs, while the sky always runs before
+it, yet still touches the earth--but the child grows weary and never
+reaches the spot.
+
+But even since we were once there--wherever it may be, where we had a
+beginning, what do we know now?  For memory shakes itself like the
+spaniel, just come out of the waves, while the water runs in, his eyes
+and he looks very strangely.
+
+I believe I can even yet remember when I saw the stars for the first
+time.  They may have seen me often before, but one evening it seemed as
+if it were cold.  Although I lay in my mother's lap, I shivered and was
+chilly, or I was frightened.  In short, something came over me which
+reminded me of my little Ego in no ordinary manner.  Then my mother
+showed me the bright stars, and I wondered at them, and thought that
+she had made them very beautifully.  Then I felt warm again, and could
+sleep well.
+
+Furthermore, I remember how I once lay in the grass and everything
+about me tossed and nodded, hummed and buzzed.  Then there came a great
+swarm of little, myriad-footed, winged creatures, which lit upon my
+forehead and eyes and said, "Good day."  Immediately my eyes smarted,
+and I cried to my mother, and she said: "Poor little one, how the gnats
+have stung him!"  I could not open my eyes or see the blue sky any
+longer, but my mother had a bunch of fresh violets in her hand, and it
+seemed as if a dark-blue, fresh, spicy perfume were wafted through my
+senses.  Even now, whenever I see the first violets, I remember this,
+and it seems to me that I must close my eyes so that the old dark-blue
+heaven of that day may again rise over my soul.
+
+Still further do I remember, how, at another time, a new world
+disclosed itself to me--more beautiful than the star-world or the
+violet perfume.  It was on an Easter morning, and my mother had dressed
+me early.  Before the window stood our old church.  It was not
+beautiful, but still it had a lofty roof and tower, and on the tower a
+golden cross, and it appeared very much older and grayer than the other
+buildings.  I wondered who lived in it, and once I looked in through
+the iron-grated door.  It was entirely empty, cold and dismal.  There
+was not even one soul in the whole building, and after that I always
+shuddered when I passed the door.  But on this Easter morning, it had
+rained early, and when the sun came out in full splendor, the old
+church with the gray sloping roof, the high windows and the tower with
+the golden cross glistened with a wondrous shimmer.  All at once the
+light which streamed through the lofty windows began to move and
+glisten.  It was so intensely bright that one could have looked within,
+and as I closed my eyes the light entered my soul and therein
+everything seemed to shed brilliancy and perfume, to sing and to ring.
+It seemed to me a new life had commenced in myself and that I was
+another being, and when I asked my mother what it meant, she replied it
+was an Easter song they were singing in the church.  What bright, holy
+song it was, which at that time surged through my soul, I have never
+been able to discover.  It must have been an old church hymn, like
+those which many a time stirred the rugged soul of our Luther.  I never
+heard it again, but many a time even now when I hear an adagio of
+Beethoven's, or a psalm of Marcellus, or a chorus of Handel's, or a
+simple song in the Scotch Highlands or the Tyrol, it seems to me as if
+the lofty church windows again glistened and the organ-tones once more
+surged through my soul, and a new world revealed itself--more beautiful
+than the starry heavens and the violet perfume.
+
+These things I remember in my earliest childhood, and intermingled with
+them are my dear mother's looks, the calm, earnest gaze of my father,
+gardens and vine leaves, and soft green turf, and a very old and quaint
+picture-book--and this is all I can recall of the first scattered
+leaves of my childhood.
+
+Afterwards it grows brighter and clearer.  Names and faces appear--not
+only father and mother, but brothers and sisters, friends and teachers,
+and a multitude of _strange people_.  Ah! yes, of these _strange
+people_ there is so much recorded in memory.
+
+
+
+
+SECOND MEMORY.
+
+Not far from our house, and opposite the old church with the golden
+cross, stood a large building, even larger than the church, and having
+many towers.  They looked exceedingly gray and old and had no golden
+cross, but stone eagles tipped the summits and a great white and blue
+banner fluttered from the highest tower, directly over the lofty
+doorway at the top of the steps, where, on either side, two mounted
+soldiers stood sentinels.  The building had many windows, and behind
+the windows you could distinguish red-silk curtains with golden
+tassels.  Old lindens encircled the grounds, which, in summer,
+overshadowed the gray masonry with their green leaves and bestrewed the
+turf with their fragrant white blossoms.  I had often looked in there,
+and at evening when the lindens exhaled their perfumes and the windows
+were illuminated, I saw many figures pass and repass like shadows.
+Music swept down from on high, and carriages drove up, from which
+ladies and gentlemen alighted and ascended the stairs.  They all looked
+so beautiful and good!  The gentlemen had stars upon their breasts, and
+the ladies wore fresh flowers in their hair; and I often thought,--Why
+do I not go there too?
+
+One day my father took me by the hand and said: "We are going to the
+castle; but you must be very polite if the Princess speaks to you, and
+kiss her hand."
+
+I was about six years of age and as delighted as only one can be at six
+years of age.  I had already indulged in many quiet fancies about the
+shadows which I had seen evenings through the lighted windows, and had
+heard many good things at home of the beneficence of the Prince and
+Princess; how gracious they were; how much help and consolation they
+brought to the poor and sick; and that they had been chosen by the
+grace of God to protect the good and punish the bad.  I had long
+pictured to myself what transpired in the castle, so that the Prince
+and Princess were already old acquaintances whom I knew as well as my
+nut-crackers and leaden soldiers.
+
+My heart beat quickly as I ascended the high stairs with my father, and
+just as he was telling me I must call the Princess "Highness," and the
+Prince "Serene Highness," the folding-door opened and I saw before me a
+tall figure with brilliantly piercing eyes.  She seemed to advance and
+stretch out her hand to me.  There was an expression on her countenance
+which I had long known, and a heavenly smile played about her cheeks.
+I could restrain myself no longer, and while my father stood at the
+door bowing very low--I knew not why--my heart sprang into my throat.
+I ran to the beautiful lady, threw my arms round her neck and kissed
+her as I would my mother.  The beautiful, majestic lady willingly
+submitted, stroked my hair and smiled; but my father took my hand, led
+me away, and said I was very rude, and that he should never take me
+there again.  I grew utterly bewildered.  The blood mounted to my
+cheeks, for I felt that my father had been unjust to me.  I looked at
+the Princess as if she ought to shield me, but upon her face was only
+an expression of mild earnestness.  Then I looked round upon the ladies
+and gentlemen assembled in the room, believing that they would come to
+my defense.  But as I looked, I saw that they were laughing.  Then the
+tears sprang into my eyes, and out of the door, down the stairs, and
+past the lindens in the castle yard, I rushed home, where I threw
+myself into my mother's arms and sobbed and wept.
+
+"What has happened to you?" said she.
+
+"Oh! mother!" I cried; "I was at the Princess', and she was such a good
+and beautiful woman, just like you, dear mother, that I had to throw my
+arms round her neck and kiss her."
+
+"Ah!" said my mother; "you should not have done that, for they are
+strangers and high dignitaries."
+
+"And what then are strangers?" said I.
+
+"May I not love all people who look upon me with affectionate and
+friendly eyes?"
+
+"You can love them, my son," replied my mother, "but you should not
+show it."
+
+"Is it then something wrong for me to love people?" said I.  "Why
+cannot I show it?"
+
+"Well, perhaps you are right," said she, "but you must do as your
+father says, and when you are older you will understand why you cannot
+embrace every woman who regards you with affectionate and friendly
+eyes."
+
+That was a sad day.  Father came home, agreed I had been very uncivil.
+At night my mother put me to bed, and I prayed, but I could not sleep,
+and kept wondering what these strange people were, whom one must not
+love.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Thou poor human heart!  So soon in the spring are thy leaves broken and
+the feathers torn from the wings!  When the spring-red of life opens
+the hidden calyx of the soul, it perfumes our whole being with love.
+We learn to stand and to walk, to speak and to read, but no one teaches
+us love.  It is inherent in us like life, they say, and is the very
+deepest foundation of our existence.  As the heavenly bodies incline to
+and attract each other, and will always cling together by the
+everlasting law of gravitation, so heavenly souls incline to and
+attract each other, and will always cling together by the everlasting
+law of love.  A flower cannot blossom without sunshine, and man cannot
+live without love.  Would not the child's heart break in despair when
+the first cold storm of the world sweeps over it, if the warm sunlight
+of love from the eyes of mother and father did not shine upon him like
+the soft reflection of divine light and love?  The ardent yearning,
+which then awakes in the child, is the purest and deepest love.  It is
+the love which embraces the whole world; which shines resplendent
+wherever the eyes of men beam upon it, which exults wherever it hears
+the human voice.  It is the old, immeasurable love, a deep well which
+no plummet has ever sounded; a fountain of perennial richness.  Whoever
+knows it also knows that in love there is no More and no Less; but that
+he who loves can only love with the whole heart, and with the whole
+soul; with all his strength and with all his will.
+
+But, alas, how little remains of this love by the time we have finished
+one-half of our life-journey!  Soon the child learns that there are
+strangers, and ceases to be a child.  The spring of love becomes hidden
+and soon filled up.  Our eyes gleam no more, and heavy-hearted we pass
+one another in the bustling streets.  We scarcely greet each other, for
+we know how sharply it cuts the soul when a greeting remains
+unanswered, and how sad it is to be sundered from those whom we have
+once greeted, and whose hands we have clasped.  The wings of the soul
+lose their plumes; the leaves of the flower fast fall off and wither;
+and of this fountain of love there remain but a few drops.  We still
+call these few drops love, but it is no longer the clear, fresh,
+all-abounding child-love.  It is love with anxiety and trouble, a
+consuming flame, a burning passion; love which wastes itself like
+rain-drops upon the hot sand; love which is a longing, not a sacrifice;
+love which says "Wilt thou be mine," not love which says, "I must be
+thine."  It is a most selfish, vacillating love.  And this is the love
+which poets sing and in which young men and maidens believe; a fire
+which burns up and down, yet does not warm, and leaves nothing behind
+but smoke and ashes.  All of us at some period of life have believed
+that these rockets of sunbeams were everlasting love, but the brighter
+the glitter, the darker the night which follows.
+
+And then when all around grows dark, when we feel utterly alone, when
+all men right and left pass us by and know us not, a forgotten feeling
+rises in the breast.  We know not what it is, for it is neither love
+nor friendship.  You feel like crying to him who passes you so cold and
+strange: "Dost thou not know me?"  Then one realizes that man is nearer
+to man than brother to brother, father to son, or friend to friend.
+How an old, holy saying rings through our souls, that strangers are
+nearest to us.  Why must we pass them in silence?  We know not, but
+must resign ourselves to it.  When two trains are rushing by upon the
+iron rails and thou seest a well-known eye that would recognize thee,
+stretch out thy hand and try to grasp the hand of a friend, and perhaps
+thou wilt understand why man passes man in silence here below.
+
+An old sage says: "I saw the fragments of a wrecked boat floating on
+the sea.  Only a few meet and hold together a long time.  Then comes a
+storm and drives them east and west, and here below they will never
+meet again.  So it is with mankind.  Yet no one has seen the great
+shipwreck."
+
+
+
+
+THIRD MEMORY.
+
+The clouds in the sky of childhood do not last long, and disappear
+after a short, warm tear-rain.  I was shortly again at the castle, and
+the Princess gave me her hand to kiss and then brought her children,
+the young princes and princesses, and we played together, as if we had
+known each other for years.  Those were happy days when, after
+school--for I was now attending school--I could go to the castle and
+play.  We had everything the heart could wish.  I found playthings
+there which my mother had shown me in the shop-windows, and which were
+so dear, she told me, that poor people could live a whole week on what
+they cost.  When I begged the Princess' permission to take them home
+and show them to my mother, she was perfectly willing.  I could turn
+over and over and look for hours at a time at beautiful picture books,
+which I had seen in the book stores with my father, but which were made
+only for very good children.  Everything which belonged to the young
+princes belonged also to me--so I thought, at least.  Furthermore, I
+was not only allowed to carry away what I wished, but I often gave away
+the playthings to other children.  In short, I was a young Communist,
+in the full sense of the term.  I remember at one time the Princess had
+a golden snake which coiled itself around her arm as if it were alive,
+and she gave it to us for a plaything.  As I was going home I put the
+snake on my arm and thought I would give my mother a real fright with
+it.  On the way, however, I met a woman who noticed the snake and
+begged me to show it to her; and then she said if she could only keep
+the golden snake, she could release her husband from prison with it.
+Naturally I did not stop to think for a minute, but ran away and left
+the woman alone with the golden serpent-bracelet.  The next day there
+was much excitement.  The poor woman was brought to the castle and the
+people said she had stolen it.  Thereupon I grew very angry and
+explained with holy zeal that I had given her the bracelet and that I
+would not take it back again.  What further occurred I know not, but I
+remember that after that time, I showed the Princess everything I took
+home with me.
+
+It was a long time before my conceptions of Meum and Tuum were fully
+settled, and at a very late period they were at times confused, just as
+it was a long time before I could distinguish between the blue and red
+colors.  The last time I remember my friends laughing at me on this
+account was when my mother gave me some money to buy apples.  She gave
+me a groschen.  The apples cost only a sechser, and when I gave the
+woman the groschen, she said, very sadly as it seemed to me, that she
+had sold nothing the whole livelong day and could not give me back a
+sechser.  She wished I would buy a groschen's worth.  Then it occurred
+to me that I also had a sechser in my pocket, and thoroughly delighted
+that I had solved the difficult problem, I gave it to the woman and
+said: "Now you can give me back a sechser."  She understood me so
+little however that she gave me back the groschen and kept the sechser.
+
+At this time, while I was making almost daily visits to the young
+princes at the castle, both to play as well as to study French with
+them, another image comes up in my memory.  It was the daughter of the
+Princess, the Countess Marie.  The mother died shortly after the birth
+of the child and the Prince subsequently married a second time.  I know
+not when I saw her for the first time.  She emerges from the darkness
+of memory slowly and gradually--at first like an airy shadow which
+grows more and more distinct as it approaches nearer and nearer, at
+last standing before my soul like the moon, which on some stormy night
+throws back the cloud-veils from across its face.  She was always sick
+and suffering and silent, and I never saw her except reclining upon her
+couch, upon which two servants brought her into the room and carried
+her out again, when she was tired.  There she lay in her flowing white
+drapery, with her hands generally folded.  Her face was so pale and yet
+so mild, and her eyes so deep and unfathomable, that I often stood
+before her lost in thought and looked upon her and asked myself if she
+was not one of the "strange people" also.  Many a time she placed her
+hand upon my head and then it seemed to me that a thrill ran through
+all my limbs and that I could not move or speak, but must forever gaze
+into her deep, unfathomable eyes.  She conversed very little with us,
+but watched our sports, and when at times we grew very noisy and
+quarrelsome, she did not complain but held her white hands over her
+brow and closed her eyes as if sleeping.  But there were days when she
+said she felt better, and on such days she sat up on her couch,
+conversed with us and told us curious stories.  I do not know how old
+she was at that time.  She was so helpless that she seemed like a
+child, and yet was so serious and silent that she could not have been
+one.  When people alluded to her they involuntarily spoke gently and
+softly.  They called her "the angel," and I never heard anything said
+of her that was not good and lovely.  Often when I saw her lying so
+silent and helpless, and thought that she would never walk again in
+life, that there was for her neither work nor joy, that they would
+carry her here and there upon her couch until they laid her upon her
+eternal bed of rest, I asked myself why she had been sent into this
+world, when she could have rested so gently on the bosom of the angels
+and they could have borne her through the air on their white wings, as
+I had seen in some sacred pictures.  Again I felt as if I must take a
+part of her burden, so that she need not carry it alone, but we with
+her.  I could not tell her all this for I knew it was not proper.  I
+had an indefinable feeling.  It was not a desire to embrace her.  No
+one could have done that, for it would have wronged her.  It seemed to
+me as if I could pray from the very bottom of my heart that she might
+be released from her burden.
+
+One warm spring day she was brought into our room.  She looked
+exceedingly pale; but her eyes were deeper and brighter than ever, and
+she sat upon her couch and called us to her.  "It is my birth-day,"
+said she, "and I was confirmed early this morning.  Now, it is
+possible," she continued as she looked upon her father with a smile,
+"that God may soon call me to him, although I would gladly remain with
+you much longer.  But if I am to leave you, I desire that you should
+not wholly forget me; and, therefore, I have brought a ring for each of
+you, which you must now place upon the fore-finger.  As you grow older
+you can continue to change it until it fits the little finger; but you
+must wear it for your lifetime."
+
+With these words she took the five rings she wore upon her fingers,
+which she drew off, one after the other, with a look so sad and yet so
+affectionate, that I pressed my eyes closely to keep from weeping.  She
+gave the first ring to her eldest brother and kissed him, the second
+and third to the two princesses, and the fourth to the youngest prince,
+and kissed them all as she gave them the rings.  I stood near by, and,
+looking fixedly at her white hand, saw that she still had a ring upon
+her finger; but she leaned back and appeared wearied.  My eyes met
+hers, and as the eyes of a child speak so loudly, she must have easily
+known my thoughts, I would rather not have had the last ring, for I
+felt that I was a stranger; that I did not belong to her, and that she
+was not as affectionate to me as to her brothers and sisters.  Then
+came a sharp pain in my breast as if a vein had burst or a nerve had
+been severed, and I knew not which way to turn to conceal my anguish.
+
+She soon raised herself again, placed her hand upon my forehead and
+looked down into my heart so deeply that I felt I had not a thought
+invisible to her.  She slowly drew the last ring from her finger, gave
+it to me and said; "I intended to have taken this with me, when I went
+from you, but it is better you should wear it and think of me when I am
+no longer with you.  Read the words engraved upon the ring: 'As God
+wills.'  You have a passionate heart, easily moved.  May life subdue
+but not harden it."  Then she kissed me as she had her brothers and
+gave me the ring.
+
+All my feelings I do not truly know.  I had then grown up to boyhood,
+and the mild beauty of the suffering angel could not linger in my young
+heart without alluring it.  I loved her as only a boy can love, and
+boys love with an intensity and truth and purity which few preserve in
+their youth and manhood; but I believed she belonged to the "strange
+people" to whom you are not allowed to speak of love.  I scarcely
+understood the earnest words she spoke to me.  I only felt that her
+soul was as near to mine as one human soul can be to another.  All
+bitterness was gone from my heart.  I felt myself no longer alone, no
+longer a stranger, no longer shut out.  I was by her, with her and in
+her.  I thought it might be a sacrifice for her to give me the ring,
+and that she might have preferred to take it to the grave with her, and
+a feeling arose in my soul which overshadowed all other feelings, and I
+said with quivering voice: "Thou must keep the ring if thou dost not
+wish to give it to me; for what is thine is mine."  She looked at me a
+moment surprised and thoughtfully.  Then she took the ring, placed it
+on her finger, kissed me once more on the forehead, and said gently to
+me: "Thou knowest not what thou sayest.  Learn to understand thyself.
+Then shall thou be happy and make many others happy."
+
+
+
+
+FOURTH MEMORY.
+
+Every life has its years in which one progresses as on a tedious and
+dusty street of poplars, without caring to know where he is.  Of these
+years nought remains in memory but the sad feeling that we have
+advanced and only grown older.  While the river of life glides along
+smoothly, it remains the same river; only the landscape on either bank
+seems to change.  But then come the cataracts of life.  They are firmly
+fixed in memory, and even when we are past them and far away, and draw
+nearer and nearer to the silent sea of eternity, even then it seems as
+if we heard from afar their rush and roar.  We feel that the life-force
+which yet remains and impels us onward still has its source and supply
+from those cataracts.
+
+School time was ended, the first fleeting years of university life were
+over, and many beautiful life-dreams were over also.  But one of them
+still remained: Faith in God and man.  Otherwise life would have been
+circumscribed within one's narrow brain.  Instead of that, a nobler
+consecration had preserved all, and even the painful and
+incomprehensible events of life became a proof to me of the
+omnipresence of the divine in the earthly.  "The least important thing
+does not happen except as God wills it."  This was the brief
+life-wisdom I had accumulated.
+
+During the summer holidays I returned to my little native city.  What
+joy in these meetings again!  No one has explained it, but in this
+seeing and finding again, and in these self-memories, lie the real
+secrets of all joy and pleasure.  What we see, hear or taste for the
+first time may be beautiful, grand and agreeable, but it is too new.
+It overpowers, but gives no repose, and the fatigue of enjoying is
+greater than the enjoyment itself.  To hear again, years afterward, an
+old melody, every note of which we supposed we had forgotten, and yet
+to recognize it as an old acquaintance; or, after the lapse of many
+years, to stand once more before the Sistine Madonna at Dresden, and
+experience afresh all the emotions which the infinite look of the child
+aroused in us for years; or to smell a flower or taste a dish again
+which we have not thought of since childhood--all these produce such an
+intense charm that we do not know which we enjoy most, the actual
+pleasure or the old memory.  So when we return again, after long
+absence, to our birth-place, the soul floats unconsciously in a sea of
+memories, and the dancing waves dreamily toss themselves upon the
+shores of times long passed.  The belfry clock strikes and we fear we
+shall be late to school, and recovering from this fear feel relieved
+that our anxiety is over.  The same dog runs along the street on whose
+account we used to go far out of our way.  Here sits the old huckster
+whose apples often led us into temptation, and even now, we fancy they
+must taste better than all other apples in the world, notwithstanding
+the dust on them.  There one has torn down a house and built a new one.
+Here the old music-teacher lived.  He is dead--and yet how beautiful it
+seemed as we stood and listened on summer evenings under the window
+while the True Soul, when the hours of the day were over, indulged in
+his own enjoyment and played fantasies, like the roaring and hissing
+engine letting off the steam which has accumulated during the day.
+Here in this little leafy lane, which seemed at that time so much
+larger, as I was coming home late one evening, I met our neighbor's
+beautiful daughter.  At that time I had never ventured to look at or
+address her, but we school-children often spoke of her and called her
+"the Beautiful Maiden," and whenever I saw her passing along the street
+at a distance I was so happy that I could only think of the time when I
+should meet her nearer.  Here in this leafy walk which leads to the
+church-yard, I met her one evening and she took me by the arm, although
+we had never spoken together before, and asked me to go home with her.
+I believe neither of us spoke a word the whole way; but I was so happy
+that even now, after all these years, I wish it were that evening, and
+that I could go home again, silently and blissfully, with "the
+Beautiful Maiden."
+
+Thus one memory follows another until the waves dash together over our
+heads, and a deep sigh swells the breast, which warns us that we have
+forgotten to breathe in the midst of these pure thoughts.  Then all at
+once, the whole dream-world vanishes, like uprisen ghosts at the
+crowing of the cock.
+
+As I passed by the old castle and the lindens, and saw the sentinels
+upon their horses, how many memories awakened in my soul, and how
+everything had changed!  Many years had flown since I was at the
+castle.  The Princess was dead.  The Prince had given up his rule and
+gone back to Italy, and the oldest prince, with whom I had grown up,
+was regent.  His companions were young noblemen and officers, whose
+intercourse was congenial to him, and whose company in our early days
+had often estranged us.  Other circumstances combined to weaken our
+young friendship.  Like every young man who perceives for the first
+time the lack of unity in the German folk-life, and the defects of
+German rule, I had caught up some phrases of the Liberal party, which
+sounded as strangely at court as unseemly expressions in an honest
+minister's family.  In short, it was many years since I had ascended
+those stairs, and yet a being dwelt in that castle whose name I had
+named almost daily, and who was almost constantly present in my memory.
+I had long dwelt upon the thought that I should never see her again in
+this life.  She was transformed into an image which I felt neither did
+nor could exist in reality.  She had become my good angel--my other
+self, to whom I talked instead of talking with myself.  How she became
+so I could not explain to myself, for I scarcely knew her.  Just as the
+eye sometimes pictures figures in the clouds, so I fancied my
+imagination had conjured up this sweet image in the heaven of my
+childhood, and a complete picture of phantasy developed itself out of
+the scarcely perceptible outlines of reality.  My entire thought had
+involuntarily become a dialogue with her, and all that was good in me,
+all for which I struggled, all in which I believed, my entire better
+self, belonged to her.  I gave it to her.  I received it from her, from
+her my good angel.
+
+I had been at home but a few days, when I received a letter one
+morning.  It was written in English, and came from the Countess Marie:
+
+
+_Dear Friend_: I hear you are with us for a short time.  We have not
+met for many years, and if it is agreeable to you, I should like to see
+an old friend again.  You will find me alone this afternoon in the
+Swiss Cottage.           Yours sincerely, MARIE.
+
+
+I immediately replied, also in English, that I would call in the
+afternoon.
+
+The Swiss Cottage constituted a wing of the castle, which overlooked
+the garden, and could be reached without going through the castle yard.
+It was five o'clock when I passed through the garden and approached the
+cottage.  I repressed all emotion and prepared myself for a formal
+meeting.  I sought to quiet my good angel, and to assure her that this
+lady had nothing to do with her.  And yet I felt very uneasy, and my
+good angel would not listen to counsel.  Finally I took courage,
+murmuring something to myself about the masquerade of life, and rapped
+on the door, which stood ajar.
+
+There was no one in the room except a lad whom I did not know, and who
+likewise spoke English, and said the Countess would be present in a
+moment.  She then left, and I was alone, and had time to look about.
+
+The walls of the room were of rose-chestnut, and over an openwork
+trellis, a luxuriant broadleaved ivy twined around the whole room.  All
+the tables and chairs were of carved rose-chestnut.  The floor was of
+variegated woodwork.  It gave me a curious sensation to see so much
+that was familiar in the room.  Many articles from our old play-room in
+the castle were old friends, but the others were new, especially the
+pictures, and yet they were the same as those in my University
+room--the same portraits of Beethoven, Handel and Mendelssohn, as I had
+selected--hung over the grand piano.  In one corner I saw the Venus di
+Milo, which I always regarded as the masterpiece of antiquity.  On the
+table were volumes of Dante, Shakspeare, Tauler's Sermons, the "German
+Theology," Ruckert's Poems, Tennyson and Burns, and Carlyle's "Past and
+Present,"--the very same books--all of which I had had but recently in
+my hands.  I was growing thoughtful, but I repressed my thoughts and
+was just standing before the portrait of the deceased Princess, when
+the door opened, and the same two servants, whom I had so often seen in
+childhood, brought the Countess into the room upon her couch.
+
+What a vision!  She spoke not a word, and her countenance was as placid
+as the sea, until the servants left the room.  Then her eyes sought
+me--the old, deep, unfathomable eyes.  Her expression grew more
+animated each instant.  At last her whole face lit up, and she said:
+
+"We are old friends--I believe; we have not changed.  I cannot say
+'You,' and if I may not say 'Thou,' then we must speak in English.  Do
+you understand me?"
+
+I had not anticipated such a reception, for I saw here was no
+masquerade--here was a soul which longed for another soul--here was a
+greeting like that between two friends who recognize each other by the
+glance of the eye, notwithstanding their disguises and dark masks.  I
+seized the hand she held out to me, and replied: "When we address an
+angel, we cannot say 'You.'"
+
+And yet how singular, is the influence of the forms and habits of life!
+How difficult it is to speak the language of nature even to the most
+congenial souls!  Our conversation halted, and both of us felt the
+embarrassment of the moment.  I broke the silence and spoke out my
+thoughts: "Men become accustomed to live from youth up as it were in a
+cage, and when they are once in the open air they dare not venture to
+use their wings, fearing, if they fly, that they may stumble against
+everything."
+
+"Yes," replied she, "and that is very proper and cannot well be
+otherwise.  One often wishes that he could live like the birds which
+fly in the woods, and meet upon the branches and sing together without
+being presented to each other.  But, my friend, even among the birds
+there are owls and sparrows, and in life it is well that one can pass
+them without knowing them.  It is sometimes with life as with poetry.
+As the real poet can express the Truest and most Beautiful, although
+fettered by metrical form, so man should know how to preserve freedom
+of thought and feeling notwithstanding the restraints of society."
+
+I could not help recalling the words of Platen: "That which proves
+itself everlasting under all circumstances, told in the fetters of
+words, is the unfettered spirit."
+
+"Yes," said she, with a cordial but sweetly playful smile; "but I have
+a privilege which is at the same time my burden and loneliness.  I
+often pity the young men and maidens, for they cannot have a friendship
+or an intimacy without their relatives or themselves pronouncing it
+love, or what they call love.  They lose much on this account.  The
+maiden knows not what slumbers in her soul, and what might be awakened
+by earnest conversation with a noble friend; and the young man in turn
+would acquire so much knightly virtue if women were suffered to be the
+distant witnesses of the inner struggles of the spirit.  It will not
+do, however, for immediately love comes in play, or what they call
+love--the quick beating of the heart--the stormy billows of hope--the
+delight over a beautiful face--the sweet sentimentality--sometimes also
+prudent calculation--in short, all that troubles the calm sea, which is
+the true picture of pure human love------"
+
+She checked herself suddenly, and an expression of pain passed over her
+countenance.  "I dare not talk more to-day," said she; "my physician
+will not allow it.  I would like to hear one of Mendelssohn's
+songs--that duet, which my young friend used to play years ago.  Is it
+not so?"
+
+I could not answer, for as she ceased speaking and gently folded her
+hands, I saw upon her hand a ring.  She wore it on her little
+finger--the ring which she had given me and I had given her.  Thoughts
+came too fast for utterance, and I seated myself at the piano and
+played.  When I had done, I turned around and said: "Would one could
+only speak thus in tones without words!"
+
+"That is possible," said she; "I understood it all.  But I must not do
+anything more to-day, for every day I grow weaker.  We must be better
+acquainted, and a poor sick recluse may certainly claim forbearance.
+We meet to-morrow evening, at the same hour; shall we not?"
+
+I seized her hand and was about to kiss it, but she held my hand
+firmly, pressed it and said: "It is better thus.  Good bye."
+
+
+
+
+FIFTH MEMORY.
+
+It would be difficult to describe my thoughts and emotions as I went
+home.  The soul cannot at once translate itself perfectly in words, and
+there are "thoughts without words," which in every man are the prelude
+of supreme joy and suffering.  It was neither joy nor pain, only an
+indescribable bewilderment which I felt; thoughts flew through my
+innermost being like meteors, which shoot from heaven towards earth but
+are extinguished before they reach the goal.  As we sometimes say in a
+dream, "I am dreaming," so I said to myself "thou livest"--"it is she."
+I tried again to reflect and calm myself, and said, "She is a lovely
+vision--a very wonderful spirit."  At another time, I pictured the
+delightful evenings I should pass during the holidays.  But no, no,
+this cannot be.  She is everything I sought, thought, hoped and
+believed.  Here was at last a human soul, as clear and fresh as a
+spring morning.  I had seen at the first glance what she was and how
+she felt, and we had greeted and recognized one another.  And my good
+angel in me, she answered me no more.  She was gone and I felt there
+was no place on earth where I should find her again.
+
+Now began a beautiful life, for I was with her every evening.  We soon
+realized that we were in truth old acquaintances and that we could only
+call each other Thou.  It seemed also as if we had lived near and with
+one another always, for she manifested not an emotion that did not find
+its counterpart in my soul, and there was no, thought which I uttered
+to which she did not nod friendly assent, as much as to say: "I thought
+so too."  I had previously heard the greatest master of our time and
+his sister extemporize on the piano, and scarcely comprehended how two
+persons could understand and feel themselves so perfectly and yet
+never, not even in a single note, disturb the harmony of their playing.
+Now it became intelligible to me.  Yes, now I understood for the first
+time that my soul was not so poor and empty as it had seemed to me, and
+that it had been only the sun that was lacking to open all its germs,
+and buds to the light.  And yet what a sad and brief spring-time it was
+that our souls experienced!  We forget in May that roses so soon
+wither, but here every evening reminded us that one leaf after another
+was falling to the ground.  She felt it before I did, and alluded to it
+apparently without pain, and our interviews grew more earnest and
+solemn daily.
+
+One evening, as I was about to leave, she said: "I did not think I
+should grow so old.  When I gave you the ring on my confirmation day I
+thought I should have to take my departure from you all, very soon.
+And yet I have lived so many years, and enjoyed so much beauty--and
+suffered so very much!  But one forgets that!  Now, while I feel that
+my departure is near, every hour, every minute, grows precious to me.
+Good night!  Do not come too late to-morrow."
+
+One day as I went into her room, I met an Italian painter with her.
+She spoke Italian with him, and although he was evidently more artisan
+than artist, she addressed him with such amiability and modesty, with
+such respect even, one could not avoid recognizing that nobility of
+soul which is the true nobility of birth.  When the painter had taken
+his leave, she said to me: "I wish to show you a picture which will
+please you.  The original is in the gallery at Paris.  I read a
+description of it, and have had it copied by the Italian."  She showed
+me the painting, and waited my opinion.  It was a picture of a man of
+middle age, in the old German costume.  The expression was dreamy and
+resigned, and so characteristic that no one could doubt this man once
+lived.  The whole tone of the picture in the foreground was dark and
+brownish; but in the background was a landscape, and on the horizon the
+first gleams of daybreak appeared.  I could discover nothing special in
+the picture, and yet it produced a feeling of such satisfaction that
+one might have tarried to look at it for hours at a time.  "There is
+nothing like a genuine human face," said I; "Raphael himself could not
+have imagined a face like this."
+
+"No," said she.  "But now I will tell you why I wished to have the
+picture.  I read that no one knew the artist, nor whom the picture
+represents.  But it is very clearly a philosopher of the Middle Ages.
+Just such a picture I wanted for my gallery, for you are aware that no
+one knows the author of the 'German Theology,' and moreover, that we
+have no picture of him.  I wished to try whether the picture of an
+Unknown by an Unknown would answer for our German theologian, and if
+you have no objections we will hang it here between the 'Albigenses'
+and the 'Diet of Worms,' and call it the 'German Theologian.'"
+
+"Good," said I; "but it is somewhat too vigorous and manly for the
+Frankforter."
+
+"That may be," replied she.  "But for a suffering and dying life like
+mine, much consolation and strength may be derived from his book.  I
+thank him much, for it disclosed to me for the first time the true
+secret of Christian doctrine in all its simplicity.  I felt that I was
+free to believe or disbelieve the old teacher, whoever he may have
+been, for his doctrines had no external constraint upon me; at last it
+seized upon me with such power that it seemed to me I knew for the
+first time what revelation was.  It is precisely this fact that bars so
+many out from true Christianity, namely: that its doctrines confront us
+as revelation before revelation takes place in ourselves.  This has
+often given me much anxiety; not that I had ever doubted the truth and
+divinity of our religion, but I felt I had no right to a belief which
+others had given me, and that what I, had learned and received when a
+child, without comprehending, did not belong to me.  One can believe
+for us as little as one can live and die for us."
+
+"Certainly," said I; "therein lies the cause of many hot and bitter
+struggles; that the teachings of Christ, instead of winning our hearts
+gradually and irresistibly, as they won the hearts of the apostles and
+early Christians, confront us from the earliest childhood as the
+infallible law of a mighty church, and demand of us an unconditional
+submission, which they call faith.  Doubts arise sooner or later in the
+breast of every one who has the power of thinking and reverence for the
+truth; and then even when we are on the right road, to overcome our
+faith, the terrors of doubt and unbelief arise and disturb the tranquil
+development of the new life."
+
+"I read recently in an English work," she interrupted, "that truth
+makes revelation, and not revelation truth.  This perfectly expressed
+what I found in reading the 'German Theology.' I read the book, and I
+felt the power of its truths so overwhelmingly that I was compelled to
+submit to it.  The truth was revealed to me; or rather, I was revealed
+to myself, and I felt for the first time what belief meant.  The truth
+which had long slumbered in my soul belonged to me, but it was the word
+of the unknown teacher which filled me with light, illuminated my inner
+vision, and brought out my indistinct presentiments in fuller clearness
+before my soul.  When I had thus experienced for the first time how the
+human soul can believe, I read the Gospels as if they, too, had been
+written by an Unknown man, and banished the thought as well as I could
+that they were an inspiration from the Holy Ghost to the apostles, in
+some wonderful manner; that they had been endorsed by the councils and
+proclaimed by the church as the supreme authority of the alone-saving
+belief.  Then, for the first time, I understood what Christian faith
+and revelation were."
+
+"It is wonderful," said I, "that the theologians have not broken down
+all religion, and they will succeed yet, if the believers do not
+seriously confront them and say: 'Thus far but no farther.'  Every
+church must have its servants, but there has been as yet no religion
+which the Priests, the Brahmins, the Schamins, the Bonzes, the Lamas,
+the Pharisees, or the Scribes have not corrupted and perverted.  They
+wrangle and dispute in a language unintelligible to nine-tenths of
+their congregations, and instead of permitting themselves to be
+inspired by the apostles, and of inspiring others with their
+inspiration, they construct long arguments to show that the Gospels
+must be true, because they were written by inspired men.  But this is
+only a makeshift for their own unbelief.  How can they know that these
+men were inspired in a wonderful manner, without ascribing to
+themselves a still more wonderful inspiration?  Therefore they extend
+the gift of inspiration to the fathers of the church; they attribute to
+them those very things which the majority have incorporated in the
+canons of the councils; and there again, when the question arises how
+we know that of fifty bishops twenty-six were inspired and twenty-four
+were not, they finally take the last desperate step, and say that
+infallibility and inspiration are inherent in the heads of the church
+down to the present day, through the laying on of hands, so that
+infallibility, majority and inspiration make all our convictions, all
+resignation, all devout intuitions, superfluous.  And yet,
+notwithstanding all these connecting links, the first question returns
+in all its simplicity: How can B know that A is inspired, if B is not
+equally, or even more, inspired than A?  For it is of more consequence
+to know that A was inspired than for one's self to be inspired."
+
+"I have never comprehended this so clearly myself," said she.  "But I
+have often felt how difficult it must be to know whether one loves who
+shows not a sign of love that could not be imitated.  And, again, I
+have thought that no one could know it unless he knew love himself, and
+that he could only believe in the love of another so far as he believed
+in his own love.  As with the gift of love so is it with the gift of
+the Holy Spirit.  They upon whom it descended heard a rushing from
+heaven as of a mighty wind, and there appeared to them cloven tongues
+like as of fire.  But the rest were either amazed and perplexed, or
+they made sport of them and said: 'They are full of sweet wine.'
+
+"Still, as I said to you, it is the 'German Theology' to which I am
+indebted for learning to believe in my belief, and what will seem a
+weakness to many, strengthened me the most; namely, that the old master
+never stops to demonstrate his propositions rigidly, but scatters them
+like a sower, in the hope that some grains will fall upon good soil and
+bear fruit a thousand fold.  So our Divine Master never attempted to
+prove his doctrines, for the perfect conviction of truth disdains the
+form of a demonstration."
+
+"Yes," I interrupted her, for I could not help thinking of the
+wonderful chain of proof in Spinoza's 'Ethics,' the straining after
+demonstration by Spinoza gives me the impression that this acute
+thinker could not have believed in his own doctrines with his whole
+heart, and that he therefore felt the necessity of fastening every mesh
+of his net with the utmost care.  "Still," I continued, "I must
+acknowledge I do not share this great admiration for the 'German
+Theology,' although I owe the book many a doubt.  To me there is a lack
+of the human and the poetical in it, and of warm feeling and reverence
+for reality altogether.  The entire mysticism of the fourteenth century
+is wholesome as a preparative, but it first reaches solution in the
+divinely holy and divinely courageous return to real life, as was
+exemplified by Luther.  Man must at some time in his life recognize his
+nothingness.  He must feel that he is nothing of himself, that his
+existence, his beginning, his everlasting life are rooted in the
+superearthly and incomprehensible.  That is the returning to God which
+in reality is never concluded on earth but yet leaves behind in the
+soul a divine home sickness, which never again ceases.  But man cannot
+ignore the creation as the Mystics would.  Although created out of
+nothing, that is, through and out of God, he cannot of his own power
+resolve himself back into this nothingness.  The self-annihilation of
+which Tauler so often speaks is scarcely better than the sinking away
+of the human soul in Nirvana, as the Buddhists have it.  Thus Tauler
+says: 'That if he by greater reverence and love could reach the highest
+existence in non-existence, he would willingly sink from his height
+into the deepest abyss.'  But this annihilation of the creature was not
+the purpose of the Creator since he made it.  'God is transformed in
+man,' says Augustine, 'not man in God.'  Thus mysticism should be only
+a fire-trial which steels the soul but does not evaporate it like
+boiling water in a kettle.  He who has recognized the nothingness of
+self ought to recognize this self as a reflection of the actual divine.
+The 'German Theology' says:
+
+["Was nu us geflossen ist, das ist nicht war wesen, und hat kein wesen
+anders dan in dem volkomen, sunder es ist ein zufal oder ein glast und
+ein schin, der nicht wesen ist oder nicht wesen hat anders, dan in dem
+sewer, da der glast us flusset, als in der sunnen oder in einem
+liechte."]
+
+"What has flown out is not real substance and has no other reality
+except in the perfect; but it is an incident or a glare or a shimmer,
+which is no substance, and has no other reality, except in the fire
+from which a glare proceeds, as in the sun or a light."
+
+"What is emitted from the divine, though it be only like the reflection
+from the fire, still has the divine reality in itself, and one might
+almost ask what were the fire without glow, the sun without light, or
+the Creator without the creature?  These are questions of which it is
+said very truthfully:
+
+["Welch mensche und welche creatur begert zu erfaren und zu wissen den
+heimlichen rat und willen gottes, der begert nicht anders denne als
+Adam tet und der boese geist."]
+
+"What man or creature desires to learn and to know the secret counsel
+and will of God--desires nothing else but what Adam did and the evil
+spirit.
+
+"For this reason, it should be enough for us to feel and to appear that
+we are a reflection of the divine until we are divine.  No one should
+place under a bushel or extinguish the divine light which illuminates
+us, but let it beam out, that it may brighten and warm all about it.
+Then one feels a living fire in his veins, and a higher consecration
+for the struggle of life.  The most trivial duties remind us of God.
+The earthly becomes divine, the temporal eternal, and our entire life a
+life in God.  God is not eternal repose.  He is everlasting life, which
+Angelus Silesius forgets when he says: 'God is without will.'
+
+  "'We pray: 'Thy will my Lord and God be done,'
+  And lo, He has no will!  He is an eternal silence.'"
+
+She listened to me quietly, and, after a moment's reflection, said:
+"Health and strength belong to your faith; but there are life-weary
+souls, who long for rest and sleep, and feel so lonely that when they
+fall asleep in God, they miss the world as little as the world misses
+them.  It is a foretaste of divine rest to them when they can wrap
+themselves in the divine; and this they can do, since no tie binds them
+fast to earth, and no wish troubles their hearts except the wish for
+rest.
+
+  "'Rest is the highest good, and were God not rest,
+  Then would I avert my gaze even from Him.'
+
+"You do the German theologian an injustice.  It is true he teaches the
+nothingness of the external life, but he does not wish to see it
+annihilated.  Read me the twenty-eighth chapter."
+
+I took the book and read, while she closed her eyes and listened:
+
+["Und wa die voreinunge geschicht in der wahrheit und wesentlich wirt,
+da stet vorbass der inner mensche in der einung unbeweglich und got
+lest den ussern menschen her und dar bewegt werden von diesem zu dem.
+Das muss und sol sin und geschehen, dass der usser mensche spricht und
+es ouch in der warheit also ist, 'ich wil weder sin noch nit sin, weder
+leben oder sterben, wissen oder nicht wissen, tun oder lassen, und
+alles das disem glich ist, sunder alles, das da muss und sol sin und
+geschehen, da bin ich bereit und gehorsam zu, es si in lidender wise
+oder in tuender wise.'  Und alsoe hat der usser mensch kein warumbe
+oder gesuch, sunder alleine dem ewigen willen genuk zu sin.  Wan das
+wirt bekannt in der warheit, das der inner mensche sten sol unbeweglich
+und der usser mensch muss und sol bewegt werden, und hat der inner
+mensch in siner beweglikeit ein warumb, das ist anders nichts dann ein
+muss- und sol-sin, geordnet von dem ewigen willen.  Und wa got selber
+der mensch were oder ist, da ist es also.  Das merket man wol in
+Kristo.  Auch wa das in goetlichem und us goetlichem liechte ist, da
+ist nit geistliche hochfart noch unachtsame friheit oder frie gemute,
+sunder ein gruntlose demutigkeit und ein nider geschlagen und ein
+gesunken betrubet gemut, und alle ordenligkeit und redeligkeit,
+glichheit und warheit, fride und genugsamkeit, und alles das, das allen
+tugenden zu gehoert, das muss da sin.  Wa es anders ist, da ist im nit
+recht, als vor gesprochen ist.  Wan recht als dises oder das zu diser
+einung nit gehelfen oder gedienen kan, also is ouch nichtes, das es
+geirren oder gehindern mag, denn alleine der mensch mit sinem eigen
+willen, der tut im disen grossen schaden.  Das sol man wissen."]
+
+"And when the union takes place in truth and becomes real, then the
+inner man stands henceforth immovable in the union, and God permits the
+outer man to be driven hither and thither from this to that.  It must
+and shall be and happen, that the outer man says--and is so also in
+truth--'I will neither be nor not be, neither live nor die, neither
+know nor not know, neither do nor leave undone--and everything which is
+similar to this, but I am ready and obedient to do everything, which
+must and shall be done, be it passively or actively.'  And thus has the
+outer man no question or desire, but to, satisfy only the Eternal Will.
+When this will be known in truth, that the inner man shall stand,
+immovable, and that the outer man shall and must be moved,--the inner
+man has a why and wherefore of his moving, which is nothing but an 'it
+must and shall be' ordered by the Eternal Will.  And if God himself
+were or is the man, it would be so.  This is well seen in Christ.  And
+what in the Divine Light is and from the Divine Light, has neither
+spiritual pride nor careless license nor an independent spirit--but a
+great humility, and a broken and contrite heart,--and all propriety and
+honesty, justice and truth, peace and happiness,--all that belongs to
+all virtues, it must have.  When it is otherwise, then he is not happy,
+as has been said.  When this does not help to this union, then there is
+nothing which may hinder it but man alone with his own will, which does
+him such great harm.  That, one ought to know."
+
+"This is sufficient," said she; "I believe we understand each other
+now.  In another place, our unknown friend says still more unmistakably
+that no man is passive before death, and that the glorified man is like
+the hand of God, which does nothing of itself except as God wills; or,
+like a house in which God dwells.  A God-possessed man feels this
+perfectly, but does not speak of it.  He treasures his life in God like
+a love secret.  It often seems to me like that silver poplar before my
+window.  It is perfectly still at evening, and not a leaf trembles or
+stirs.  When the morning breeze rustles and tosses every leaf, the
+trunk with its branches stands still and immovable, and when autumn
+conies, though every leaf which once rustled falls to the ground and
+withers, the trunk waits for a new spring."
+
+She had lived so deep a life in her world that I did not wish to
+disturb it.  I had but just released myself with difficulty from the
+magic circle of these thoughts, and scarcely knew whether she had not
+chosen the better part which could not be taken away from her; while we
+have so much trouble and care.
+
+Thus every evening brought its new conversation, and with each evening,
+some new phase of her fathomless mind disclosed itself.  She kept no
+secret from me.  Her talk was only thinking and feeling aloud, and what
+she said must have dwelt with her many long years, for she poured out
+her thoughts as freely as a child that picks its lap full of flowers
+and then sprinkles them upon the grass.  I could not disclose my soul
+to her as freely as she did to me, and this oppressed and pained me.
+Yet how few can, with those continual deceptions imposed upon us by
+society, called manners, politeness, consideration, prudence, and
+worldly wisdom, which make our entire life a masquerade!  How few, even
+when they would, can regain the complete truth of their existence!
+Love itself dares not speak its own language and maintain its own
+silence, but must learn the set phrases of the poet and idealize, sigh
+and flirt instead of freely greeting, beholding and surrendering
+itself, I would most gladly have confessed and said to her: "You know
+me not," but I found that the words were not wholly true.  Before I
+left, I gave her a volume of Arnold's poems, which I had had a short
+time, and begged her to read the one called "The Buried Life."  It was
+my confession, and then I kneeled at her couch and said "Good Night."
+"Good Night," said she, and laid her hand upon my head, and again her
+touch thrilled through, every limb and the dreams of childhood uprose
+in my soul.  I could not go, but gazed into her deep unfathomable eyes
+until the peace of her soul completely overshadowed mine.  Then I arose
+and went home in silence--and in the night I dreamed of the silver
+poplar around which the wind roared--but not a leaf stirred on its
+branches.
+
+
+  THE BURIED LIFE.
+
+  Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet
+  Behold, with tears my eyes are wet;
+  I feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll.
+
+  Yes, yes, we know that we can jest;
+  We know, we know that we can smile;
+  But there's a something in this breast
+  To which thy light words bring no rest,
+  And thy gay smiles no anodyne.
+
+  Give me thy hand, and hush awhile,
+  And turn those limpid eyes on mine,
+  And, let me read there, love, thy inmost soul.
+
+  Alas, is even love too weak
+  To unlock the heart, and let it speak?
+  Are even lovers powerless to reveal
+  To one another what indeed they feel?
+  I knew the mass of men concealed
+  Their thoughts, for fear that if revealed
+  They would by other men be met
+  With blank indifference, or with blame reproved;
+  I knew they lived and moved,
+  Tricked in disguises, alien to the rest
+  Of men and alien to themselves--and yet,
+  The same heart beats in every human breast.
+
+  But we, my love--does a like spell benumb
+  Our hearts--our voices?--must we too be dumb?
+
+  Ah! well for us, if even we,
+  Even for a moment, can yet free
+  Our hearts and have our lips unchained;
+  For that which seals them hath been deep ordained.
+  Fate which foresaw
+  How frivolous a baby man would be,
+  By what distractions he would be possessed,
+  How he would pour himself in every strife,
+  And well-nigh change his own identity,
+  That it might keep from his capricious play
+  His genuine self, and force him to obey,
+  Even in his own despite, his being's law,
+  Bade through the deep recesses of our breast
+  The unregarded River of our Life,
+  Pursue with indiscernible flow its way;
+  And that we should not see
+  The buried stream, and seem to be
+  Eddying about in blind uncertainty,
+  Though driving on with it eternally.
+
+  But often, in the world's most crowded streets,
+  But often in the din of strife,
+  There rises an unspeakable desire
+  After the knowledge of our buried life;
+
+  A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
+  In tracking out our true original course;
+  A longing to inquire
+  Into the mystery of this heart that beats
+  So wild, so deep, in us; to know
+  Whence our thoughts come, and where they go.
+  And many a man in his own breast then delves,
+  But deep enough, alas, none ever mines;
+  And we have been on many thousand lines,
+  And we have shown on each, talent and power,
+  But hardly have we, for one little hour,
+  Been on our own line, have we been ourselves;
+  Hardly had skill to utter one of all
+  The nameless feelings that course through our breast,
+  But they course on forever unexpressed.
+  And long we try in vain to speak and act
+  Our hidden self, and what we say and do
+  Is eloquent, is well--but 'tis not true.
+
+  And then we will no more be racked
+  With inward striving, and demand
+  Of all the thousand nothings of the hour
+  Their stupefying power;
+  Ah! yes, and they benumb us at our call;
+  Yet still, from time to time, vague and forlorn,
+  From the soul's subterranean depth upborne,
+  As from an infinitely distant land,
+  Come airs and floating echoes, and convey
+  A melancholy into all our day.
+
+  Only--but this is rare--
+  When a beloved hand is laid in ours,
+  When, jaded with the rush and glare
+  Of the interminable hours,
+  Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear,
+  When our world-deafened ear
+  Is by the tones of a loved voice caressed,--
+  A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast,
+  And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again:
+  The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain,
+  And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know;
+
+  A man becomes aware of his life's flow,
+  And, hears its winding murmur, and he sees
+  The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze.
+
+  And there arrives a lull in the hot race
+  Wherein he doth forever chase
+  That flying and elusive shadow, Rest;
+  An air of coolness plays upon his face,
+  And an unwonted calm pervades his breast.
+
+  And then he thinks he knows
+  The Hills where his life rose,
+  And the Sea where it goes. . . . . . .
+
+
+
+
+SIXTH MEMORY.
+
+Early the next morning, there was a knock at the door, and my old doctor,
+the Hofrath, entered.  He was the friend, the body-and-soul-guardian of
+our entire little village.  He had seen two generations grow up.
+Children whom he had brought into the world had in turn become fathers
+and mothers, and he treated them as his children.  He himself was
+unmarried, and even in his old age was strong and handsome to look upon.
+I never knew him otherwise than as he stood before me at that time; his
+clear blue eyes gleaming under the bushy brows, his flowing white hair
+still full of youthful strength, curling and vigorous.  I can never
+forget, also, his shoes, with their silver buckles, his white stockings,
+his brown coat, which always looked new, and yet seemed to be old, and
+his cane, which was the same I had seen standing by my bedside in
+childhood, when he felt my pulse and prescribed my medicines.  I had
+often been sick, but it was always faith in this man which made me well
+again.  I never had the slightest doubt of his ability to cure me, and
+when my mother said she must send for the Hofrath that I might get well
+again, it was as if she had said she must send for the tailor to mend my
+torn trousers.  I had only to take the medicine, and I felt that I must
+be well again.
+
+"How are you, my child?" said he, as he entered the room.  "You are not
+looking perfectly well.  You must not study too much.  But I have little
+time to-day to talk, and only came to tell you, you must not go to see
+the Countess Marie again.  I have been with her all night, and it is your
+fault.  So be careful, if her life is dear to you, that you do not go
+again.  She must leave here as soon as possible, and be taken into the
+country.  It would be best for you also to travel for a long time.  So
+good morning, and be a good child."
+
+With these words, he gave me his hand, looked at me affectionately in the
+eyes, as if he would exact the promise, and then went on his way to look
+after his sick children.
+
+I was so astonished that another had penetrated so deeply into the
+secrets of my soul, and that he knew what I did not know myself, that
+when I recovered from it he had already been long upon the street.  An
+agitation began to seize me, as water, which has long been over the fire
+without stirring, suddenly bubbles up, boils, heaves and rages until it
+overflows.
+
+Not see her again!  I only live when I am with her.  I will be calm; I
+will not speak a word to her; I will only stand at her window as she
+sleeps and dreams.  But not to see her again!  Not to take one farewell
+from her!  She knows not, they cannot know, that I love her.  Surely I do
+not love her--I desire nothing, I hope for nothing, my heart never beats
+more quietly then when I am with her.  But I must feel her presence--I
+must breathe her spirit--I must go to her!  She waits for me.  Has
+destiny thrown us together without design?  Ought I not to be her
+consolation, and ought she not to be my repose?  Life is not a sport.  It
+does not force two souls together like the grains of sand in the desert,
+which the sirocco whirls together and then asunder.  We should hold fast
+the souls which friendly fate leads to us, for they are destined for us,
+and no power can tear them from us if we have the courage to live, to
+struggle, and to die for them.  She would despise me if I deserted her
+love at the first roll of the thunder, as it were in the shadow of a
+tree, under which I have dreamed so many happy hours.
+
+Then I suddenly grew calm, and heard only the words "her love;" they
+reverberated through all the recesses of my soul like an echo, and I was
+terrified at myself.  "Her love," and how had I deserved it?  She hardly
+knows me, and even if she could love me, must I not confess to her I do
+not deserve the love of an angel?  Every thought, every hope which arose
+in my soul, fell back like a bird which essays to soar into the blue sky
+and does not see the wires which restrain it.  And yet, why all this
+blissfulness, so near and so unattainable?  Cannot God work wonders?
+Does He not work wonders every morning?  Has He not often heard my prayer
+when it importuned him, and would not cease, until consolation and help
+came to the weary one?  These are not earthly blessings for which we
+pray.  It is only that two souls, which have found and recognized each
+other, may be allowed to finish their brief life-journey, arm in arm, and
+face to face; that I may be a support to her in suffering, and that she
+may be a consolation and precious burden to me until we reach the end.
+And if a still later spring were promised to her life, if her burdens
+were taken from her--Oh, what blissful scenes crowded upon my vision!
+The castle of her deceased mother, in the Tyrol, belonged to her.  There,
+on the green mountains, in the fresh mountain air, among a sturdy and
+uncorrupted people, far away from the hurly-burly of the world, its cares
+and its struggles, its opinion and its censure, how blissfully we could
+await the close of life, and silently fade away like the evening-red!
+Then I pictured the dark lake, with the dancing shimmer of waves, and the
+clear shadows of distant glaciers reflected in it; I heard the lowing of
+cattle and the songs of the herdsmen; I saw the hunters with their rifles
+crossing the mountains, and the old and young gathering together at
+twilight in the village; and, to crown all, I saw her passing along like
+an angel of peace in benediction, and I was her guide and friend.  "Poor
+fool!" I cried out, "poor fool!  Is thy heart always to be so wild and so
+weak?  Be a man.  Think who thou art, and how far thou art from her.  She
+is a friend.  She gladly reflects herself in another's soul, but her
+childlike trust and candor at best only show that no deeper feeling lives
+in her breast for thee.  Hast thou not, on many a clear summer's night,
+wandering alone, through the beech groves, seen how the moon sheds its
+light upon all the branches and leaves, how it brightens the dark, dull
+water of the pool and reflects itself clearly in the smallest drops?  In
+like manner she shines upon this dark life, and thou may'st feel her
+gentle radiance reflected in thy heart--but hope not for a warmer glow!"
+
+Suddenly an image approached me as it were from life; she stood before
+me, not like a memory but as a vision, and I realized for the first time
+how beautiful she was.  It was not that beauty of form and face which
+dazzles us at the first sight of a lovely maiden, and then fades away as
+suddenly as a blossom in spring.  It was much more the harmony of her
+whole being, the reality of every emotion, the spirituality of
+expression, the perfect union of body and soul which blesses him so who
+looks upon it.  The beauty which nature lavishes so prodigally does not
+bring any satisfaction, if the person is not adapted to it and as it were
+deserves and overcomes it.  On the other hand, it is offensive, as when
+we look upon an actress striding along the stage in queenly costume, and
+notice at every step how poorly the attire fits her, how little it
+becomes her.  True beauty is sweetness, and sweetness is the
+spiritualizing of the gross, the corporeal and the earthly.  It is the
+spiritual presence which transforms ugliness into beauty.  The more I
+looked upon the vision which stood before me, the more I perceived, above
+all else, the majestic beauty of her person and the soulful depths of her
+whole being.  Oh, what happiness was near me!  And was this all--to be
+shown the summit of earthly bliss and then be thrust out into the flat,
+sandy wastes of existence?  Oh, that I had never known what treasures the
+earth conceals!  Once to love, and then to be forever alone!  Once to
+believe, and then forever to doubt!  Once to see the light, and then
+forever to be blinded!  In comparison with this rack, all the
+torture-chambers of man are insignificant.
+
+Thus rushed the wild chase of my thoughts farther and farther away until
+at last all was silent.  The confused sensations gradually collected and
+settled.  This repose and exhaustion they call meditation, but it is
+rather an inspection--one allows time for the mixture of thoughts to
+crystallize themselves according to eternal laws, and regards the process
+like an observing chemist; and the elements having assumed a form, we
+often wonder that they, as well as ourselves, are so entirely different
+from what we expected.
+
+When I awoke from my abstraction, my first words were, "I must away."  I
+immediately sat down and wrote the Hofrath that I should travel for
+fourteen days and submit entirely to him.  I easily made an excuse to my
+parents, and at night I was on my way to the Tyrol.
+
+
+
+
+SEVENTH MEMORY.
+
+Wandering, arm in arm with a friend, through the valleys and over the
+mountains of the Tyrol, one sips life's fresh air and enjoyment; but to
+travel the same road solitary and alone with your thoughts is time and
+trouble lost.  Of what interest to me are the green mountains, the dark
+ravines, the blue lake, and the mighty cataracts?  Instead of
+contemplating them they look at me and wonder among themselves at this
+solitary being.  It smote me to the heart that I had found no one in
+all the world who loved me more than all others.  With such thoughts I
+awoke every morning, and they haunted me all the day like a song which
+one cannot drive away.  When I entered the inn at night and sat down
+wearied, and the people in the room watched me, and wondered at the
+solitary wanderer, it often urged me out into the night again, where no
+one could see I was alone.  At a late hour I would steal back, go
+quietly up to my room and throw myself upon my hot bed, and the song of
+Schubert's would ring through my soul until I went to sleep: "Where
+thou art not, is happiness."  At last the sight of men, whom I
+continually met laughing, rejoicing and exulting in this glorious
+nature, became so intolerable that I slept by day, and pursued my
+journey from place to place in the clear moonlight nights.  There was
+at least one emotion which dispelled and dissipated my thoughts: it was
+fear.  Let any one attempt to scale mountains alone all night long in
+ignorance of the way--where the eye, unnaturally strained, beholds
+distant shapes it cannot solve--where the ear, with morbid acuteness,
+hears sounds without knowing whence they come--where the foot suddenly
+stumbles, it may be over a root which forces its way through the rocks,
+or on a slippery path which the waterfall has drenched with its
+spray--and besides all this, a disconsolate waste in the heart, no
+memory to cheer us, no hope to which we may cling--let any one attempt
+this, and he will feel the cold chill of night both outwardly and
+inwardly.  The first fear of the human heart arises from God forsaking
+us; but life dissipates it, and mankind, created after the image of
+God, consoles us in our solitariness.  When even this consolation and
+love, however, forsake us, then we feel what it means to be deserted by
+God and man, and nature with her silent face terrifies rather than
+consoles us.  Even when we firmly plant our feet upon the solid rocks,
+they seem to tremble like the mists of the sea from which they once
+slowly emerged.  When the eye longs for the light, and the moon rises
+behind the firs, reflecting their tapering tops against the bright rock
+opposite, it appears to us like the dead hand of a clock which was once
+wound up, and will some day cease to strike.  There is no retreat for
+the soul, which feels itself alone and forsaken even among the stars,
+or in the heavenly world itself.  One thought brings us a little
+consolation: the repose, the regularity, the immensity, and the
+unavoidableness of nature.  Here, where the waterfall has clothed the
+gray rocks on either side with green moss, the eye suddenly recognizes
+a blue forget-me-not in the cool shade.  It is one of millions of
+sisters now blossoming along all the rivulets and in all the meadows of
+earth, and which have blossomed ever since the first morning of
+creation shed its entire inexhaustible wealth over the world.  Every
+vein in its leaves, every stamen in its cup, every fibre of its roots,
+is numbered, and no power on earth can make the number more or less.
+Still more, when we strain our weak eyes and, with superhuman power,
+cast a more searching glance into the secrets of nature, when the
+microscope discloses to us the silent laboratory of the seed, the bud
+and the blossom, do we recognize the infinite, ever-recurring form in
+the most minute tissues and cells, and the eternal unchangeableness of
+Nature's plans in the most delicate fibre.  Could we pierce still
+deeper, the same form-world would reveal itself, and the vision would
+lose itself as in a hall hung with mirrors.  Such an infinity as this
+lies hidden in this little flower.  If we look up to the sky, we see
+again the same system--the moon revolving around the planets, the
+planets around suns, and the suns around new suns, while to the
+straining eye the distant star-nebulae themselves seem to be a new and
+beautiful world.  Reflect then how these majestic constellations
+periodically revolve, that the seasons may change, that the seed of
+this forget-me-not may shed itself again and again, the cells open, the
+leaves shoot out, and the blossoms decorate the carpet of the meadow;
+and look upon the lady-bug which rocks itself in the blue cup of the
+flower, and whose awakening into life, whose consciousness of
+existence, whose living breath, are a thousand-fold more wonderful than
+the tissue of the flower, or the dead mechanism of the heavenly bodies.
+Consider that thou also belongest to this infinite warp and woof, and
+that thou art permitted to comfort thyself with the infinite creatures
+which revolve and live and disappear with thee.  But if this All, with
+its smallest and its greatest, with its wisdom and its power, with the
+wonders of its existence, and the existence of its wonders, is the work
+of a Being in whose presence thy soul does not shrink back, before whom
+thou fallest prostrate in a feeling of weakness and nothingness, and to
+whom thou risest again in the feeling of His love and mercy--if thou
+really feelest that something dwells in thee more endless and eternal
+than the cells of the flowers, the spheres of the planets, and the life
+of the insect--if thou recognizest in thyself as in a shadow the
+reflection of the Eternal which illuminates thee--if thou feelest in
+thyself, and under and above thyself, the omnipresence of the Real, in
+which thy seeming becomes being, thy trouble, rest, thy solitude,
+universality--then thou knowest the One to Whom thou criest in the dark
+night of life: "Creator and Father, Thy will be done in Heaven as upon
+earth, and as on earth so also in me."  Then it grows bright in and
+about thee.  The daybreak disappears with its cold mists, and a new
+warmth streams through shivering nature.  Thou hast found a hand which
+never again leaves thee, which holds thee when the mountains tremble
+and moons are extinguished.  Wherever thou may'st be, thou art with
+Him, and He with thee.  He is the eternally near, and His is the world
+with its flowers and thorns, His is man with his joys and sorrows.
+"The least important thing does not happen except as God wills it."
+
+With such thoughts I went on my way.  At one time, all was well with
+me; at another, troubled; for even when we have found rest and peace in
+the lowest depths of the soul, it is still hard to remain undisturbed
+in this holy solitude.  Yes, many forget it after they find it and
+scarcely know the way which leads back to it.
+
+Weeks had flown, and not a syllable had reached me from her.  "Perhaps
+she is dead and lies in quiet rest," was another song forever on my
+tongue, and always returning as often as I drove it from me.  It was
+not impossible, for the Hofrath had told me she suffered with heart
+troubles, and that he expected to find her no more among the living
+every morning he visited her.  Could I ever forgive myself if she had
+left this world and I had not taken farewell of her, nor told her at
+the last moment how I loved her?  Must I not follow until I found her
+again in another life, and heard from her that she loved me and that I
+was forgiven?  How mankind defers from day to day the best it can do,
+and the most beautiful things it can enjoy, without thinking that every
+day may be the last one, and that lost time is lost eternity!  Then all
+the words of the Hofrath, the last time I saw him, recurred to me, and
+I felt that I had only resolved to make my sudden journey to show my
+strength to him, and that it would have been a still more difficult
+task to have confessed my weakness and remained.  It was clear to me
+that it was my simple duty to return to her immediately and to bear
+everything which Heaven ordained.  But as soon as I had laid the plan
+for my return journey, I suddenly remembered the words of the Hofrath:
+"As soon as possible she must go away and be taken into the country."
+She had herself told me that she spent the most of her time, in summer,
+at her castle.  Perhaps she was there, in my immediate vicinity; in one
+day I could be with her.  Thinking was doing; at daybreak I was off,
+and at evening I stood at the gate of the castle.
+
+The night was clear and bright.  The mountain peaks glistened in the
+full gold of the sunset and the lower ridges were bathed in a rosy
+blue.  A gray mist rose from the valleys which suddenly glistened when
+it swept up into the higher regions, and then like a cloud-sea rolled
+heavenwards.  The whole color-play reflected itself in the gently
+agitated breast of the dark lake from whose shores the mountains seemed
+to rise and fall, so that only the tops of the trees and the peaks of
+the church steeples and the rising smoke from the houses defined the
+limits which separated the reality of the world from its reflection.
+My glance, however, rested upon only one spot--the old castle--where a
+presentiment told me I should find her again.  No light could be seen
+in the windows, no footstep broke the silence of the night.  Had my
+presentiment deceived me?  I passed slowly through the outer gateway
+and up the steps until I stood at the fore-court of the castle.  Here I
+saw a sentinel pacing back and forwards, and I hastened to the soldier
+to inquire who was in the castle.  "The Countess and her attendants are
+here," was the brief reply, and in an instant I stood at the main
+portal and had even pulled the bell.  Then, for the first time, my
+action occurred to me.  No one knew me.  I neither could nor dare say
+who I was.  I had wandered for weeks about the mountains, and looked
+like a beggar.  What should I say?  For whom should I ask?  There was
+little time for consideration, however, for the door opened and a
+servant in princely livery stood before me, and regarded me with
+amazement.
+
+I asked if the English lady, who I knew would never forsake the
+Countess, was in the castle, and when the servant replied in the
+affirmative, I begged for paper and ink and wrote her I was present to
+inquire after the health of the Countess.
+
+The servant called an attendant, who took the letter away.  I heard
+every step in the long halls, and every moment I waited, my position
+became more unendurable.  The old family portraits of the princely
+house hung upon the walls--knights in full armor, ladies in antique
+costume, and in the center a lady in the white robes of a nun with a
+red cross upon her breast.  At any other time I might have looked upon
+these pictures and never thought that a human heart once beat in their
+breasts.  But now it seemed to me I could suddenly read whole volumes
+in their features, and that all of them said to me: "We also have once
+lived and suffered."  Under these iron armors secrets were once hidden
+as even now in my own breast.  These white robes and the red cross are
+real proofs that a battle was fought here like that now raging in my
+own heart.  Then I fancied all of them regarded me with pity, and a
+loftier haughtiness rested on their features as if they would say, Thou
+dost not belong to us.  I was growing uneasy every moment, when
+suddenly a light step dissipated my dream.  The English lady came down
+the stairs and asked me to step into an apartment.  I looked at her
+closely to see if she suspected my real emotions, but her face was
+perfectly calm, and without manifesting the slightest expression of
+curiosity or wonder, she said in measured tones, the Countess was much
+better to-day and would see me in half an hour.
+
+When I heard these words, I felt like the good swimmer who has ventured
+far out into the sea, and first thinks of returning when his arms have
+begun to grow weary.  He cleaves the waves with haste, scarcely
+venturing to cast a glance at the distant shore, feeling with every
+stroke that his strength is failing and that he is making no headway,
+until at last, purposeless and cramped, he scarcely has any realization
+of his position; then suddenly his foot touches the firm bottom, and
+his arm hugs the first rock on the shore.  A fresh reality confronted
+me, and my sufferings were a dream.  There are but few such moments in
+the life of man, and thousands have never known their rapture.  The
+mother whose child rests in her arms for the first time, the father
+whose only son returns from war covered with glory, the poet in whom
+his countrymen exult, the youth whose warm grasp of the hand is
+returned by the beloved being with a still warmer pressure--they know
+what it means when a dream becomes a reality.
+
+At the expiration of the half hour, a servant came and conducted me
+through a long suite of rooms, opened a door, and in the fading light
+of the evening I saw a white figure, and above her a high window, which
+looked out upon the lake and the shimmering mountains.
+
+"How singularly people meet!" she cried out in a clear voice, and every
+word was like a cool rain-drop on a hot summer's day.
+
+"How singularly people meet, and how singularly they lose each other,"
+said I; and thereupon I seized her hand, and realized that we were
+together again.
+
+"But people are to blame if they lose each other," she continued; and
+her voice, which seemed always to accompany her words, like music,
+involuntarily modulated into a tenderer key.
+
+"Yes, that is true," I replied; "but first tell me, are you well, and
+can I talk with you?"
+
+"My dear friend," said she, smiling, "you know I am always sick, and if
+I say that I feel well, I do so for the sake of my old Hofrath; for he
+is firmly convinced that my entire life since my first year is due to
+him and his skill.  Before I left the Court-residence I caused him much
+anxiety, for one evening my heart suddenly ceased beating, and I
+experienced such distress that I thought it would never beat again.
+But that is past, and why should we recall it?  Only one thing troubles
+me, I have hitherto believed I should some time close my eyes in
+perfect repose, but now I feel that my sufferings will disturb and
+embitter my departure from life."  Then she placed her hand upon her
+heart, and said: "But tell me, where have you been, and why have I not
+heard from you all this time?  The old Hofrath has given me so many
+reasons for your sudden departure, that I was finally compelled to tell
+him I did not believe him--and at last he gave me the most incredible
+of all reasons, and counselled--what do you suppose?"
+
+"He might seem untruthful," I interrupted, so that she should not
+explain the reason, "and yet, perhaps he was only too truthful.  But
+this also is past, and why should we recall it?"
+
+"No, no, my friend," said she, "why call it past?  I told the Hofrath,
+when he gave me the last reason for your sudden departure, that I
+understood neither him nor you.  I am a poor sick, forsaken being, and
+my earthly existence is only a slow death.  Now if Heaven sends me a
+few souls who understand me, or love me, as the Hofrath calls it, why
+then should it disturb their joy or mine?  I had been reading my
+favorite poet, the old Wordsworth, when the Hofrath made his
+acknowledgment, and I said: 'My dear Hofrath, we have so many thoughts
+and so few words that we must express many thoughts in every word.  Now
+if one who does not know us understood that our young friend loved me,
+or I him, in such manner as we suppose Romeo loved Juliet and Juliet
+Romeo, you would be entirely right in saying it should not be so.  But
+is it not true that you love me also, my old Hofrath, and that I love
+you, and have loved you for many years?  And has it not sometimes
+occurred to you that I have neither been past remedy nor unhappy on
+that account?  Yes, my dear Hofrath, I will tell you still more--I
+believe you have an unfortunate love for me, and are jealous of our
+young friend.  Do you not come every morning and inquire how I am, even
+when you know I am very well?  Do you not bring me the finest flowers
+from your garden?  Did you not oblige me to send you my portrait,
+and--perhaps I ought not to disclose it--did you not come to my room
+last Sunday and think I was asleep?  I was really sleeping--at least I
+could not stir myself.  I saw you sitting at my bedside for a long
+time, your eyes steadfastly fixed upon me, and I felt your glances
+playing upon my face like sunbeams.  At last your eyes grew weary, and
+I perceived the great tears falling from them.  You held your face in
+your hands, and loudly sobbed: Marie, Marie!  Ah, my dear Hofrath, our
+young friend has never done that, and yet you have sent him away.'  As
+I thus talked with him, half in jest and half in earnest, as I always
+speak, I perceived that I had hurt the old man's feelings.  He became
+perfectly silent, and blushed like a child.  Then I took the volume of
+Wordsworth's poems which I had been reading, and said: 'Here is another
+old man whom I love, and love with my whole heart, who understands me,
+and whom I understand, and yet I have never seen him, and shall never
+see him on earth, since it is so to be.  Now I will read you one of his
+poems, that you may see how one can love, and that love is a silent
+benediction which the lover lays upon the head of the beloved, and then
+goes on his way in rapturous sorrow.'  Then I read to him Wordsworth's
+'Highland Girl;' and now, my friend, place the lamp nearer, and read
+the poem to me, for it refreshes me every time I hear it.  A spirit
+breathes through it like the silent, everlasting evening-red, which
+stretches its arms in love and blessing over the pure breast of the
+snow-covered mountains."
+
+As her words thus gradually and peacefully filled my soul, it at last
+grew still and solemn in my breast again; the storm was over, and her
+image floated like the silvery moonlight upon the gently rippling waves
+of my love--this world-sea which rolls through the hearts of all men,
+and which each calls his own while it is an all-animating pulse-beat of
+the whole human race.  I would most gladly have kept silent like Nature
+as it lay before our view without, and ever grew stiller and darker:
+But she gave me the book, and I read:
+
+
+  Sweet Highland Girl, a very shower
+  Of beauty is thy earthly dower!
+  Twice seven consenting years have shed
+  Their utmost bounty on thy head:
+  And these gray rocks, that household lawn,
+  Those trees, a veil just half withdrawn,
+  This fall of water that doth make
+  A murmur near the silent lake,
+  This little bay; a quiet road
+  That holds in shelter thy abode--
+  In truth, together do ye seem
+  Like something fashioned in a dream;
+  Such forms as from their covert peep
+  When earthly cares are laid asleep!
+  But, O fair creature! in the light
+  Of common day, so heavenly bright,
+  I bless thee, vision as thou art,
+  I bless thee with a human heart;
+  God shield thee to thy latest years!
+  Thee neither know I, nor thy peers;
+  And yet my eyes are filled with tears.
+
+  With earnest feeling I shall pray
+  For thee when I am far away;
+  For never saw I mien or face,
+  In which more plainly I could trace
+  Benignity and home-bred sense
+  Ripening in perfect innocence.
+  Here scattered, like a random seed,
+  Remote from men, thou dost not need
+  The embarrassed look of shy distress,
+  And maidenly shamefacedness:
+  Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear
+  The freedom of a mountaineer:
+  A face with gladness overspread!
+  Soft smiles, by human kindness bred!
+  And seemliness complete, that sways
+  Thy courtesies, about thee plays;
+  With no restraint, but such as springs
+  From quick and eager visitings
+  Of thoughts that lie beyond the reach
+  Of thy few words of English speech:
+  A bondage sweetly brooked, a strife
+  That gives thy gestures grace and life!
+  So have I, not unmoved in mind,
+  Seen birds of tempest-loving kind--
+  Thus beating up against the wind.
+
+  What hand but would a garland cull
+  For thee who art so beautiful?
+  O happy pleasure! here to dwell
+  Beside thee in some heathy dell;
+  Adopt your homely ways and dress,
+  A shepherd, thou a shepherdess:
+  But I could frame a wish for thee
+  More like a grave reality:
+  Thou art to me but as a wave
+  Of the wild sea; and I would have
+  Some claim upon thee, if I could,
+  Though but of common neighborhood
+  What joy to hear thee, and to see!
+  Thy elder brother I would be,
+  Thy father--anything to thee!
+
+  Now thanks to heaven! that of its grace
+  Hath led me to this lonely place.
+  Joy have I had; and going hence
+  I bear away my recompense.
+  In spots like these it is we prize
+  Our memory, feel that she hath eyes:
+  Then why should I be loth to stir?
+  I feel this place was made for her;
+  To give new pleasure like the past,
+  Continued long as life shall last.
+  Nor am I loth, though pleased at heart,
+  Sweet Highland Girl, from thee to part;
+  For I, methinks, till I grow old,
+  As fair before me shall behold,
+  As I do now, the cabin small,
+  The lake, the bay, the waterfall,
+  And thee, the spirit of them all!
+
+
+I had finished, and the poem had been to me like a draught of the fresh
+spring-water which I had sipped so often of late as it dropped from the
+cup of some large green leaf.
+
+Then I heard her gentle voice, like the first tone of the organ, which
+wakens us from our dreamy devotion, and she said:
+
+"Thus I desire you to love me, and thus the old Hofrath loves me, and
+thus in one way or another we should all love and believe in each
+other.  But the world, although I scarcely know it, does not seem to
+understand this love and faith, and, on this earth, where we could have
+lived so happily, men have made existence very wretched.
+
+"It must have been otherwise of old, else how could Homer have created
+the lovely, wholesome, tender picture of Nausikaa?  Nausikaa loves
+Ulysses at the first glance.  She says at once to her female friends:
+'Oh, that I could call such a man my spouse, and that it were his
+destiny to remain here.'  She was even too modest to appear in public
+at the same time with him, and she says, in his presence, that if she
+should bring such a handsome and majestic stranger home, the people
+would say, she may have taken him for a husband.  How simple and
+natural all this is!  But when she heard that he was going home to his
+wife and children, no murmur escaped her.  She disappears from our
+sight, and we feel that she carried the picture of the handsome and
+majestic stranger a long time afterward in her breast, with silent and
+joyful admiration.  Why do not our poets know this love--this joyful
+acknowledgment, this calm abnegation?  A later poet would have made a
+womanish Werter out of Nausikaa, for the reason that love with us is
+nothing more than the prelude to the comedy, or the tragedy, of
+marriage.  Is it true there is no longer any other love?  Has the
+fountain of this pure happiness wholly dried up?  Are men only
+acquainted with the intoxicating draught, and no longer with the
+invigorating well-spring of love?"
+
+At these words the English poet occurred to me, who also thus complains:
+
+  From heaven if this belief be sent,
+    If such be nature's holy plan,
+  Have I not reason to lament
+    What man has made of man.
+
+"Yet, how happy the poets are," said she.  "Their words call the
+deepest feelings into existence in thousands of mute souls, and how
+often their songs have become a confession of the sweetest secrets!
+Their heart beats in the breasts of the poor and the rich.  The happy
+sing with them, and the sad weep with them.  But I cannot feel any poet
+so completely my own as Wordsworth.  I know many of my friends do not
+like him.  They say he is not a poet.  But that is exactly why I like
+him; he avoids all the hackneyed poetical catch-words, all
+exaggeration, and everything comprehended in Pegasus-flights.  He is
+true--and does not everything lie in this one word?  He opens our eyes
+to the beauty which lies under our feet like the daisy in the meadow.
+He calls everything by its true name.  He never intends to startle,
+deceive, or dazzle any one.  He seeks no admiration for himself.  He
+only shows mankind how beautiful everything is which man's hand has not
+yet spoiled or broken.  Is not a dew-drop on a blade of grass more
+beautiful than a pearl set in gold?  Is not a living spring, which
+gushes up before us, we know not whence, more beautiful than all the
+fountains of Versailles?  Is not his Highland Girl a lovelier and truer
+expression of real beauty than Goethe's Helena, or Byron's Haidee?  And
+then the plainness of his language, and the purity of his thoughts!  Is
+it not a pity that we have never had such a poet?  Schiller could have
+been our Wordsworth, had he had more faith in himself than in the old
+Greeks and Romans.  Our Ruckert would come the nearest to him, had he
+not also sought consolation and home under Eastern roses, away from his
+poor Fatherland.  Few poets have the courage to be just what they are.
+Wordsworth had it; and as we gladly listen to great men, even in those
+moments when they are not inspired, but, like other mortals, quietly
+cherish their thoughts, and patiently wait the moment that will
+disclose new glimpses into the infinite, so have I also listened gladly
+to Wordsworth himself, in his poems, which contain nothing more than
+any one might have said.  The greatest poets allow themselves rest.  In
+Homer we often read a hundred verses without a single beauty, and just
+so in Dante; while Pindar, whom all admire so much, drives me to
+distraction with his ecstacies.  What would I not give to spend one
+summer on the lakes; visit with Wordsworth all the places to which he
+has given names; greet all the trees which he has saved from the axe;
+and only once watch a far-off sunset with him, which he describes as
+only Turner could have painted."
+
+It was a peculiarity of hers that her voice never dropped at the close
+of her talk, as with most people; on the contrary, it rose and always
+ended, as it were, in the broken seventh chord.  She always talked up,
+never down, to people.  The melody of her sentences resembled that of
+the child when it says: "Can't I, father?"  There was something
+beseeching in her tones, and it was well-nigh impossible to gainsay her.
+
+"Wordsworth," said I, "is a dear poet, and a still dearer man to me,
+and as one often has a more beautiful, wide-spread, and stirring
+outlook from a little hill which he ascends without effort, than when
+he has clambered up Mont Blanc with difficulty and weariness, so it
+seems to me with Wordsworth's poetry.  At first, he often appeared
+commonplace to me, and I have frequently laid down his poems unable to
+understand how the best minds of England to-day can cherish such an
+admiration for him.  The conviction has grown upon me that no poet whom
+his nation, or the intellectual aristocracy of his people, recognize as
+a poet, should remain unenjoyed by us, whatever his language.
+Admiration is an art which we must learn.  Many Germans say Racine does
+not please them.  The Englishman says, 'I do not understand Goethe.'
+The Frenchman says Shakespeare is a boor.  What does all this amount
+to?  Nothing more than the child who says it likes a waltz better than
+a symphony of Beethoven's.  The art consists in discovering and
+understanding what each nation admires in its great men.  He who seeks
+beauty will eventually find it, and discover that the Persians are not
+entirely deceived in their Hafiz, nor the Hindoos in their Kalidasa.
+We cannot understand a great man all at once.  It takes strength,
+effort, and perseverance, and it is singular that what pleases us at
+first sight seldom captivates us any length of time.
+
+"And yet," she continued, "there is something common to all great
+poets, to all true artists, to all the world's heroes, be they Persian
+or Hindoo, heathen or Christian, Roman or German; it is--I hardly know
+what to call it--it is the Infinite which seems to lie behind them, a
+far away glance into the Eternal, an apotheosis of the most trifling
+and transitory things.  Goethe, the grand heathen, knew the sweet peace
+which comes from Heaven; and when he sings:
+
+    "On every mountain-height
+      Is rest.
+    O'er each summit white
+      Thou feelest
+    Scarcely a breath.
+  The bird songs are still from each bough;
+  Only wait, soon shalt thou
+    Rest too, in death.
+
+"does not an endless distance, a repose which earth cannot give,
+disclose itself to him above the fir-clad summits?  This background is
+never wanting with Wordsworth.  Let the carpers say what they will, it
+is nevertheless only the super-earthly, be it ever so obscure, which
+charms and quiets the human heart.  Who has better understood this
+earthly beauty than Michel Angelo?--but he understood it, because it
+was to him a reflection of superearthly beauty.  You know his sonnet:
+
+  ["La forza d'un bel volto al ciel mi sprona
+  (Ch'altro in terra non e che mi diletti),
+  E vivo ascendo tra gli spirti eletti;
+  Grazia ch'ad uom mortal raro si dona.
+  Si ben col suo Fattor l'opra consuona,
+  Ch'a lui mi levo per divin concetti;
+  E quivi informo i pensier tutti e i detti;
+  Ardendo, amando per gentil persona.
+  Onde, se mai da due begli occhi il guardo
+  Torcer non so, conosco in lor la luce
+  Che mi mostra la via, ch'a Dio mi guide;
+  E se nel lume loro acceso io ardo,
+  Nel nobil foco mio dolce riluce
+  La gioja che nel cielo eterna ride."]
+
+  "The might of one fair face sublimes my love,
+  For it hath weaned my heart from low desires;
+  Nor death I heed nor purgatorial fires.
+  Thy beauty, antepast of joys above
+  Instructs me in the bliss that saints approve;
+  For, Oh! how good, how beautiful must be
+  The God that made so good a thing as thee,
+  So fair an image of the Heavenly Dove.
+  Forgive me if I cannot turn away
+  From those sweet eyes that are my earthly heaven,
+  For they are guiding stars, benignly given
+  To tempt my footsteps to the upward way;
+  And if I dwell too fondly in thy sight,
+  I live and love in God's peculiar light."
+
+She was exhausted and silent, and how could I disturb that silence?
+When human hearts, after friendly interchange of thoughts feel calmed
+and quieted, it is as if an angel had flown through the room and we
+heard the gentle flutter of wings over our heads.  As my gaze rested
+upon her, her lovely form seemed illuminated in the twilight of the
+summer evening, and her hand, which I held in mine, alone gave me the
+consciousness of her real presence.  Then suddenly a bright refulgence
+spread over her countenance.  She felt it, opened her eyes and looked
+upon me wonderingly.  The wonderful brightness of her eyes, which the
+half-closed eyelids covered as with a veil, shone like the lightning.
+I looked around and at last saw that the moon had arisen in full
+splendor between two peaks opposite the castle, and brightened the lake
+and the village with its friendly smiles.  Never had I seen Nature,
+never had I seen her dear face so beautiful, never had such holy rest
+settled down upon my soul.  "Marie," said I, "in this resplendent
+moment, let me, just as I am, confess my whole love.  Let us, while we
+feel so powerfully the nearness of the superearthly, unite our souls in
+a tie which can never again be broken.  Whatever love may be, Marie, I
+love you and I feel, Marie, you are mine for I am thine."
+
+I knelt before her, but ventured not to look into her eyes.  My lips
+touched her hand and I kissed it.  At this she withdrew her hand from
+me, slowly at first and then quickly and decidedly, and as I looked at
+her an expression of pain was on her face.  She was silent for a time,
+but at last she raised herself and said with a deep sigh:
+
+"Enough for to-day.  You have caused me pain, but it is my fault.
+Close the window.  I feel a cold chill coming over me as if a strange
+hand were touching me.  Stay with me--but no, you must go.  Farewell!
+Sleep well!  Pray that the peace of God may abide with us.  We see each
+other again--shall we not?  To-morrow evening I await you."
+
+Oh, where all at once had this heavenly rest flown?  I saw how she
+suffered, and all that, I could do was to quickly hurry away, summon
+the English lady and then go alone in the darkness of night to the
+village.  Long time I wandered back and forth about the lake, long my
+gaze strayed to the lighted window where I had just been.  Finally, the
+last light in the castle was extinguished.  The moon mounted higher and
+higher, and every pinnacle and projection and decoration on the lofty
+walls grew visible in the fairy-like illumination.  Here was I all
+alone in the silent night.  It seemed to me my brain had refused its
+office, for no thought came to an end and I only felt I was alone on
+this earth, that it contained no soul for me.  The earth was like a
+coffin, the black sky a funeral pall, and I scarcely knew whether I was
+living or had long been dead.  Then I suddenly looked up to the stars
+with their blinking eyes, which went their way so quietly--and it
+seemed to me that they were only for the lighting and consolation of
+men, and then I thought of two heavenly stars which had risen in my
+dark heaven so unexpectedly, and a thanksgiving rang through my
+breast--a thanksgiving for the love of my angel.
+
+
+
+
+LAST MEMORY.
+
+The sun was already looking into my window over the mountains when I
+awoke.  Was it the same sun which looked upon us the evening before with
+lingering gaze, like a departing friend, as if it would bless the union
+of our souls, and which set like a lost hope?  It shone upon me now, like
+a child which bursts into our room with beaming glance to wish us good
+morning on a joyful holiday.  And was I the same man who, only a few
+hours before, had thrown himself upon his bed, broken in body and spirit?
+Immediately I felt once more the old life-courage and trust in God and
+myself, which quickened and animated my soul like the fresh morning,
+breeze.  What would become of man without sleep?  We know not where this
+nightly messenger leads us; and when he closes our eyes at night who can
+assure us that he will open them again in the morning--that he will bring
+us to ourselves?  It required courage and faith for the first man to
+throw himself into the arms of this unknown friend; and were there not in
+our nature a certain helplessness which forces us to submission, and
+compels us to have faith in all things we are to believe, I doubt whether
+any man, notwithstanding all his weariness, could close his eyes of his
+own free will and enter into this unknown dream-land.  The very
+consciousness of our weakness and our weariness gives us faith in a
+higher power, and courage to resign ourselves to the beautiful system of
+the All, and we feel invigorated and refreshed when, in waking or in
+sleeping, we have loosened, even for a short time only, the chains which
+bind our Eternal Self to our temporal Ego.
+
+What had appeared to me, only yesterday, dark as an evening cloud flying
+overhead, became instantly clear.  We belonged to one another, that I
+felt; be it as brother and sister, father and child, bridegroom and
+bride, we must remain together now and forever.  It only concerned us to
+find the right name for that which we in our stammering speech call Love.
+
+  "Thy elder brother I would be,
+  Thy father--anything to thee."
+
+It was this "anything" for which a name must be found, for the world now
+recognizes nothing as nameless.  She had told me herself that she loved
+me with that pure all-human love, out of which springs all other love.
+Her shuddering, her uneasiness, when I confessed my full love to her,
+were still incomprehensible to me, but it could no longer shatter my
+faith in our love.  Why should we desire to understand all that takes
+place in other human natures, when there is so much that is
+incomprehensible in our own?  After all, it is the inconceivable which
+generally captivates us, whether in nature, in man, or in our own
+breasts.  Men whom we understand, whose motives we see before us like an
+anatomical preparation, leave us cold, like the characters in most of our
+novels.  Nothing spoils our delight in life and men more than this ethic
+rationalism which insists upon clearing up everything, and illuminating
+every mystery of our inner being.  There is in every person a something
+that is inseparable--we call it fate, the suggestive power or
+character--and he knows neither himself nor mankind, who believes that he
+can analyze the deeds and actions of men without taking into account this
+ever-recurring principle.  Thus I consoled myself on all those points
+which had troubled me in the evening; and at last no streak of cloud
+obscured the heaven of the future.
+
+In this frame of mind I stepped out of the close house into the open air,
+when a messenger brought a letter for me.  It was from the Countess, as I
+saw by the beautiful, delicate handwriting.  I breathlessly opened it--I
+looked for the most blissful tidings man can expect.  But all my hopes
+were immediately shattered.  The letter contained only a request not to
+visit her to-day, as she expected a visit at the castle from the Court
+Residence.  No friendly word--no news of her health--only at the close, a
+postscript: "The Hofrath will be here to-morrow and the next day."
+
+Here were two days torn out at once from the book of life.  If they could
+only be completely obliterated--but no, they hang over me like the leaden
+roof of a prison.  They must be lived.  I could not give them away as a
+charity to king or beggar, who would gladly have sat two days longer upon
+his throne, or on his stone at the church door.  I remained in this
+abstraction for a long time; but then I thought of my morning prayer, and
+how I said to myself there was no greater unbelief than despondency--how
+the smallest and greatest in life are part of one great divine plan, to
+which we must submit, however hard it may be.  Like a rider who sees a
+precipice before him, I drew in the reins.  "Be it so, since it must be!"
+I cried out; "but God's earth is not the place for complaints and
+lamentations.  Is it not a happiness to hold in my hand these lines which
+she has written? and is not the hope of seeing her again in a short time
+a greater bliss than I have ever deserved?  'Always keep the head above
+water,' say all good life-swimmers.  As well sink at once as allow the
+water to run into your eyes and throat."  If it is hard for us, amid
+these little ills of life, to keep God's providence continually in view,
+and if we hesitate, perhaps rightly, in every struggle, to step out of
+the common-places of life into the presence of the divine, then life
+ought to appear, to us at least, an art, if not a duty.  What is more
+disagreeable than the child who behaves ungovernably and grows dejected
+and angry at every little loss and pain?  On the other hand, nothing is
+more beautiful than the child in whose tearful eyes the sunshine of joy
+and innocence soon beams again, like the flower, which quivers and
+trembles in the spring shower, and soon after blossoms and exhales its
+fragrance, as the sun dries the tears upon its cheeks.
+
+A good thought speedily occurred to me, that I could live both these days
+with her, notwithstanding fate.  For a long time I had intended to write
+down the dear words she had said, and the many beautiful thoughts she had
+confided to me; and so the days passed away in memory of the many
+charming hours spent, together, and in the hope of a still more beautiful
+future, and I was by her and with her, and lived in her, and felt the
+nearness of her spirit and her love more than I had ever felt them when I
+held her hand in mine.
+
+How dear to me now are these leaves!  How often have I read and re-read
+them--not that I had forgotten one word she said, but they were the
+witnesses of my happiness, and something looked out of them upon me like
+the gaze of a friend, whose silence speaks more than words.  The memory
+of a past happiness, the memory of a past sorrow, the silent meditation
+upon the past, when everything disappears that surrounds and restrains
+us, when the soul throws itself down, like a mother upon the green
+grave-mound of her child who has slept under it many long years, when no
+hope, no desire, disturbs the silence of peaceful resignation, we may
+well call sadness, but there is a rapture in this sadness which only
+those know who have loved and suffered much.  Ask the mother what she
+feels when she ties upon the head of her daughter the veil _she_ once
+wore as a bride, and thinks of the husband no longer with her!  Ask a man
+what he feels when the maiden whom he has loved, and the world has torn
+from him, sends him after death the dried rose which he gave her in
+youth!  They may both weep, but their tears are not tears of sorrow, but
+tears of joy; tears of sacrifice, with which man consecrates himself to
+the Divine, and with faith in God's love and wisdom, looks upon the
+dearest he has passing away from him.
+
+Still let us go back in memory, back in the living presence of the past.
+The two days flew so swiftly that I was agitated, as the happiness of
+seeing her again drew nearer and nearer.  As the carriages and horsemen
+arrived on the first day from the city, I saw that the castle was alive
+with gaily-dressed visitors.  Banners fluttered from the roof, music
+sounded through the castle-yard.  In the evening, the lake swarmed with
+pleasure-boats.  The moennerchors sounded over the waves, and I could not
+but listen, for I fancied she also listened to these songs from the
+window.  Everything was stirring, also, on the second day, and early in
+the afternoon the guests prepared for departure.  Late in the evening I
+saw the Hofrath's carriage also going back alone to the city.  I could
+not restrain myself any longer, I knew she was alone.  I knew she thought
+of me, and longed for me.  Should I allow one night to pass without at
+least pressing her hand, without saying to her that the separation was
+over, that the next morning would waken us to new rapture.  I still saw a
+light in her window--why should she be alone?  Why should I not, for one
+moment at least, feel her sweet presence?  Already I stood at the castle;
+already I was about to pull the bell--then suddenly I stopped and said:
+"No! no weakness!  You should be ashamed to stand before her like a thief
+in the night.  Early in the morning go to her like a hero, returning from
+battle, for whom she is now weaving the crown of love, which she will
+place upon thy head in the morning."
+
+And the morning came--and I was with her, really with her.  Oh, speak not
+of the spirit as if it could exist without the body.  Complete existence,
+consciousness, and enjoyment, can only be where body and soul are one--an
+embodied spirit, a spiritualized body.  There is no spirit without body,
+else it would be a ghost: there is no body without spirit, else it would
+be a corpse.  Is the flower in the field without spirit? Does it not
+appear in a divine will, in a creative thought which preserves it, and
+gives it life and existence?  That is its soul--only it is silent in the
+flower, while it manifests itself in man by words.  Real life is, after
+all, the bodily and spiritual life; real consciousness is, after all, the
+bodily and spiritual consciousness; real being together is, after all,
+bodily and spiritually being together, and the whole world of memory in
+which I had lived so happily for two days, disappeared like a shadow,
+like a nonentity, as I stood before her, and was really with her.  I
+could have laid my hands upon her brow, her eyes, and her cheeks, to
+know, to unmistakably know, if it were really she--not only the image
+which had hovered before my soul day and night, but a being who was not
+mine, and still could and would be mine; a being in whom I could believe
+as in myself; a being far from me and yet nearer to me than my own self;
+a being without whom my life was no life, death was no death; without
+whom my poor existence would dissolve into infinity like a sigh.  I felt,
+as my thoughts and glances rested upon her, that now, in this very
+instant, the happiness of my existence was complete--and a shudder crept
+over me as I thought of death--but it seemed no longer to have any terror
+for me; for death could not destroy this love; it would only purify;
+ennoble, and immortalize it.
+
+It was so beautiful to be silent with her.  The whole depth of her soul
+was reflected in her countenance, and as I looked upon her I saw and
+heard her every thought and emotion.  "You make me sad," she seemed on
+the point of saying, and yet would not, "Are we not together again at
+last?  Be quiet!  Complain not!  Ask not!  Speak not!  Be welcome to me!
+Be not bad to me!"  All this looked from her eyes, and still we did not
+venture to disturb the peace of our happiness with a word.
+
+"Have you received a letter from the Hofrath?" was the first question,
+and her voice trembled with each word.
+
+"No," I replied.
+
+She was silent for a time, and then said:
+
+"Perhaps it is better it has happened thus, and that I can tell you
+everything myself.  My friend, we see each other to-day for the last
+time.  Let us part in peace, without complaint and without anger.  I feel
+that I have done you a great wrong.  I have intruded upon your life
+without thinking that even a light breath often withers a flower.  I know
+so little of the world that I did not believe a poor suffering being like
+myself could inspire anything but pity.  I welcome you in a frank and
+friendly way because I had known you so long, because I felt so well in
+your presence--why should I not tell all?--because I loved you.  But the
+world does not understand or tolerate this love.  The Hofrath has opened
+my eyes.  The whole city is talking about us.  My brother, the Regent,
+has written to the Prince, and he requests me never to see you again.  I
+deeply regret that I have caused you this sorrow.  Tell me you forgive
+me--and then let us separate as friends."
+
+Her eyes had filled with tears, and she closed them that I should not see
+her weeping.
+
+"Marie," said I, "for me there is but one life which is with you; but for
+you there is one will which is your own.  Yes, I confess, I love you with
+the whole fire of love, but I feel I am not worthily yours.  You stand
+far above me in nobility, sublimity and purity, and I can scarcely
+understand the thought of ever calling you my wife.  And, yet, there is
+no other road on which we could travel through life together.  Marie, you
+are wholly free; I ask for no sacrifice.  The world is great, and if you
+wish it, we shall never see each other again.  But if you love me, if you
+feel you are mine, oh, then, let us forget the world and its cold
+verdict.  In my arms I will bear you to the altar, and on my knees I will
+swear to be yours in life and in death."
+
+"My friend," said she, "we must never wish for the impossible.  Had it
+been God's will that such a tie should unite us in this life, would He,
+forsooth, have imposed these burdens upon me which make me incapable of
+being else than a helpless child?  Do not forget that what we call Fate,
+Circumstance, Relations, in life, is in reality only the work of
+Providence.  To resist it is to resist God himself, and were it not so
+childish one might call it presumptuous.  Men wander on earth like the
+stars in heaven.  God has indicated the paths upon which they meet, and
+if they are to separate, they must.  Resistance were useless, otherwise
+it would destroy the whole system of the world.  We cannot understand it,
+but we can submit to it.  I cannot myself understand why my inclination
+towards you was wrong.  No!  I cannot, will not call it wrong.  But it
+cannot be, it is not to be.  My friend, this is enough--we must submit in
+humility and faith."
+
+Notwithstanding the calmness with which she spoke, I saw how deeply she
+suffered; and yet I thought it wrong to surrender so quickly in this
+battle of life.  I restrained myself as much as I could, so that no
+passionate word should increase her trouble, and said:
+
+"If this is the last time we are to meet in this life, let us see clearly
+to whom we offer this sacrifice.  If our love violated any higher law
+whatsoever, I would, as you say, bow myself in humility.  It were a
+forgetfulness of God to oppose one's self to a higher will.  It may seem
+at times as if men could delude God, as if their small sense had gained
+some advantage over the Divine wisdom.  This is frenzy--and the man who
+commences this Titanic battle; will be crushed and annihilated.  But what
+opposes our love? Nothing but the talk of the world.  I respect the
+customs of human society.  I even respect them when, as in our time, they
+are over-refined and confused.  A sick body needs artificial medicines,
+and without the barriers, the respect and the prejudices of society, at
+which we smile, it were impossible to hold mankind together as at present
+existing, and to accomplish the purpose of our temporal co-existence.  We
+must sacrifice much to these divinities.  Like the Athenians, we send
+every year a heavy boatload of youths and maidens as tribute to this
+monster which rules the labyrinth of our society.  There is no longer a
+heart that has not broken; there is no longer a man of true feelings who
+has not been obliged to break the wings of his love before he came into
+the cage of society for rest.  It must be so.  It cannot be otherwise.
+You know not life, but thinking only of my friends, I can tell you many
+volumes of tragedy.
+
+"One loved a maiden, and the love was returned; but he was poor, she was
+rich.  The fathers and relatives wrangled and sneered, and two hearts
+were broken.  Why?  Because the world looked upon it as a misfortune for
+a woman to wear a dress made of the wool of a shrub in America, and not
+of the fibres of a worm in China.
+
+"Another loved a maiden, and was loved in return; but he was a
+Protestant, she was a Catholic.  The mothers and the priests bred
+mischief, and two hearts were broken.  Why?  On account of a political
+game of chess which Charles V and Henry VIII played together, three
+hundred years ago.
+
+"A third loved a maiden, and was loved in return; but he was a noble, she
+a peasant.  The sisters were angry, and quarreled, and two hearts were
+broken.  Why?  Because, a hundred years ago, one soldier slew another in
+battle, who threatened the life of his king.  This gave him title and
+honors, and his great grandson expiated the blood shed at that time, with
+a disappointed life.
+
+"The statisticians say a heart is broken every hour, and I believe it.
+But why?  In almost every case, because the world does not recognize love
+between 'strange people,' unless it be between man and wife.  If two
+maidens love the same man--the one must fall as a sacrifice.  If two men
+love the same maiden, one or both must fall as a sacrifice.  Why?  Cannot
+one love a maiden, without wishing to marry her?  Cannot one look upon a
+woman, without desiring her for his own?  You close your eyes, and I feel
+I have said too much.  The world has changed the most sacred things in
+life into the most common.  But, Marie, enough!  Let us talk the language
+of the world when we must talk, and act in it, and with it.  But let us
+preserve a sanctuary where two hearts can speak the pure language of the
+heart, undisturbed by the raging of the world without.  The world itself
+honors this seclusion, this courageous resistance, which noble hearts,
+conscious of their own rectitude, oppose to the ordinary course of
+things.  The attentions, the amenities, the prejudices of the world are
+like a climbing plant.  It is pleasant to see an ivy, with its thousand
+tendrils and roots, decorating the solid wall-work; but it should not be
+allowed too luxuriant growth, else it will penetrate every crevice of the
+structure, and destroy the cement which welds it together.  Be mine,
+Marie; follow the voice of your heart.  The word which now hangs upon
+your lips decides forever your life and mine--my happiness and yours."
+
+I was silent.  The hand I held in mine returned the warm pressure of the
+heart.  A storm raged in her breast, and the blue heaven before me never
+seemed so beautiful as now, while the storm swept by, cloud upon cloud.
+
+"Why do you love me?" said she, gently, as if she must still delay the
+moment of decision.
+
+"Why, Marie?  Ask the child why it is born; ask the flower why it
+blossoms; ask the sun why it shines.  I love you because I must love you.
+But if I am compelled to answer further, let this book, lying by you,
+which you love so much, speak for me:
+
+
+["Das beste solte das liebste sin, und in diser libe solte nicht
+angesehen werden nuss und unnuss, fromen oder schaden, gewin oder
+vorlust, ere oder unere, lob oder unlob oder diser keins, sunder was in
+der warheit das edelste und das aller beste ist, das solt auch das
+allerliebste sin, und umb nichts anders dan allein umb das, das es das
+edelst und das beste ist.  Hie nach mocht ein mensche sin leben gerichten
+von ussen und von innen.  Von ussen: wan under den creaturen ist eins
+besser dan das ander, dar nach dan das ewig gut in einem mer oder minner
+schinet und wurket dan in dem andern.  In welchem nun das ewig gut aller
+meist schinet, luchtet, wurket und bekant und geliebet wirt, das ist ouch
+das beste under den creaturen; und in welchem dis minst ist, das ist ouch
+das aller minst gut.  So nu der mensche die creatur handelt und da mit
+umb get, und disen underscheit bekennet, so sol im ie die beste creatur
+die liebste sin und sol sich mit flis zu ir halden und sich da mit
+voreinigen. . ."]
+
+
+"The best should be the most loved, and in this love there should be no
+consideration of advantage or disadvantage, gain or loss, honor or
+dishonor, praise or blame, or anything else, but of that which in reality
+is the noblest and best, which should be the dearest of all; and for no
+other reason, but because it is the noblest and best.  According to this
+a man should plan his inner and outer life.  From without: if among
+mankind there is one better than another, in proportion as the eternally
+good shines or works more in one than in another.  That being in whom the
+eternally good shines, works, is known and loved most, is therefore the
+best among mankind; and in whom this is most, there is also the most
+good.  As now a man has intercourse with a being, and apprehends this
+distinction, then the best being should be the dearest to him, and he
+should fervently cling to it, and unite himself with it. . . . . ."
+
+
+"Because you are the most perfect creature that I know, Marie, therefore
+I am good to you, therefore you are dear to me, therefore we love each
+other.  Speak the word which lives in you, say that you are mine.  Deny
+not your innermost convictions.  God has imposed a life of suffering upon
+you.  He sent me to bear it with you.  Your sorrow shall be my sorrow,
+and we will bear it together, as the ship bears the heavy sails which
+guide it through the storms of life into the safe haven at last."
+
+She grew more and more silent, A gentle flush played upon her cheeks like
+the quiet evening gleam.  Then she opened her eyes full--the sun gleamed
+all at once with marvellous lustre.
+
+"I am yours," said she.  "God wills it.  Take me just as I am; so long as
+I live I am yours, and may God bring us together again in a more
+beautiful life, and recompense your love."
+
+We lay heart to heart.  My lips closed the lips upon which had just now
+hung the blessing of my life, with a gentle kiss.  Time stood still for
+us.  The world about us disappeared.  Then a deep sigh escaped from her
+breast.  "May God forgive me for this rapture," she whispered.  "Leave me
+alone now, I cannot endure more.  _Auf wiedersehen_!  my friend, my loved
+one, my savior."
+
+These were the last words I ever heard from her.  But no--I had reached
+home and was lying upon my bed in troubled dreams.  It was past midnight
+when the Hofrath entered my room.  "Our angel is in Heaven," said he;
+"here is the last greeting she sends you."  With these words he gave me a
+letter.  It enclosed the ring which she had given me, and I once had
+given her, with the words: "_As God wills_."  It was wrapped in an old
+paper, whereon she had some time written the words I spoke to her when a
+child: "What is thine, is mine.  Thy Marie."
+
+Hours long, we sat together without speaking.  It was a spiritual swoon
+which Heaven sends us when the load of pain becomes greater than we can
+bear.  At last the old man arose, took my hand and said: "We see each
+other to-day for the last time, for you must leave here, and my days are
+numbered.  There is but one thing I must say to you--a secret which I
+have carried all my life, and confessed to no one.  I have always longed
+to confess it to some one.  Listen to me.  The spirit which has left us
+was a beautiful spirit, a majestic, pure soul, a deep, true heart.  I
+knew one spirit as beautiful as hers--still more beautiful.  It was her
+mother.  I loved her mother, and she loved me.  We were both poor, and I
+struggled with life to obtain an honorable position both on her account
+and my own.  The young Prince saw my bride and loved her.  He was my
+Prince; he loved her ardently.  He was ready to make any sacrifice and to
+elevate her, the poor orphan, to the rank of Princess.  I loved her so
+that I sacrificed the happiness of my love for her.  I forsook my native
+land and wrote her I would release her from her vow.  I never saw her
+again, except on her death-bed.  She died in giving birth to her first
+daughter.  Now you know why I loved your Marie, and prolonged her life
+from day to day.  She was the only being that linked my heart to this
+life.  Bear life as I have borne it.  Lose not a day in useless
+lamentation.  Help mankind whenever you can.  Love them and thank God
+that you have seen and known and loved on this earth such a human heart
+as hers--and that you have lost it."
+
+"_As God will_." said I, and we parted for life.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+And days and weeks and months and years have flown.  Home is a stranger
+to me, and a foreign land is my home.  But her love remains with me, and
+as a tear drops into the ocean, so has her love dropped into the living
+ocean of humanity and pervades and embraces millions--millions of the
+"strange people" whom I have so loved from childhood.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Only on quiet summer days like this, when one in the green woods has
+nature alone at heart, and knows not whether there are human beings.
+without, or he is living entirely alone in the world, then there is a
+stir in the graveyard of memory, the dead thoughts, rise again, the full
+omnipotence of love returns to the heart and streams out from that
+beautiful being who once looked upon me with her deep unfathomable eyes.
+Then it seems as if the love for the millions were lost in the love for
+the one, my good angel, and my thoughts are dumb in the presence of the
+incomprehensible enigma of endless and everlasting love.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14521 ***
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+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
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+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #14521 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14521)
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Memories, by Max Muller, Translated by George
+P. Upton
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Memories
+
+Author: Max Muller
+
+Release Date: December 29, 2004  [eBook #14521]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMORIES***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Al Haines, with thanks to David Bridson for checking
+the German text
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:  This book contains several brief passages in German,
+                     each of which is followed by an English translation.
+                     Several of the German words contain "o-umlaut",
+                     which has been rendered as "oe".  Several others
+                     contain the German "Eszett" character, which has
+                     been rendered as "ss".
+
+
+
+
+MEMORIES
+
+A Story of German Love
+
+Translated from the German of
+
+MAX MULLER
+
+by
+
+George P. Upton
+
+Chicago
+A. C. McClurg & Co.
+
+1902
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+  TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
+  AUTHOR'S PREFACE
+  FIRST MEMORY
+  SECOND MEMORY
+  THIRD MEMORY
+  FOURTH MEMORY
+  FIFTH MEMORY
+  SIXTH MEMORY
+  SEVENTH MEMORY
+  LAST MEMORY
+
+
+
+TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
+
+The translation of any work is at best a difficult task, and must
+inevitably be prejudicial to whatever of beauty the original possesses.
+When the principal charm of the original lies in its elegant
+simplicity, as in the case of the "Deutsche Liebe," the difficulty is
+still further enhanced.  The translator has sought to reproduce the
+simple German in equally simple English, even at the risk of
+transferring German idioms into the English text.
+
+The story speaks for itself.  Without plot, incidents or situations, it
+is nevertheless dramatically constructed, unflagging in interest,
+abounding in beauty, grace and pathos, and filled with the tenderest
+feeling of sympathy, which will go straight to the heart of every lover
+of the ideal in the world of humanity, and every worshipper in the
+world of nature.  Its brief essays upon theology, literature and social
+habits, contained in the dialogues between the hero and the heroine,
+will commend themselves to the thoughtful reader by their clearness and
+beauty of statement, as well as by their freedom from prejudice.
+"Deutsche Liebe" is a poem in prose, whose setting is all the more
+beautiful and tender, in that it is freed from the bondage of metre,
+and has been the unacknowledged source of many a poet's most striking
+utterances.
+
+As such, the translator gives it to the public, confident that it will
+find ready acceptance among those who cherish the ideal, and a tender
+welcome by every lover of humanity.
+
+The translator desires to make acknowledgments to J. J. Lalor, Esq.,
+late of the Chicago _Tribune_ for his hearty co-operation in the
+progress of the work, and many valuable suggestions; to Prof. Feuling,
+the eminent philologist, of the University of Wisconsin, for his
+literal version of the extracts from the "Deutsche Theologie," which
+preserve the quaintness of the original, and to Mrs. F. M. Brown, for
+her metrical version of Goethe's almost untranslatable lines, "Ueber
+allen Gipfeln, ist Ruh," which form the keynote of the beautiful
+harmony in the character of the heroine.
+
+  G.P.U.
+  Chicago, November, 1874.
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
+
+Who has not, at some period of his life, seated himself at a
+writing-table, where, only a short time before, another sat, who now
+rests in the grave?  Who has not opened the drawers, which for long
+years have hidden the secrets of a heart now buried in the holy peace
+of the church-yard?  Here lie the letters which were so precious to
+him, the beloved one; here the pictures, ribbons, and books with marks
+on every leaf.  Who can now read and interpret them?  Who can gather
+again the withered and scattered leaves of this rose, and vivify them
+with fresh perfume?  The flames, in which the Greeks enveloped the
+bodies of the departed for the purpose of destruction; the flames, into
+which the ancients cast everything once dearest to the living, are now
+the securest repository for these relics.  With trembling fear the
+surviving friend reads the leaves no eye has ever seen, save those now
+so firmly closed, and if, after a glance, too hasty even to read them,
+he is convinced these letters and leaves contain nothing which men deem
+important, he throws them quickly upon the glowing coals--a flash and
+they are gone.
+
+From such flames the following leaves have been saved.  They were at
+first intended only for the friends of the deceased, yet they have
+found friends even among strangers, and, since it is so to be, may
+wander anew in distant lands.  Gladly would the compiler have furnished
+more, but the leaves are too much scattered and mutilated to be
+rearranged and given complete.
+
+
+
+
+FIRST MEMORY.
+
+Childhood has its secrets and its mysteries; but who can tell or who
+can explain them!  We have all roamed through this silent
+wonder-wood--we have all once opened our eyes in blissful astonishment,
+as the beautiful reality of life overflowed our souls.  We knew not
+where, or who, we were--the whole world was ours and we were the whole
+world's.  That was an infinite life--without beginning and without end,
+without rest and without pain.  In the heart, it was as clear as the
+spring heavens, fresh as the violet's perfume--hushed and holy as a
+Sabbath morning.
+
+What disturbs this God's-peace of the child?  How can this unconscious
+and innocent existence ever cease?  What dissipates the rapture of this
+individuality and universality, and suddenly leaves us solitary and
+alone in a clouded life?
+
+Say not, with serious face.  It is sin!  Can even a child sin?  Say
+rather, we know not, and must only resign ourselves to it.
+
+Is it sin, which makes the bud a blossom, and the blossom fruit, and
+the fruit dust?
+
+Is it sin, which makes the worm a chrysalis, and the chrysalis a
+butterfly, and the butterfly dust?
+
+And is it sin, which makes the child a man, and the man a gray-haired
+man, and the gray-haired man dust?  And what is dust?
+
+Say rather, we know not, and must only resign ourselves to it.
+
+Yet it is so beautiful, recalling the spring-time of life, to look back
+and remember one's self.  Yes, even in the sultry summer, in the
+melancholy autumn and in the cold winter of life, there is here and
+there a spring day, and the heart says: "I feel like spring."  Such a
+day is this--and so I lay me down upon the soft moss of the fragrant
+woods, and stretch out my weary limbs, and look up, through the green
+foliage, into the boundless blue, and think how it used to be in that
+childhood.
+
+Then, all seems forgotten.  The first pages of memory are like the old
+family Bible.  The first leaves are wholly faded and somewhat soiled
+with handling.  But, when we turn further, and come to the chapters
+where Adam and Eve were banished from Paradise, then, all begins to
+grow clear and legible.  Now if we could only find the title-page with
+the imprint and date--but that is irrevocably lost, and, in their
+place, we find only the clear transcript--our baptismal
+certificate--bearing witness when we were born, the names of our
+parents and godparents, and that we were not issued _sine loco et anno_.
+
+But, oh this beginning!  Would there were none, since, with the
+beginning, all thought and memories alike cease.  When we thus dream
+back into childhood, and from childhood into infinity, this bad
+beginning continually flies further away.  The thoughts pursue it and
+never overtake it; just as a child seeks the spot where the blue sky
+touches the earth, and runs and runs, while the sky always runs before
+it, yet still touches the earth--but the child grows weary and never
+reaches the spot.
+
+But even since we were once there--wherever it may be, where we had a
+beginning, what do we know now?  For memory shakes itself like the
+spaniel, just come out of the waves, while the water runs in, his eyes
+and he looks very strangely.
+
+I believe I can even yet remember when I saw the stars for the first
+time.  They may have seen me often before, but one evening it seemed as
+if it were cold.  Although I lay in my mother's lap, I shivered and was
+chilly, or I was frightened.  In short, something came over me which
+reminded me of my little Ego in no ordinary manner.  Then my mother
+showed me the bright stars, and I wondered at them, and thought that
+she had made them very beautifully.  Then I felt warm again, and could
+sleep well.
+
+Furthermore, I remember how I once lay in the grass and everything
+about me tossed and nodded, hummed and buzzed.  Then there came a great
+swarm of little, myriad-footed, winged creatures, which lit upon my
+forehead and eyes and said, "Good day."  Immediately my eyes smarted,
+and I cried to my mother, and she said: "Poor little one, how the gnats
+have stung him!"  I could not open my eyes or see the blue sky any
+longer, but my mother had a bunch of fresh violets in her hand, and it
+seemed as if a dark-blue, fresh, spicy perfume were wafted through my
+senses.  Even now, whenever I see the first violets, I remember this,
+and it seems to me that I must close my eyes so that the old dark-blue
+heaven of that day may again rise over my soul.
+
+Still further do I remember, how, at another time, a new world
+disclosed itself to me--more beautiful than the star-world or the
+violet perfume.  It was on an Easter morning, and my mother had dressed
+me early.  Before the window stood our old church.  It was not
+beautiful, but still it had a lofty roof and tower, and on the tower a
+golden cross, and it appeared very much older and grayer than the other
+buildings.  I wondered who lived in it, and once I looked in through
+the iron-grated door.  It was entirely empty, cold and dismal.  There
+was not even one soul in the whole building, and after that I always
+shuddered when I passed the door.  But on this Easter morning, it had
+rained early, and when the sun came out in full splendor, the old
+church with the gray sloping roof, the high windows and the tower with
+the golden cross glistened with a wondrous shimmer.  All at once the
+light which streamed through the lofty windows began to move and
+glisten.  It was so intensely bright that one could have looked within,
+and as I closed my eyes the light entered my soul and therein
+everything seemed to shed brilliancy and perfume, to sing and to ring.
+It seemed to me a new life had commenced in myself and that I was
+another being, and when I asked my mother what it meant, she replied it
+was an Easter song they were singing in the church.  What bright, holy
+song it was, which at that time surged through my soul, I have never
+been able to discover.  It must have been an old church hymn, like
+those which many a time stirred the rugged soul of our Luther.  I never
+heard it again, but many a time even now when I hear an adagio of
+Beethoven's, or a psalm of Marcellus, or a chorus of Handel's, or a
+simple song in the Scotch Highlands or the Tyrol, it seems to me as if
+the lofty church windows again glistened and the organ-tones once more
+surged through my soul, and a new world revealed itself--more beautiful
+than the starry heavens and the violet perfume.
+
+These things I remember in my earliest childhood, and intermingled with
+them are my dear mother's looks, the calm, earnest gaze of my father,
+gardens and vine leaves, and soft green turf, and a very old and quaint
+picture-book--and this is all I can recall of the first scattered
+leaves of my childhood.
+
+Afterwards it grows brighter and clearer.  Names and faces appear--not
+only father and mother, but brothers and sisters, friends and teachers,
+and a multitude of _strange people_.  Ah! yes, of these _strange
+people_ there is so much recorded in memory.
+
+
+
+
+SECOND MEMORY.
+
+Not far from our house, and opposite the old church with the golden
+cross, stood a large building, even larger than the church, and having
+many towers.  They looked exceedingly gray and old and had no golden
+cross, but stone eagles tipped the summits and a great white and blue
+banner fluttered from the highest tower, directly over the lofty
+doorway at the top of the steps, where, on either side, two mounted
+soldiers stood sentinels.  The building had many windows, and behind
+the windows you could distinguish red-silk curtains with golden
+tassels.  Old lindens encircled the grounds, which, in summer,
+overshadowed the gray masonry with their green leaves and bestrewed the
+turf with their fragrant white blossoms.  I had often looked in there,
+and at evening when the lindens exhaled their perfumes and the windows
+were illuminated, I saw many figures pass and repass like shadows.
+Music swept down from on high, and carriages drove up, from which
+ladies and gentlemen alighted and ascended the stairs.  They all looked
+so beautiful and good!  The gentlemen had stars upon their breasts, and
+the ladies wore fresh flowers in their hair; and I often thought,--Why
+do I not go there too?
+
+One day my father took me by the hand and said: "We are going to the
+castle; but you must be very polite if the Princess speaks to you, and
+kiss her hand."
+
+I was about six years of age and as delighted as only one can be at six
+years of age.  I had already indulged in many quiet fancies about the
+shadows which I had seen evenings through the lighted windows, and had
+heard many good things at home of the beneficence of the Prince and
+Princess; how gracious they were; how much help and consolation they
+brought to the poor and sick; and that they had been chosen by the
+grace of God to protect the good and punish the bad.  I had long
+pictured to myself what transpired in the castle, so that the Prince
+and Princess were already old acquaintances whom I knew as well as my
+nut-crackers and leaden soldiers.
+
+My heart beat quickly as I ascended the high stairs with my father, and
+just as he was telling me I must call the Princess "Highness," and the
+Prince "Serene Highness," the folding-door opened and I saw before me a
+tall figure with brilliantly piercing eyes.  She seemed to advance and
+stretch out her hand to me.  There was an expression on her countenance
+which I had long known, and a heavenly smile played about her cheeks.
+I could restrain myself no longer, and while my father stood at the
+door bowing very low--I knew not why--my heart sprang into my throat.
+I ran to the beautiful lady, threw my arms round her neck and kissed
+her as I would my mother.  The beautiful, majestic lady willingly
+submitted, stroked my hair and smiled; but my father took my hand, led
+me away, and said I was very rude, and that he should never take me
+there again.  I grew utterly bewildered.  The blood mounted to my
+cheeks, for I felt that my father had been unjust to me.  I looked at
+the Princess as if she ought to shield me, but upon her face was only
+an expression of mild earnestness.  Then I looked round upon the ladies
+and gentlemen assembled in the room, believing that they would come to
+my defense.  But as I looked, I saw that they were laughing.  Then the
+tears sprang into my eyes, and out of the door, down the stairs, and
+past the lindens in the castle yard, I rushed home, where I threw
+myself into my mother's arms and sobbed and wept.
+
+"What has happened to you?" said she.
+
+"Oh! mother!" I cried; "I was at the Princess', and she was such a good
+and beautiful woman, just like you, dear mother, that I had to throw my
+arms round her neck and kiss her."
+
+"Ah!" said my mother; "you should not have done that, for they are
+strangers and high dignitaries."
+
+"And what then are strangers?" said I.
+
+"May I not love all people who look upon me with affectionate and
+friendly eyes?"
+
+"You can love them, my son," replied my mother, "but you should not
+show it."
+
+"Is it then something wrong for me to love people?" said I.  "Why
+cannot I show it?"
+
+"Well, perhaps you are right," said she, "but you must do as your
+father says, and when you are older you will understand why you cannot
+embrace every woman who regards you with affectionate and friendly
+eyes."
+
+That was a sad day.  Father came home, agreed I had been very uncivil.
+At night my mother put me to bed, and I prayed, but I could not sleep,
+and kept wondering what these strange people were, whom one must not
+love.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Thou poor human heart!  So soon in the spring are thy leaves broken and
+the feathers torn from the wings!  When the spring-red of life opens
+the hidden calyx of the soul, it perfumes our whole being with love.
+We learn to stand and to walk, to speak and to read, but no one teaches
+us love.  It is inherent in us like life, they say, and is the very
+deepest foundation of our existence.  As the heavenly bodies incline to
+and attract each other, and will always cling together by the
+everlasting law of gravitation, so heavenly souls incline to and
+attract each other, and will always cling together by the everlasting
+law of love.  A flower cannot blossom without sunshine, and man cannot
+live without love.  Would not the child's heart break in despair when
+the first cold storm of the world sweeps over it, if the warm sunlight
+of love from the eyes of mother and father did not shine upon him like
+the soft reflection of divine light and love?  The ardent yearning,
+which then awakes in the child, is the purest and deepest love.  It is
+the love which embraces the whole world; which shines resplendent
+wherever the eyes of men beam upon it, which exults wherever it hears
+the human voice.  It is the old, immeasurable love, a deep well which
+no plummet has ever sounded; a fountain of perennial richness.  Whoever
+knows it also knows that in love there is no More and no Less; but that
+he who loves can only love with the whole heart, and with the whole
+soul; with all his strength and with all his will.
+
+But, alas, how little remains of this love by the time we have finished
+one-half of our life-journey!  Soon the child learns that there are
+strangers, and ceases to be a child.  The spring of love becomes hidden
+and soon filled up.  Our eyes gleam no more, and heavy-hearted we pass
+one another in the bustling streets.  We scarcely greet each other, for
+we know how sharply it cuts the soul when a greeting remains
+unanswered, and how sad it is to be sundered from those whom we have
+once greeted, and whose hands we have clasped.  The wings of the soul
+lose their plumes; the leaves of the flower fast fall off and wither;
+and of this fountain of love there remain but a few drops.  We still
+call these few drops love, but it is no longer the clear, fresh,
+all-abounding child-love.  It is love with anxiety and trouble, a
+consuming flame, a burning passion; love which wastes itself like
+rain-drops upon the hot sand; love which is a longing, not a sacrifice;
+love which says "Wilt thou be mine," not love which says, "I must be
+thine."  It is a most selfish, vacillating love.  And this is the love
+which poets sing and in which young men and maidens believe; a fire
+which burns up and down, yet does not warm, and leaves nothing behind
+but smoke and ashes.  All of us at some period of life have believed
+that these rockets of sunbeams were everlasting love, but the brighter
+the glitter, the darker the night which follows.
+
+And then when all around grows dark, when we feel utterly alone, when
+all men right and left pass us by and know us not, a forgotten feeling
+rises in the breast.  We know not what it is, for it is neither love
+nor friendship.  You feel like crying to him who passes you so cold and
+strange: "Dost thou not know me?"  Then one realizes that man is nearer
+to man than brother to brother, father to son, or friend to friend.
+How an old, holy saying rings through our souls, that strangers are
+nearest to us.  Why must we pass them in silence?  We know not, but
+must resign ourselves to it.  When two trains are rushing by upon the
+iron rails and thou seest a well-known eye that would recognize thee,
+stretch out thy hand and try to grasp the hand of a friend, and perhaps
+thou wilt understand why man passes man in silence here below.
+
+An old sage says: "I saw the fragments of a wrecked boat floating on
+the sea.  Only a few meet and hold together a long time.  Then comes a
+storm and drives them east and west, and here below they will never
+meet again.  So it is with mankind.  Yet no one has seen the great
+shipwreck."
+
+
+
+
+THIRD MEMORY.
+
+The clouds in the sky of childhood do not last long, and disappear
+after a short, warm tear-rain.  I was shortly again at the castle, and
+the Princess gave me her hand to kiss and then brought her children,
+the young princes and princesses, and we played together, as if we had
+known each other for years.  Those were happy days when, after
+school--for I was now attending school--I could go to the castle and
+play.  We had everything the heart could wish.  I found playthings
+there which my mother had shown me in the shop-windows, and which were
+so dear, she told me, that poor people could live a whole week on what
+they cost.  When I begged the Princess' permission to take them home
+and show them to my mother, she was perfectly willing.  I could turn
+over and over and look for hours at a time at beautiful picture books,
+which I had seen in the book stores with my father, but which were made
+only for very good children.  Everything which belonged to the young
+princes belonged also to me--so I thought, at least.  Furthermore, I
+was not only allowed to carry away what I wished, but I often gave away
+the playthings to other children.  In short, I was a young Communist,
+in the full sense of the term.  I remember at one time the Princess had
+a golden snake which coiled itself around her arm as if it were alive,
+and she gave it to us for a plaything.  As I was going home I put the
+snake on my arm and thought I would give my mother a real fright with
+it.  On the way, however, I met a woman who noticed the snake and
+begged me to show it to her; and then she said if she could only keep
+the golden snake, she could release her husband from prison with it.
+Naturally I did not stop to think for a minute, but ran away and left
+the woman alone with the golden serpent-bracelet.  The next day there
+was much excitement.  The poor woman was brought to the castle and the
+people said she had stolen it.  Thereupon I grew very angry and
+explained with holy zeal that I had given her the bracelet and that I
+would not take it back again.  What further occurred I know not, but I
+remember that after that time, I showed the Princess everything I took
+home with me.
+
+It was a long time before my conceptions of Meum and Tuum were fully
+settled, and at a very late period they were at times confused, just as
+it was a long time before I could distinguish between the blue and red
+colors.  The last time I remember my friends laughing at me on this
+account was when my mother gave me some money to buy apples.  She gave
+me a groschen.  The apples cost only a sechser, and when I gave the
+woman the groschen, she said, very sadly as it seemed to me, that she
+had sold nothing the whole livelong day and could not give me back a
+sechser.  She wished I would buy a groschen's worth.  Then it occurred
+to me that I also had a sechser in my pocket, and thoroughly delighted
+that I had solved the difficult problem, I gave it to the woman and
+said: "Now you can give me back a sechser."  She understood me so
+little however that she gave me back the groschen and kept the sechser.
+
+At this time, while I was making almost daily visits to the young
+princes at the castle, both to play as well as to study French with
+them, another image comes up in my memory.  It was the daughter of the
+Princess, the Countess Marie.  The mother died shortly after the birth
+of the child and the Prince subsequently married a second time.  I know
+not when I saw her for the first time.  She emerges from the darkness
+of memory slowly and gradually--at first like an airy shadow which
+grows more and more distinct as it approaches nearer and nearer, at
+last standing before my soul like the moon, which on some stormy night
+throws back the cloud-veils from across its face.  She was always sick
+and suffering and silent, and I never saw her except reclining upon her
+couch, upon which two servants brought her into the room and carried
+her out again, when she was tired.  There she lay in her flowing white
+drapery, with her hands generally folded.  Her face was so pale and yet
+so mild, and her eyes so deep and unfathomable, that I often stood
+before her lost in thought and looked upon her and asked myself if she
+was not one of the "strange people" also.  Many a time she placed her
+hand upon my head and then it seemed to me that a thrill ran through
+all my limbs and that I could not move or speak, but must forever gaze
+into her deep, unfathomable eyes.  She conversed very little with us,
+but watched our sports, and when at times we grew very noisy and
+quarrelsome, she did not complain but held her white hands over her
+brow and closed her eyes as if sleeping.  But there were days when she
+said she felt better, and on such days she sat up on her couch,
+conversed with us and told us curious stories.  I do not know how old
+she was at that time.  She was so helpless that she seemed like a
+child, and yet was so serious and silent that she could not have been
+one.  When people alluded to her they involuntarily spoke gently and
+softly.  They called her "the angel," and I never heard anything said
+of her that was not good and lovely.  Often when I saw her lying so
+silent and helpless, and thought that she would never walk again in
+life, that there was for her neither work nor joy, that they would
+carry her here and there upon her couch until they laid her upon her
+eternal bed of rest, I asked myself why she had been sent into this
+world, when she could have rested so gently on the bosom of the angels
+and they could have borne her through the air on their white wings, as
+I had seen in some sacred pictures.  Again I felt as if I must take a
+part of her burden, so that she need not carry it alone, but we with
+her.  I could not tell her all this for I knew it was not proper.  I
+had an indefinable feeling.  It was not a desire to embrace her.  No
+one could have done that, for it would have wronged her.  It seemed to
+me as if I could pray from the very bottom of my heart that she might
+be released from her burden.
+
+One warm spring day she was brought into our room.  She looked
+exceedingly pale; but her eyes were deeper and brighter than ever, and
+she sat upon her couch and called us to her.  "It is my birth-day,"
+said she, "and I was confirmed early this morning.  Now, it is
+possible," she continued as she looked upon her father with a smile,
+"that God may soon call me to him, although I would gladly remain with
+you much longer.  But if I am to leave you, I desire that you should
+not wholly forget me; and, therefore, I have brought a ring for each of
+you, which you must now place upon the fore-finger.  As you grow older
+you can continue to change it until it fits the little finger; but you
+must wear it for your lifetime."
+
+With these words she took the five rings she wore upon her fingers,
+which she drew off, one after the other, with a look so sad and yet so
+affectionate, that I pressed my eyes closely to keep from weeping.  She
+gave the first ring to her eldest brother and kissed him, the second
+and third to the two princesses, and the fourth to the youngest prince,
+and kissed them all as she gave them the rings.  I stood near by, and,
+looking fixedly at her white hand, saw that she still had a ring upon
+her finger; but she leaned back and appeared wearied.  My eyes met
+hers, and as the eyes of a child speak so loudly, she must have easily
+known my thoughts, I would rather not have had the last ring, for I
+felt that I was a stranger; that I did not belong to her, and that she
+was not as affectionate to me as to her brothers and sisters.  Then
+came a sharp pain in my breast as if a vein had burst or a nerve had
+been severed, and I knew not which way to turn to conceal my anguish.
+
+She soon raised herself again, placed her hand upon my forehead and
+looked down into my heart so deeply that I felt I had not a thought
+invisible to her.  She slowly drew the last ring from her finger, gave
+it to me and said; "I intended to have taken this with me, when I went
+from you, but it is better you should wear it and think of me when I am
+no longer with you.  Read the words engraved upon the ring: 'As God
+wills.'  You have a passionate heart, easily moved.  May life subdue
+but not harden it."  Then she kissed me as she had her brothers and
+gave me the ring.
+
+All my feelings I do not truly know.  I had then grown up to boyhood,
+and the mild beauty of the suffering angel could not linger in my young
+heart without alluring it.  I loved her as only a boy can love, and
+boys love with an intensity and truth and purity which few preserve in
+their youth and manhood; but I believed she belonged to the "strange
+people" to whom you are not allowed to speak of love.  I scarcely
+understood the earnest words she spoke to me.  I only felt that her
+soul was as near to mine as one human soul can be to another.  All
+bitterness was gone from my heart.  I felt myself no longer alone, no
+longer a stranger, no longer shut out.  I was by her, with her and in
+her.  I thought it might be a sacrifice for her to give me the ring,
+and that she might have preferred to take it to the grave with her, and
+a feeling arose in my soul which overshadowed all other feelings, and I
+said with quivering voice: "Thou must keep the ring if thou dost not
+wish to give it to me; for what is thine is mine."  She looked at me a
+moment surprised and thoughtfully.  Then she took the ring, placed it
+on her finger, kissed me once more on the forehead, and said gently to
+me: "Thou knowest not what thou sayest.  Learn to understand thyself.
+Then shall thou be happy and make many others happy."
+
+
+
+
+FOURTH MEMORY.
+
+Every life has its years in which one progresses as on a tedious and
+dusty street of poplars, without caring to know where he is.  Of these
+years nought remains in memory but the sad feeling that we have
+advanced and only grown older.  While the river of life glides along
+smoothly, it remains the same river; only the landscape on either bank
+seems to change.  But then come the cataracts of life.  They are firmly
+fixed in memory, and even when we are past them and far away, and draw
+nearer and nearer to the silent sea of eternity, even then it seems as
+if we heard from afar their rush and roar.  We feel that the life-force
+which yet remains and impels us onward still has its source and supply
+from those cataracts.
+
+School time was ended, the first fleeting years of university life were
+over, and many beautiful life-dreams were over also.  But one of them
+still remained: Faith in God and man.  Otherwise life would have been
+circumscribed within one's narrow brain.  Instead of that, a nobler
+consecration had preserved all, and even the painful and
+incomprehensible events of life became a proof to me of the
+omnipresence of the divine in the earthly.  "The least important thing
+does not happen except as God wills it."  This was the brief
+life-wisdom I had accumulated.
+
+During the summer holidays I returned to my little native city.  What
+joy in these meetings again!  No one has explained it, but in this
+seeing and finding again, and in these self-memories, lie the real
+secrets of all joy and pleasure.  What we see, hear or taste for the
+first time may be beautiful, grand and agreeable, but it is too new.
+It overpowers, but gives no repose, and the fatigue of enjoying is
+greater than the enjoyment itself.  To hear again, years afterward, an
+old melody, every note of which we supposed we had forgotten, and yet
+to recognize it as an old acquaintance; or, after the lapse of many
+years, to stand once more before the Sistine Madonna at Dresden, and
+experience afresh all the emotions which the infinite look of the child
+aroused in us for years; or to smell a flower or taste a dish again
+which we have not thought of since childhood--all these produce such an
+intense charm that we do not know which we enjoy most, the actual
+pleasure or the old memory.  So when we return again, after long
+absence, to our birth-place, the soul floats unconsciously in a sea of
+memories, and the dancing waves dreamily toss themselves upon the
+shores of times long passed.  The belfry clock strikes and we fear we
+shall be late to school, and recovering from this fear feel relieved
+that our anxiety is over.  The same dog runs along the street on whose
+account we used to go far out of our way.  Here sits the old huckster
+whose apples often led us into temptation, and even now, we fancy they
+must taste better than all other apples in the world, notwithstanding
+the dust on them.  There one has torn down a house and built a new one.
+Here the old music-teacher lived.  He is dead--and yet how beautiful it
+seemed as we stood and listened on summer evenings under the window
+while the True Soul, when the hours of the day were over, indulged in
+his own enjoyment and played fantasies, like the roaring and hissing
+engine letting off the steam which has accumulated during the day.
+Here in this little leafy lane, which seemed at that time so much
+larger, as I was coming home late one evening, I met our neighbor's
+beautiful daughter.  At that time I had never ventured to look at or
+address her, but we school-children often spoke of her and called her
+"the Beautiful Maiden," and whenever I saw her passing along the street
+at a distance I was so happy that I could only think of the time when I
+should meet her nearer.  Here in this leafy walk which leads to the
+church-yard, I met her one evening and she took me by the arm, although
+we had never spoken together before, and asked me to go home with her.
+I believe neither of us spoke a word the whole way; but I was so happy
+that even now, after all these years, I wish it were that evening, and
+that I could go home again, silently and blissfully, with "the
+Beautiful Maiden."
+
+Thus one memory follows another until the waves dash together over our
+heads, and a deep sigh swells the breast, which warns us that we have
+forgotten to breathe in the midst of these pure thoughts.  Then all at
+once, the whole dream-world vanishes, like uprisen ghosts at the
+crowing of the cock.
+
+As I passed by the old castle and the lindens, and saw the sentinels
+upon their horses, how many memories awakened in my soul, and how
+everything had changed!  Many years had flown since I was at the
+castle.  The Princess was dead.  The Prince had given up his rule and
+gone back to Italy, and the oldest prince, with whom I had grown up,
+was regent.  His companions were young noblemen and officers, whose
+intercourse was congenial to him, and whose company in our early days
+had often estranged us.  Other circumstances combined to weaken our
+young friendship.  Like every young man who perceives for the first
+time the lack of unity in the German folk-life, and the defects of
+German rule, I had caught up some phrases of the Liberal party, which
+sounded as strangely at court as unseemly expressions in an honest
+minister's family.  In short, it was many years since I had ascended
+those stairs, and yet a being dwelt in that castle whose name I had
+named almost daily, and who was almost constantly present in my memory.
+I had long dwelt upon the thought that I should never see her again in
+this life.  She was transformed into an image which I felt neither did
+nor could exist in reality.  She had become my good angel--my other
+self, to whom I talked instead of talking with myself.  How she became
+so I could not explain to myself, for I scarcely knew her.  Just as the
+eye sometimes pictures figures in the clouds, so I fancied my
+imagination had conjured up this sweet image in the heaven of my
+childhood, and a complete picture of phantasy developed itself out of
+the scarcely perceptible outlines of reality.  My entire thought had
+involuntarily become a dialogue with her, and all that was good in me,
+all for which I struggled, all in which I believed, my entire better
+self, belonged to her.  I gave it to her.  I received it from her, from
+her my good angel.
+
+I had been at home but a few days, when I received a letter one
+morning.  It was written in English, and came from the Countess Marie:
+
+
+_Dear Friend_: I hear you are with us for a short time.  We have not
+met for many years, and if it is agreeable to you, I should like to see
+an old friend again.  You will find me alone this afternoon in the
+Swiss Cottage.           Yours sincerely, MARIE.
+
+
+I immediately replied, also in English, that I would call in the
+afternoon.
+
+The Swiss Cottage constituted a wing of the castle, which overlooked
+the garden, and could be reached without going through the castle yard.
+It was five o'clock when I passed through the garden and approached the
+cottage.  I repressed all emotion and prepared myself for a formal
+meeting.  I sought to quiet my good angel, and to assure her that this
+lady had nothing to do with her.  And yet I felt very uneasy, and my
+good angel would not listen to counsel.  Finally I took courage,
+murmuring something to myself about the masquerade of life, and rapped
+on the door, which stood ajar.
+
+There was no one in the room except a lad whom I did not know, and who
+likewise spoke English, and said the Countess would be present in a
+moment.  She then left, and I was alone, and had time to look about.
+
+The walls of the room were of rose-chestnut, and over an openwork
+trellis, a luxuriant broadleaved ivy twined around the whole room.  All
+the tables and chairs were of carved rose-chestnut.  The floor was of
+variegated woodwork.  It gave me a curious sensation to see so much
+that was familiar in the room.  Many articles from our old play-room in
+the castle were old friends, but the others were new, especially the
+pictures, and yet they were the same as those in my University
+room--the same portraits of Beethoven, Handel and Mendelssohn, as I had
+selected--hung over the grand piano.  In one corner I saw the Venus di
+Milo, which I always regarded as the masterpiece of antiquity.  On the
+table were volumes of Dante, Shakspeare, Tauler's Sermons, the "German
+Theology," Ruckert's Poems, Tennyson and Burns, and Carlyle's "Past and
+Present,"--the very same books--all of which I had had but recently in
+my hands.  I was growing thoughtful, but I repressed my thoughts and
+was just standing before the portrait of the deceased Princess, when
+the door opened, and the same two servants, whom I had so often seen in
+childhood, brought the Countess into the room upon her couch.
+
+What a vision!  She spoke not a word, and her countenance was as placid
+as the sea, until the servants left the room.  Then her eyes sought
+me--the old, deep, unfathomable eyes.  Her expression grew more
+animated each instant.  At last her whole face lit up, and she said:
+
+"We are old friends--I believe; we have not changed.  I cannot say
+'You,' and if I may not say 'Thou,' then we must speak in English.  Do
+you understand me?"
+
+I had not anticipated such a reception, for I saw here was no
+masquerade--here was a soul which longed for another soul--here was a
+greeting like that between two friends who recognize each other by the
+glance of the eye, notwithstanding their disguises and dark masks.  I
+seized the hand she held out to me, and replied: "When we address an
+angel, we cannot say 'You.'"
+
+And yet how singular, is the influence of the forms and habits of life!
+How difficult it is to speak the language of nature even to the most
+congenial souls!  Our conversation halted, and both of us felt the
+embarrassment of the moment.  I broke the silence and spoke out my
+thoughts: "Men become accustomed to live from youth up as it were in a
+cage, and when they are once in the open air they dare not venture to
+use their wings, fearing, if they fly, that they may stumble against
+everything."
+
+"Yes," replied she, "and that is very proper and cannot well be
+otherwise.  One often wishes that he could live like the birds which
+fly in the woods, and meet upon the branches and sing together without
+being presented to each other.  But, my friend, even among the birds
+there are owls and sparrows, and in life it is well that one can pass
+them without knowing them.  It is sometimes with life as with poetry.
+As the real poet can express the Truest and most Beautiful, although
+fettered by metrical form, so man should know how to preserve freedom
+of thought and feeling notwithstanding the restraints of society."
+
+I could not help recalling the words of Platen: "That which proves
+itself everlasting under all circumstances, told in the fetters of
+words, is the unfettered spirit."
+
+"Yes," said she, with a cordial but sweetly playful smile; "but I have
+a privilege which is at the same time my burden and loneliness.  I
+often pity the young men and maidens, for they cannot have a friendship
+or an intimacy without their relatives or themselves pronouncing it
+love, or what they call love.  They lose much on this account.  The
+maiden knows not what slumbers in her soul, and what might be awakened
+by earnest conversation with a noble friend; and the young man in turn
+would acquire so much knightly virtue if women were suffered to be the
+distant witnesses of the inner struggles of the spirit.  It will not
+do, however, for immediately love comes in play, or what they call
+love--the quick beating of the heart--the stormy billows of hope--the
+delight over a beautiful face--the sweet sentimentality--sometimes also
+prudent calculation--in short, all that troubles the calm sea, which is
+the true picture of pure human love------"
+
+She checked herself suddenly, and an expression of pain passed over her
+countenance.  "I dare not talk more to-day," said she; "my physician
+will not allow it.  I would like to hear one of Mendelssohn's
+songs--that duet, which my young friend used to play years ago.  Is it
+not so?"
+
+I could not answer, for as she ceased speaking and gently folded her
+hands, I saw upon her hand a ring.  She wore it on her little
+finger--the ring which she had given me and I had given her.  Thoughts
+came too fast for utterance, and I seated myself at the piano and
+played.  When I had done, I turned around and said: "Would one could
+only speak thus in tones without words!"
+
+"That is possible," said she; "I understood it all.  But I must not do
+anything more to-day, for every day I grow weaker.  We must be better
+acquainted, and a poor sick recluse may certainly claim forbearance.
+We meet to-morrow evening, at the same hour; shall we not?"
+
+I seized her hand and was about to kiss it, but she held my hand
+firmly, pressed it and said: "It is better thus.  Good bye."
+
+
+
+
+FIFTH MEMORY.
+
+It would be difficult to describe my thoughts and emotions as I went
+home.  The soul cannot at once translate itself perfectly in words, and
+there are "thoughts without words," which in every man are the prelude
+of supreme joy and suffering.  It was neither joy nor pain, only an
+indescribable bewilderment which I felt; thoughts flew through my
+innermost being like meteors, which shoot from heaven towards earth but
+are extinguished before they reach the goal.  As we sometimes say in a
+dream, "I am dreaming," so I said to myself "thou livest"--"it is she."
+I tried again to reflect and calm myself, and said, "She is a lovely
+vision--a very wonderful spirit."  At another time, I pictured the
+delightful evenings I should pass during the holidays.  But no, no,
+this cannot be.  She is everything I sought, thought, hoped and
+believed.  Here was at last a human soul, as clear and fresh as a
+spring morning.  I had seen at the first glance what she was and how
+she felt, and we had greeted and recognized one another.  And my good
+angel in me, she answered me no more.  She was gone and I felt there
+was no place on earth where I should find her again.
+
+Now began a beautiful life, for I was with her every evening.  We soon
+realized that we were in truth old acquaintances and that we could only
+call each other Thou.  It seemed also as if we had lived near and with
+one another always, for she manifested not an emotion that did not find
+its counterpart in my soul, and there was no, thought which I uttered
+to which she did not nod friendly assent, as much as to say: "I thought
+so too."  I had previously heard the greatest master of our time and
+his sister extemporize on the piano, and scarcely comprehended how two
+persons could understand and feel themselves so perfectly and yet
+never, not even in a single note, disturb the harmony of their playing.
+Now it became intelligible to me.  Yes, now I understood for the first
+time that my soul was not so poor and empty as it had seemed to me, and
+that it had been only the sun that was lacking to open all its germs,
+and buds to the light.  And yet what a sad and brief spring-time it was
+that our souls experienced!  We forget in May that roses so soon
+wither, but here every evening reminded us that one leaf after another
+was falling to the ground.  She felt it before I did, and alluded to it
+apparently without pain, and our interviews grew more earnest and
+solemn daily.
+
+One evening, as I was about to leave, she said: "I did not think I
+should grow so old.  When I gave you the ring on my confirmation day I
+thought I should have to take my departure from you all, very soon.
+And yet I have lived so many years, and enjoyed so much beauty--and
+suffered so very much!  But one forgets that!  Now, while I feel that
+my departure is near, every hour, every minute, grows precious to me.
+Good night!  Do not come too late to-morrow."
+
+One day as I went into her room, I met an Italian painter with her.
+She spoke Italian with him, and although he was evidently more artisan
+than artist, she addressed him with such amiability and modesty, with
+such respect even, one could not avoid recognizing that nobility of
+soul which is the true nobility of birth.  When the painter had taken
+his leave, she said to me: "I wish to show you a picture which will
+please you.  The original is in the gallery at Paris.  I read a
+description of it, and have had it copied by the Italian."  She showed
+me the painting, and waited my opinion.  It was a picture of a man of
+middle age, in the old German costume.  The expression was dreamy and
+resigned, and so characteristic that no one could doubt this man once
+lived.  The whole tone of the picture in the foreground was dark and
+brownish; but in the background was a landscape, and on the horizon the
+first gleams of daybreak appeared.  I could discover nothing special in
+the picture, and yet it produced a feeling of such satisfaction that
+one might have tarried to look at it for hours at a time.  "There is
+nothing like a genuine human face," said I; "Raphael himself could not
+have imagined a face like this."
+
+"No," said she.  "But now I will tell you why I wished to have the
+picture.  I read that no one knew the artist, nor whom the picture
+represents.  But it is very clearly a philosopher of the Middle Ages.
+Just such a picture I wanted for my gallery, for you are aware that no
+one knows the author of the 'German Theology,' and moreover, that we
+have no picture of him.  I wished to try whether the picture of an
+Unknown by an Unknown would answer for our German theologian, and if
+you have no objections we will hang it here between the 'Albigenses'
+and the 'Diet of Worms,' and call it the 'German Theologian.'"
+
+"Good," said I; "but it is somewhat too vigorous and manly for the
+Frankforter."
+
+"That may be," replied she.  "But for a suffering and dying life like
+mine, much consolation and strength may be derived from his book.  I
+thank him much, for it disclosed to me for the first time the true
+secret of Christian doctrine in all its simplicity.  I felt that I was
+free to believe or disbelieve the old teacher, whoever he may have
+been, for his doctrines had no external constraint upon me; at last it
+seized upon me with such power that it seemed to me I knew for the
+first time what revelation was.  It is precisely this fact that bars so
+many out from true Christianity, namely: that its doctrines confront us
+as revelation before revelation takes place in ourselves.  This has
+often given me much anxiety; not that I had ever doubted the truth and
+divinity of our religion, but I felt I had no right to a belief which
+others had given me, and that what I, had learned and received when a
+child, without comprehending, did not belong to me.  One can believe
+for us as little as one can live and die for us."
+
+"Certainly," said I; "therein lies the cause of many hot and bitter
+struggles; that the teachings of Christ, instead of winning our hearts
+gradually and irresistibly, as they won the hearts of the apostles and
+early Christians, confront us from the earliest childhood as the
+infallible law of a mighty church, and demand of us an unconditional
+submission, which they call faith.  Doubts arise sooner or later in the
+breast of every one who has the power of thinking and reverence for the
+truth; and then even when we are on the right road, to overcome our
+faith, the terrors of doubt and unbelief arise and disturb the tranquil
+development of the new life."
+
+"I read recently in an English work," she interrupted, "that truth
+makes revelation, and not revelation truth.  This perfectly expressed
+what I found in reading the 'German Theology.' I read the book, and I
+felt the power of its truths so overwhelmingly that I was compelled to
+submit to it.  The truth was revealed to me; or rather, I was revealed
+to myself, and I felt for the first time what belief meant.  The truth
+which had long slumbered in my soul belonged to me, but it was the word
+of the unknown teacher which filled me with light, illuminated my inner
+vision, and brought out my indistinct presentiments in fuller clearness
+before my soul.  When I had thus experienced for the first time how the
+human soul can believe, I read the Gospels as if they, too, had been
+written by an Unknown man, and banished the thought as well as I could
+that they were an inspiration from the Holy Ghost to the apostles, in
+some wonderful manner; that they had been endorsed by the councils and
+proclaimed by the church as the supreme authority of the alone-saving
+belief.  Then, for the first time, I understood what Christian faith
+and revelation were."
+
+"It is wonderful," said I, "that the theologians have not broken down
+all religion, and they will succeed yet, if the believers do not
+seriously confront them and say: 'Thus far but no farther.'  Every
+church must have its servants, but there has been as yet no religion
+which the Priests, the Brahmins, the Schamins, the Bonzes, the Lamas,
+the Pharisees, or the Scribes have not corrupted and perverted.  They
+wrangle and dispute in a language unintelligible to nine-tenths of
+their congregations, and instead of permitting themselves to be
+inspired by the apostles, and of inspiring others with their
+inspiration, they construct long arguments to show that the Gospels
+must be true, because they were written by inspired men.  But this is
+only a makeshift for their own unbelief.  How can they know that these
+men were inspired in a wonderful manner, without ascribing to
+themselves a still more wonderful inspiration?  Therefore they extend
+the gift of inspiration to the fathers of the church; they attribute to
+them those very things which the majority have incorporated in the
+canons of the councils; and there again, when the question arises how
+we know that of fifty bishops twenty-six were inspired and twenty-four
+were not, they finally take the last desperate step, and say that
+infallibility and inspiration are inherent in the heads of the church
+down to the present day, through the laying on of hands, so that
+infallibility, majority and inspiration make all our convictions, all
+resignation, all devout intuitions, superfluous.  And yet,
+notwithstanding all these connecting links, the first question returns
+in all its simplicity: How can B know that A is inspired, if B is not
+equally, or even more, inspired than A?  For it is of more consequence
+to know that A was inspired than for one's self to be inspired."
+
+"I have never comprehended this so clearly myself," said she.  "But I
+have often felt how difficult it must be to know whether one loves who
+shows not a sign of love that could not be imitated.  And, again, I
+have thought that no one could know it unless he knew love himself, and
+that he could only believe in the love of another so far as he believed
+in his own love.  As with the gift of love so is it with the gift of
+the Holy Spirit.  They upon whom it descended heard a rushing from
+heaven as of a mighty wind, and there appeared to them cloven tongues
+like as of fire.  But the rest were either amazed and perplexed, or
+they made sport of them and said: 'They are full of sweet wine.'
+
+"Still, as I said to you, it is the 'German Theology' to which I am
+indebted for learning to believe in my belief, and what will seem a
+weakness to many, strengthened me the most; namely, that the old master
+never stops to demonstrate his propositions rigidly, but scatters them
+like a sower, in the hope that some grains will fall upon good soil and
+bear fruit a thousand fold.  So our Divine Master never attempted to
+prove his doctrines, for the perfect conviction of truth disdains the
+form of a demonstration."
+
+"Yes," I interrupted her, for I could not help thinking of the
+wonderful chain of proof in Spinoza's 'Ethics,' the straining after
+demonstration by Spinoza gives me the impression that this acute
+thinker could not have believed in his own doctrines with his whole
+heart, and that he therefore felt the necessity of fastening every mesh
+of his net with the utmost care.  "Still," I continued, "I must
+acknowledge I do not share this great admiration for the 'German
+Theology,' although I owe the book many a doubt.  To me there is a lack
+of the human and the poetical in it, and of warm feeling and reverence
+for reality altogether.  The entire mysticism of the fourteenth century
+is wholesome as a preparative, but it first reaches solution in the
+divinely holy and divinely courageous return to real life, as was
+exemplified by Luther.  Man must at some time in his life recognize his
+nothingness.  He must feel that he is nothing of himself, that his
+existence, his beginning, his everlasting life are rooted in the
+superearthly and incomprehensible.  That is the returning to God which
+in reality is never concluded on earth but yet leaves behind in the
+soul a divine home sickness, which never again ceases.  But man cannot
+ignore the creation as the Mystics would.  Although created out of
+nothing, that is, through and out of God, he cannot of his own power
+resolve himself back into this nothingness.  The self-annihilation of
+which Tauler so often speaks is scarcely better than the sinking away
+of the human soul in Nirvana, as the Buddhists have it.  Thus Tauler
+says: 'That if he by greater reverence and love could reach the highest
+existence in non-existence, he would willingly sink from his height
+into the deepest abyss.'  But this annihilation of the creature was not
+the purpose of the Creator since he made it.  'God is transformed in
+man,' says Augustine, 'not man in God.'  Thus mysticism should be only
+a fire-trial which steels the soul but does not evaporate it like
+boiling water in a kettle.  He who has recognized the nothingness of
+self ought to recognize this self as a reflection of the actual divine.
+The 'German Theology' says:
+
+["Was nu us geflossen ist, das ist nicht war wesen, und hat kein wesen
+anders dan in dem volkomen, sunder es ist ein zufal oder ein glast und
+ein schin, der nicht wesen ist oder nicht wesen hat anders, dan in dem
+sewer, da der glast us flusset, als in der sunnen oder in einem
+liechte."]
+
+"What has flown out is not real substance and has no other reality
+except in the perfect; but it is an incident or a glare or a shimmer,
+which is no substance, and has no other reality, except in the fire
+from which a glare proceeds, as in the sun or a light."
+
+"What is emitted from the divine, though it be only like the reflection
+from the fire, still has the divine reality in itself, and one might
+almost ask what were the fire without glow, the sun without light, or
+the Creator without the creature?  These are questions of which it is
+said very truthfully:
+
+["Welch mensche und welche creatur begert zu erfaren und zu wissen den
+heimlichen rat und willen gottes, der begert nicht anders denne als
+Adam tet und der boese geist."]
+
+"What man or creature desires to learn and to know the secret counsel
+and will of God--desires nothing else but what Adam did and the evil
+spirit.
+
+"For this reason, it should be enough for us to feel and to appear that
+we are a reflection of the divine until we are divine.  No one should
+place under a bushel or extinguish the divine light which illuminates
+us, but let it beam out, that it may brighten and warm all about it.
+Then one feels a living fire in his veins, and a higher consecration
+for the struggle of life.  The most trivial duties remind us of God.
+The earthly becomes divine, the temporal eternal, and our entire life a
+life in God.  God is not eternal repose.  He is everlasting life, which
+Angelus Silesius forgets when he says: 'God is without will.'
+
+  "'We pray: 'Thy will my Lord and God be done,'
+  And lo, He has no will!  He is an eternal silence.'"
+
+She listened to me quietly, and, after a moment's reflection, said:
+"Health and strength belong to your faith; but there are life-weary
+souls, who long for rest and sleep, and feel so lonely that when they
+fall asleep in God, they miss the world as little as the world misses
+them.  It is a foretaste of divine rest to them when they can wrap
+themselves in the divine; and this they can do, since no tie binds them
+fast to earth, and no wish troubles their hearts except the wish for
+rest.
+
+  "'Rest is the highest good, and were God not rest,
+  Then would I avert my gaze even from Him.'
+
+"You do the German theologian an injustice.  It is true he teaches the
+nothingness of the external life, but he does not wish to see it
+annihilated.  Read me the twenty-eighth chapter."
+
+I took the book and read, while she closed her eyes and listened:
+
+["Und wa die voreinunge geschicht in der wahrheit und wesentlich wirt,
+da stet vorbass der inner mensche in der einung unbeweglich und got
+lest den ussern menschen her und dar bewegt werden von diesem zu dem.
+Das muss und sol sin und geschehen, dass der usser mensche spricht und
+es ouch in der warheit also ist, 'ich wil weder sin noch nit sin, weder
+leben oder sterben, wissen oder nicht wissen, tun oder lassen, und
+alles das disem glich ist, sunder alles, das da muss und sol sin und
+geschehen, da bin ich bereit und gehorsam zu, es si in lidender wise
+oder in tuender wise.'  Und alsoe hat der usser mensch kein warumbe
+oder gesuch, sunder alleine dem ewigen willen genuk zu sin.  Wan das
+wirt bekannt in der warheit, das der inner mensche sten sol unbeweglich
+und der usser mensch muss und sol bewegt werden, und hat der inner
+mensch in siner beweglikeit ein warumb, das ist anders nichts dann ein
+muss- und sol-sin, geordnet von dem ewigen willen.  Und wa got selber
+der mensch were oder ist, da ist es also.  Das merket man wol in
+Kristo.  Auch wa das in goetlichem und us goetlichem liechte ist, da
+ist nit geistliche hochfart noch unachtsame friheit oder frie gemute,
+sunder ein gruntlose demutigkeit und ein nider geschlagen und ein
+gesunken betrubet gemut, und alle ordenligkeit und redeligkeit,
+glichheit und warheit, fride und genugsamkeit, und alles das, das allen
+tugenden zu gehoert, das muss da sin.  Wa es anders ist, da ist im nit
+recht, als vor gesprochen ist.  Wan recht als dises oder das zu diser
+einung nit gehelfen oder gedienen kan, also is ouch nichtes, das es
+geirren oder gehindern mag, denn alleine der mensch mit sinem eigen
+willen, der tut im disen grossen schaden.  Das sol man wissen."]
+
+"And when the union takes place in truth and becomes real, then the
+inner man stands henceforth immovable in the union, and God permits the
+outer man to be driven hither and thither from this to that.  It must
+and shall be and happen, that the outer man says--and is so also in
+truth--'I will neither be nor not be, neither live nor die, neither
+know nor not know, neither do nor leave undone--and everything which is
+similar to this, but I am ready and obedient to do everything, which
+must and shall be done, be it passively or actively.'  And thus has the
+outer man no question or desire, but to, satisfy only the Eternal Will.
+When this will be known in truth, that the inner man shall stand,
+immovable, and that the outer man shall and must be moved,--the inner
+man has a why and wherefore of his moving, which is nothing but an 'it
+must and shall be' ordered by the Eternal Will.  And if God himself
+were or is the man, it would be so.  This is well seen in Christ.  And
+what in the Divine Light is and from the Divine Light, has neither
+spiritual pride nor careless license nor an independent spirit--but a
+great humility, and a broken and contrite heart,--and all propriety and
+honesty, justice and truth, peace and happiness,--all that belongs to
+all virtues, it must have.  When it is otherwise, then he is not happy,
+as has been said.  When this does not help to this union, then there is
+nothing which may hinder it but man alone with his own will, which does
+him such great harm.  That, one ought to know."
+
+"This is sufficient," said she; "I believe we understand each other
+now.  In another place, our unknown friend says still more unmistakably
+that no man is passive before death, and that the glorified man is like
+the hand of God, which does nothing of itself except as God wills; or,
+like a house in which God dwells.  A God-possessed man feels this
+perfectly, but does not speak of it.  He treasures his life in God like
+a love secret.  It often seems to me like that silver poplar before my
+window.  It is perfectly still at evening, and not a leaf trembles or
+stirs.  When the morning breeze rustles and tosses every leaf, the
+trunk with its branches stands still and immovable, and when autumn
+conies, though every leaf which once rustled falls to the ground and
+withers, the trunk waits for a new spring."
+
+She had lived so deep a life in her world that I did not wish to
+disturb it.  I had but just released myself with difficulty from the
+magic circle of these thoughts, and scarcely knew whether she had not
+chosen the better part which could not be taken away from her; while we
+have so much trouble and care.
+
+Thus every evening brought its new conversation, and with each evening,
+some new phase of her fathomless mind disclosed itself.  She kept no
+secret from me.  Her talk was only thinking and feeling aloud, and what
+she said must have dwelt with her many long years, for she poured out
+her thoughts as freely as a child that picks its lap full of flowers
+and then sprinkles them upon the grass.  I could not disclose my soul
+to her as freely as she did to me, and this oppressed and pained me.
+Yet how few can, with those continual deceptions imposed upon us by
+society, called manners, politeness, consideration, prudence, and
+worldly wisdom, which make our entire life a masquerade!  How few, even
+when they would, can regain the complete truth of their existence!
+Love itself dares not speak its own language and maintain its own
+silence, but must learn the set phrases of the poet and idealize, sigh
+and flirt instead of freely greeting, beholding and surrendering
+itself, I would most gladly have confessed and said to her: "You know
+me not," but I found that the words were not wholly true.  Before I
+left, I gave her a volume of Arnold's poems, which I had had a short
+time, and begged her to read the one called "The Buried Life."  It was
+my confession, and then I kneeled at her couch and said "Good Night."
+"Good Night," said she, and laid her hand upon my head, and again her
+touch thrilled through, every limb and the dreams of childhood uprose
+in my soul.  I could not go, but gazed into her deep unfathomable eyes
+until the peace of her soul completely overshadowed mine.  Then I arose
+and went home in silence--and in the night I dreamed of the silver
+poplar around which the wind roared--but not a leaf stirred on its
+branches.
+
+
+  THE BURIED LIFE.
+
+  Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet
+  Behold, with tears my eyes are wet;
+  I feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll.
+
+  Yes, yes, we know that we can jest;
+  We know, we know that we can smile;
+  But there's a something in this breast
+  To which thy light words bring no rest,
+  And thy gay smiles no anodyne.
+
+  Give me thy hand, and hush awhile,
+  And turn those limpid eyes on mine,
+  And, let me read there, love, thy inmost soul.
+
+  Alas, is even love too weak
+  To unlock the heart, and let it speak?
+  Are even lovers powerless to reveal
+  To one another what indeed they feel?
+  I knew the mass of men concealed
+  Their thoughts, for fear that if revealed
+  They would by other men be met
+  With blank indifference, or with blame reproved;
+  I knew they lived and moved,
+  Tricked in disguises, alien to the rest
+  Of men and alien to themselves--and yet,
+  The same heart beats in every human breast.
+
+  But we, my love--does a like spell benumb
+  Our hearts--our voices?--must we too be dumb?
+
+  Ah! well for us, if even we,
+  Even for a moment, can yet free
+  Our hearts and have our lips unchained;
+  For that which seals them hath been deep ordained.
+  Fate which foresaw
+  How frivolous a baby man would be,
+  By what distractions he would be possessed,
+  How he would pour himself in every strife,
+  And well-nigh change his own identity,
+  That it might keep from his capricious play
+  His genuine self, and force him to obey,
+  Even in his own despite, his being's law,
+  Bade through the deep recesses of our breast
+  The unregarded River of our Life,
+  Pursue with indiscernible flow its way;
+  And that we should not see
+  The buried stream, and seem to be
+  Eddying about in blind uncertainty,
+  Though driving on with it eternally.
+
+  But often, in the world's most crowded streets,
+  But often in the din of strife,
+  There rises an unspeakable desire
+  After the knowledge of our buried life;
+
+  A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
+  In tracking out our true original course;
+  A longing to inquire
+  Into the mystery of this heart that beats
+  So wild, so deep, in us; to know
+  Whence our thoughts come, and where they go.
+  And many a man in his own breast then delves,
+  But deep enough, alas, none ever mines;
+  And we have been on many thousand lines,
+  And we have shown on each, talent and power,
+  But hardly have we, for one little hour,
+  Been on our own line, have we been ourselves;
+  Hardly had skill to utter one of all
+  The nameless feelings that course through our breast,
+  But they course on forever unexpressed.
+  And long we try in vain to speak and act
+  Our hidden self, and what we say and do
+  Is eloquent, is well--but 'tis not true.
+
+  And then we will no more be racked
+  With inward striving, and demand
+  Of all the thousand nothings of the hour
+  Their stupefying power;
+  Ah! yes, and they benumb us at our call;
+  Yet still, from time to time, vague and forlorn,
+  From the soul's subterranean depth upborne,
+  As from an infinitely distant land,
+  Come airs and floating echoes, and convey
+  A melancholy into all our day.
+
+  Only--but this is rare--
+  When a beloved hand is laid in ours,
+  When, jaded with the rush and glare
+  Of the interminable hours,
+  Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear,
+  When our world-deafened ear
+  Is by the tones of a loved voice caressed,--
+  A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast,
+  And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again:
+  The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain,
+  And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know;
+
+  A man becomes aware of his life's flow,
+  And, hears its winding murmur, and he sees
+  The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze.
+
+  And there arrives a lull in the hot race
+  Wherein he doth forever chase
+  That flying and elusive shadow, Rest;
+  An air of coolness plays upon his face,
+  And an unwonted calm pervades his breast.
+
+  And then he thinks he knows
+  The Hills where his life rose,
+  And the Sea where it goes. . . . . . .
+
+
+
+
+SIXTH MEMORY.
+
+Early the next morning, there was a knock at the door, and my old doctor,
+the Hofrath, entered.  He was the friend, the body-and-soul-guardian of
+our entire little village.  He had seen two generations grow up.
+Children whom he had brought into the world had in turn become fathers
+and mothers, and he treated them as his children.  He himself was
+unmarried, and even in his old age was strong and handsome to look upon.
+I never knew him otherwise than as he stood before me at that time; his
+clear blue eyes gleaming under the bushy brows, his flowing white hair
+still full of youthful strength, curling and vigorous.  I can never
+forget, also, his shoes, with their silver buckles, his white stockings,
+his brown coat, which always looked new, and yet seemed to be old, and
+his cane, which was the same I had seen standing by my bedside in
+childhood, when he felt my pulse and prescribed my medicines.  I had
+often been sick, but it was always faith in this man which made me well
+again.  I never had the slightest doubt of his ability to cure me, and
+when my mother said she must send for the Hofrath that I might get well
+again, it was as if she had said she must send for the tailor to mend my
+torn trousers.  I had only to take the medicine, and I felt that I must
+be well again.
+
+"How are you, my child?" said he, as he entered the room.  "You are not
+looking perfectly well.  You must not study too much.  But I have little
+time to-day to talk, and only came to tell you, you must not go to see
+the Countess Marie again.  I have been with her all night, and it is your
+fault.  So be careful, if her life is dear to you, that you do not go
+again.  She must leave here as soon as possible, and be taken into the
+country.  It would be best for you also to travel for a long time.  So
+good morning, and be a good child."
+
+With these words, he gave me his hand, looked at me affectionately in the
+eyes, as if he would exact the promise, and then went on his way to look
+after his sick children.
+
+I was so astonished that another had penetrated so deeply into the
+secrets of my soul, and that he knew what I did not know myself, that
+when I recovered from it he had already been long upon the street.  An
+agitation began to seize me, as water, which has long been over the fire
+without stirring, suddenly bubbles up, boils, heaves and rages until it
+overflows.
+
+Not see her again!  I only live when I am with her.  I will be calm; I
+will not speak a word to her; I will only stand at her window as she
+sleeps and dreams.  But not to see her again!  Not to take one farewell
+from her!  She knows not, they cannot know, that I love her.  Surely I do
+not love her--I desire nothing, I hope for nothing, my heart never beats
+more quietly then when I am with her.  But I must feel her presence--I
+must breathe her spirit--I must go to her!  She waits for me.  Has
+destiny thrown us together without design?  Ought I not to be her
+consolation, and ought she not to be my repose?  Life is not a sport.  It
+does not force two souls together like the grains of sand in the desert,
+which the sirocco whirls together and then asunder.  We should hold fast
+the souls which friendly fate leads to us, for they are destined for us,
+and no power can tear them from us if we have the courage to live, to
+struggle, and to die for them.  She would despise me if I deserted her
+love at the first roll of the thunder, as it were in the shadow of a
+tree, under which I have dreamed so many happy hours.
+
+Then I suddenly grew calm, and heard only the words "her love;" they
+reverberated through all the recesses of my soul like an echo, and I was
+terrified at myself.  "Her love," and how had I deserved it?  She hardly
+knows me, and even if she could love me, must I not confess to her I do
+not deserve the love of an angel?  Every thought, every hope which arose
+in my soul, fell back like a bird which essays to soar into the blue sky
+and does not see the wires which restrain it.  And yet, why all this
+blissfulness, so near and so unattainable?  Cannot God work wonders?
+Does He not work wonders every morning?  Has He not often heard my prayer
+when it importuned him, and would not cease, until consolation and help
+came to the weary one?  These are not earthly blessings for which we
+pray.  It is only that two souls, which have found and recognized each
+other, may be allowed to finish their brief life-journey, arm in arm, and
+face to face; that I may be a support to her in suffering, and that she
+may be a consolation and precious burden to me until we reach the end.
+And if a still later spring were promised to her life, if her burdens
+were taken from her--Oh, what blissful scenes crowded upon my vision!
+The castle of her deceased mother, in the Tyrol, belonged to her.  There,
+on the green mountains, in the fresh mountain air, among a sturdy and
+uncorrupted people, far away from the hurly-burly of the world, its cares
+and its struggles, its opinion and its censure, how blissfully we could
+await the close of life, and silently fade away like the evening-red!
+Then I pictured the dark lake, with the dancing shimmer of waves, and the
+clear shadows of distant glaciers reflected in it; I heard the lowing of
+cattle and the songs of the herdsmen; I saw the hunters with their rifles
+crossing the mountains, and the old and young gathering together at
+twilight in the village; and, to crown all, I saw her passing along like
+an angel of peace in benediction, and I was her guide and friend.  "Poor
+fool!" I cried out, "poor fool!  Is thy heart always to be so wild and so
+weak?  Be a man.  Think who thou art, and how far thou art from her.  She
+is a friend.  She gladly reflects herself in another's soul, but her
+childlike trust and candor at best only show that no deeper feeling lives
+in her breast for thee.  Hast thou not, on many a clear summer's night,
+wandering alone, through the beech groves, seen how the moon sheds its
+light upon all the branches and leaves, how it brightens the dark, dull
+water of the pool and reflects itself clearly in the smallest drops?  In
+like manner she shines upon this dark life, and thou may'st feel her
+gentle radiance reflected in thy heart--but hope not for a warmer glow!"
+
+Suddenly an image approached me as it were from life; she stood before
+me, not like a memory but as a vision, and I realized for the first time
+how beautiful she was.  It was not that beauty of form and face which
+dazzles us at the first sight of a lovely maiden, and then fades away as
+suddenly as a blossom in spring.  It was much more the harmony of her
+whole being, the reality of every emotion, the spirituality of
+expression, the perfect union of body and soul which blesses him so who
+looks upon it.  The beauty which nature lavishes so prodigally does not
+bring any satisfaction, if the person is not adapted to it and as it were
+deserves and overcomes it.  On the other hand, it is offensive, as when
+we look upon an actress striding along the stage in queenly costume, and
+notice at every step how poorly the attire fits her, how little it
+becomes her.  True beauty is sweetness, and sweetness is the
+spiritualizing of the gross, the corporeal and the earthly.  It is the
+spiritual presence which transforms ugliness into beauty.  The more I
+looked upon the vision which stood before me, the more I perceived, above
+all else, the majestic beauty of her person and the soulful depths of her
+whole being.  Oh, what happiness was near me!  And was this all--to be
+shown the summit of earthly bliss and then be thrust out into the flat,
+sandy wastes of existence?  Oh, that I had never known what treasures the
+earth conceals!  Once to love, and then to be forever alone!  Once to
+believe, and then forever to doubt!  Once to see the light, and then
+forever to be blinded!  In comparison with this rack, all the
+torture-chambers of man are insignificant.
+
+Thus rushed the wild chase of my thoughts farther and farther away until
+at last all was silent.  The confused sensations gradually collected and
+settled.  This repose and exhaustion they call meditation, but it is
+rather an inspection--one allows time for the mixture of thoughts to
+crystallize themselves according to eternal laws, and regards the process
+like an observing chemist; and the elements having assumed a form, we
+often wonder that they, as well as ourselves, are so entirely different
+from what we expected.
+
+When I awoke from my abstraction, my first words were, "I must away."  I
+immediately sat down and wrote the Hofrath that I should travel for
+fourteen days and submit entirely to him.  I easily made an excuse to my
+parents, and at night I was on my way to the Tyrol.
+
+
+
+
+SEVENTH MEMORY.
+
+Wandering, arm in arm with a friend, through the valleys and over the
+mountains of the Tyrol, one sips life's fresh air and enjoyment; but to
+travel the same road solitary and alone with your thoughts is time and
+trouble lost.  Of what interest to me are the green mountains, the dark
+ravines, the blue lake, and the mighty cataracts?  Instead of
+contemplating them they look at me and wonder among themselves at this
+solitary being.  It smote me to the heart that I had found no one in
+all the world who loved me more than all others.  With such thoughts I
+awoke every morning, and they haunted me all the day like a song which
+one cannot drive away.  When I entered the inn at night and sat down
+wearied, and the people in the room watched me, and wondered at the
+solitary wanderer, it often urged me out into the night again, where no
+one could see I was alone.  At a late hour I would steal back, go
+quietly up to my room and throw myself upon my hot bed, and the song of
+Schubert's would ring through my soul until I went to sleep: "Where
+thou art not, is happiness."  At last the sight of men, whom I
+continually met laughing, rejoicing and exulting in this glorious
+nature, became so intolerable that I slept by day, and pursued my
+journey from place to place in the clear moonlight nights.  There was
+at least one emotion which dispelled and dissipated my thoughts: it was
+fear.  Let any one attempt to scale mountains alone all night long in
+ignorance of the way--where the eye, unnaturally strained, beholds
+distant shapes it cannot solve--where the ear, with morbid acuteness,
+hears sounds without knowing whence they come--where the foot suddenly
+stumbles, it may be over a root which forces its way through the rocks,
+or on a slippery path which the waterfall has drenched with its
+spray--and besides all this, a disconsolate waste in the heart, no
+memory to cheer us, no hope to which we may cling--let any one attempt
+this, and he will feel the cold chill of night both outwardly and
+inwardly.  The first fear of the human heart arises from God forsaking
+us; but life dissipates it, and mankind, created after the image of
+God, consoles us in our solitariness.  When even this consolation and
+love, however, forsake us, then we feel what it means to be deserted by
+God and man, and nature with her silent face terrifies rather than
+consoles us.  Even when we firmly plant our feet upon the solid rocks,
+they seem to tremble like the mists of the sea from which they once
+slowly emerged.  When the eye longs for the light, and the moon rises
+behind the firs, reflecting their tapering tops against the bright rock
+opposite, it appears to us like the dead hand of a clock which was once
+wound up, and will some day cease to strike.  There is no retreat for
+the soul, which feels itself alone and forsaken even among the stars,
+or in the heavenly world itself.  One thought brings us a little
+consolation: the repose, the regularity, the immensity, and the
+unavoidableness of nature.  Here, where the waterfall has clothed the
+gray rocks on either side with green moss, the eye suddenly recognizes
+a blue forget-me-not in the cool shade.  It is one of millions of
+sisters now blossoming along all the rivulets and in all the meadows of
+earth, and which have blossomed ever since the first morning of
+creation shed its entire inexhaustible wealth over the world.  Every
+vein in its leaves, every stamen in its cup, every fibre of its roots,
+is numbered, and no power on earth can make the number more or less.
+Still more, when we strain our weak eyes and, with superhuman power,
+cast a more searching glance into the secrets of nature, when the
+microscope discloses to us the silent laboratory of the seed, the bud
+and the blossom, do we recognize the infinite, ever-recurring form in
+the most minute tissues and cells, and the eternal unchangeableness of
+Nature's plans in the most delicate fibre.  Could we pierce still
+deeper, the same form-world would reveal itself, and the vision would
+lose itself as in a hall hung with mirrors.  Such an infinity as this
+lies hidden in this little flower.  If we look up to the sky, we see
+again the same system--the moon revolving around the planets, the
+planets around suns, and the suns around new suns, while to the
+straining eye the distant star-nebulae themselves seem to be a new and
+beautiful world.  Reflect then how these majestic constellations
+periodically revolve, that the seasons may change, that the seed of
+this forget-me-not may shed itself again and again, the cells open, the
+leaves shoot out, and the blossoms decorate the carpet of the meadow;
+and look upon the lady-bug which rocks itself in the blue cup of the
+flower, and whose awakening into life, whose consciousness of
+existence, whose living breath, are a thousand-fold more wonderful than
+the tissue of the flower, or the dead mechanism of the heavenly bodies.
+Consider that thou also belongest to this infinite warp and woof, and
+that thou art permitted to comfort thyself with the infinite creatures
+which revolve and live and disappear with thee.  But if this All, with
+its smallest and its greatest, with its wisdom and its power, with the
+wonders of its existence, and the existence of its wonders, is the work
+of a Being in whose presence thy soul does not shrink back, before whom
+thou fallest prostrate in a feeling of weakness and nothingness, and to
+whom thou risest again in the feeling of His love and mercy--if thou
+really feelest that something dwells in thee more endless and eternal
+than the cells of the flowers, the spheres of the planets, and the life
+of the insect--if thou recognizest in thyself as in a shadow the
+reflection of the Eternal which illuminates thee--if thou feelest in
+thyself, and under and above thyself, the omnipresence of the Real, in
+which thy seeming becomes being, thy trouble, rest, thy solitude,
+universality--then thou knowest the One to Whom thou criest in the dark
+night of life: "Creator and Father, Thy will be done in Heaven as upon
+earth, and as on earth so also in me."  Then it grows bright in and
+about thee.  The daybreak disappears with its cold mists, and a new
+warmth streams through shivering nature.  Thou hast found a hand which
+never again leaves thee, which holds thee when the mountains tremble
+and moons are extinguished.  Wherever thou may'st be, thou art with
+Him, and He with thee.  He is the eternally near, and His is the world
+with its flowers and thorns, His is man with his joys and sorrows.
+"The least important thing does not happen except as God wills it."
+
+With such thoughts I went on my way.  At one time, all was well with
+me; at another, troubled; for even when we have found rest and peace in
+the lowest depths of the soul, it is still hard to remain undisturbed
+in this holy solitude.  Yes, many forget it after they find it and
+scarcely know the way which leads back to it.
+
+Weeks had flown, and not a syllable had reached me from her.  "Perhaps
+she is dead and lies in quiet rest," was another song forever on my
+tongue, and always returning as often as I drove it from me.  It was
+not impossible, for the Hofrath had told me she suffered with heart
+troubles, and that he expected to find her no more among the living
+every morning he visited her.  Could I ever forgive myself if she had
+left this world and I had not taken farewell of her, nor told her at
+the last moment how I loved her?  Must I not follow until I found her
+again in another life, and heard from her that she loved me and that I
+was forgiven?  How mankind defers from day to day the best it can do,
+and the most beautiful things it can enjoy, without thinking that every
+day may be the last one, and that lost time is lost eternity!  Then all
+the words of the Hofrath, the last time I saw him, recurred to me, and
+I felt that I had only resolved to make my sudden journey to show my
+strength to him, and that it would have been a still more difficult
+task to have confessed my weakness and remained.  It was clear to me
+that it was my simple duty to return to her immediately and to bear
+everything which Heaven ordained.  But as soon as I had laid the plan
+for my return journey, I suddenly remembered the words of the Hofrath:
+"As soon as possible she must go away and be taken into the country."
+She had herself told me that she spent the most of her time, in summer,
+at her castle.  Perhaps she was there, in my immediate vicinity; in one
+day I could be with her.  Thinking was doing; at daybreak I was off,
+and at evening I stood at the gate of the castle.
+
+The night was clear and bright.  The mountain peaks glistened in the
+full gold of the sunset and the lower ridges were bathed in a rosy
+blue.  A gray mist rose from the valleys which suddenly glistened when
+it swept up into the higher regions, and then like a cloud-sea rolled
+heavenwards.  The whole color-play reflected itself in the gently
+agitated breast of the dark lake from whose shores the mountains seemed
+to rise and fall, so that only the tops of the trees and the peaks of
+the church steeples and the rising smoke from the houses defined the
+limits which separated the reality of the world from its reflection.
+My glance, however, rested upon only one spot--the old castle--where a
+presentiment told me I should find her again.  No light could be seen
+in the windows, no footstep broke the silence of the night.  Had my
+presentiment deceived me?  I passed slowly through the outer gateway
+and up the steps until I stood at the fore-court of the castle.  Here I
+saw a sentinel pacing back and forwards, and I hastened to the soldier
+to inquire who was in the castle.  "The Countess and her attendants are
+here," was the brief reply, and in an instant I stood at the main
+portal and had even pulled the bell.  Then, for the first time, my
+action occurred to me.  No one knew me.  I neither could nor dare say
+who I was.  I had wandered for weeks about the mountains, and looked
+like a beggar.  What should I say?  For whom should I ask?  There was
+little time for consideration, however, for the door opened and a
+servant in princely livery stood before me, and regarded me with
+amazement.
+
+I asked if the English lady, who I knew would never forsake the
+Countess, was in the castle, and when the servant replied in the
+affirmative, I begged for paper and ink and wrote her I was present to
+inquire after the health of the Countess.
+
+The servant called an attendant, who took the letter away.  I heard
+every step in the long halls, and every moment I waited, my position
+became more unendurable.  The old family portraits of the princely
+house hung upon the walls--knights in full armor, ladies in antique
+costume, and in the center a lady in the white robes of a nun with a
+red cross upon her breast.  At any other time I might have looked upon
+these pictures and never thought that a human heart once beat in their
+breasts.  But now it seemed to me I could suddenly read whole volumes
+in their features, and that all of them said to me: "We also have once
+lived and suffered."  Under these iron armors secrets were once hidden
+as even now in my own breast.  These white robes and the red cross are
+real proofs that a battle was fought here like that now raging in my
+own heart.  Then I fancied all of them regarded me with pity, and a
+loftier haughtiness rested on their features as if they would say, Thou
+dost not belong to us.  I was growing uneasy every moment, when
+suddenly a light step dissipated my dream.  The English lady came down
+the stairs and asked me to step into an apartment.  I looked at her
+closely to see if she suspected my real emotions, but her face was
+perfectly calm, and without manifesting the slightest expression of
+curiosity or wonder, she said in measured tones, the Countess was much
+better to-day and would see me in half an hour.
+
+When I heard these words, I felt like the good swimmer who has ventured
+far out into the sea, and first thinks of returning when his arms have
+begun to grow weary.  He cleaves the waves with haste, scarcely
+venturing to cast a glance at the distant shore, feeling with every
+stroke that his strength is failing and that he is making no headway,
+until at last, purposeless and cramped, he scarcely has any realization
+of his position; then suddenly his foot touches the firm bottom, and
+his arm hugs the first rock on the shore.  A fresh reality confronted
+me, and my sufferings were a dream.  There are but few such moments in
+the life of man, and thousands have never known their rapture.  The
+mother whose child rests in her arms for the first time, the father
+whose only son returns from war covered with glory, the poet in whom
+his countrymen exult, the youth whose warm grasp of the hand is
+returned by the beloved being with a still warmer pressure--they know
+what it means when a dream becomes a reality.
+
+At the expiration of the half hour, a servant came and conducted me
+through a long suite of rooms, opened a door, and in the fading light
+of the evening I saw a white figure, and above her a high window, which
+looked out upon the lake and the shimmering mountains.
+
+"How singularly people meet!" she cried out in a clear voice, and every
+word was like a cool rain-drop on a hot summer's day.
+
+"How singularly people meet, and how singularly they lose each other,"
+said I; and thereupon I seized her hand, and realized that we were
+together again.
+
+"But people are to blame if they lose each other," she continued; and
+her voice, which seemed always to accompany her words, like music,
+involuntarily modulated into a tenderer key.
+
+"Yes, that is true," I replied; "but first tell me, are you well, and
+can I talk with you?"
+
+"My dear friend," said she, smiling, "you know I am always sick, and if
+I say that I feel well, I do so for the sake of my old Hofrath; for he
+is firmly convinced that my entire life since my first year is due to
+him and his skill.  Before I left the Court-residence I caused him much
+anxiety, for one evening my heart suddenly ceased beating, and I
+experienced such distress that I thought it would never beat again.
+But that is past, and why should we recall it?  Only one thing troubles
+me, I have hitherto believed I should some time close my eyes in
+perfect repose, but now I feel that my sufferings will disturb and
+embitter my departure from life."  Then she placed her hand upon her
+heart, and said: "But tell me, where have you been, and why have I not
+heard from you all this time?  The old Hofrath has given me so many
+reasons for your sudden departure, that I was finally compelled to tell
+him I did not believe him--and at last he gave me the most incredible
+of all reasons, and counselled--what do you suppose?"
+
+"He might seem untruthful," I interrupted, so that she should not
+explain the reason, "and yet, perhaps he was only too truthful.  But
+this also is past, and why should we recall it?"
+
+"No, no, my friend," said she, "why call it past?  I told the Hofrath,
+when he gave me the last reason for your sudden departure, that I
+understood neither him nor you.  I am a poor sick, forsaken being, and
+my earthly existence is only a slow death.  Now if Heaven sends me a
+few souls who understand me, or love me, as the Hofrath calls it, why
+then should it disturb their joy or mine?  I had been reading my
+favorite poet, the old Wordsworth, when the Hofrath made his
+acknowledgment, and I said: 'My dear Hofrath, we have so many thoughts
+and so few words that we must express many thoughts in every word.  Now
+if one who does not know us understood that our young friend loved me,
+or I him, in such manner as we suppose Romeo loved Juliet and Juliet
+Romeo, you would be entirely right in saying it should not be so.  But
+is it not true that you love me also, my old Hofrath, and that I love
+you, and have loved you for many years?  And has it not sometimes
+occurred to you that I have neither been past remedy nor unhappy on
+that account?  Yes, my dear Hofrath, I will tell you still more--I
+believe you have an unfortunate love for me, and are jealous of our
+young friend.  Do you not come every morning and inquire how I am, even
+when you know I am very well?  Do you not bring me the finest flowers
+from your garden?  Did you not oblige me to send you my portrait,
+and--perhaps I ought not to disclose it--did you not come to my room
+last Sunday and think I was asleep?  I was really sleeping--at least I
+could not stir myself.  I saw you sitting at my bedside for a long
+time, your eyes steadfastly fixed upon me, and I felt your glances
+playing upon my face like sunbeams.  At last your eyes grew weary, and
+I perceived the great tears falling from them.  You held your face in
+your hands, and loudly sobbed: Marie, Marie!  Ah, my dear Hofrath, our
+young friend has never done that, and yet you have sent him away.'  As
+I thus talked with him, half in jest and half in earnest, as I always
+speak, I perceived that I had hurt the old man's feelings.  He became
+perfectly silent, and blushed like a child.  Then I took the volume of
+Wordsworth's poems which I had been reading, and said: 'Here is another
+old man whom I love, and love with my whole heart, who understands me,
+and whom I understand, and yet I have never seen him, and shall never
+see him on earth, since it is so to be.  Now I will read you one of his
+poems, that you may see how one can love, and that love is a silent
+benediction which the lover lays upon the head of the beloved, and then
+goes on his way in rapturous sorrow.'  Then I read to him Wordsworth's
+'Highland Girl;' and now, my friend, place the lamp nearer, and read
+the poem to me, for it refreshes me every time I hear it.  A spirit
+breathes through it like the silent, everlasting evening-red, which
+stretches its arms in love and blessing over the pure breast of the
+snow-covered mountains."
+
+As her words thus gradually and peacefully filled my soul, it at last
+grew still and solemn in my breast again; the storm was over, and her
+image floated like the silvery moonlight upon the gently rippling waves
+of my love--this world-sea which rolls through the hearts of all men,
+and which each calls his own while it is an all-animating pulse-beat of
+the whole human race.  I would most gladly have kept silent like Nature
+as it lay before our view without, and ever grew stiller and darker:
+But she gave me the book, and I read:
+
+
+  Sweet Highland Girl, a very shower
+  Of beauty is thy earthly dower!
+  Twice seven consenting years have shed
+  Their utmost bounty on thy head:
+  And these gray rocks, that household lawn,
+  Those trees, a veil just half withdrawn,
+  This fall of water that doth make
+  A murmur near the silent lake,
+  This little bay; a quiet road
+  That holds in shelter thy abode--
+  In truth, together do ye seem
+  Like something fashioned in a dream;
+  Such forms as from their covert peep
+  When earthly cares are laid asleep!
+  But, O fair creature! in the light
+  Of common day, so heavenly bright,
+  I bless thee, vision as thou art,
+  I bless thee with a human heart;
+  God shield thee to thy latest years!
+  Thee neither know I, nor thy peers;
+  And yet my eyes are filled with tears.
+
+  With earnest feeling I shall pray
+  For thee when I am far away;
+  For never saw I mien or face,
+  In which more plainly I could trace
+  Benignity and home-bred sense
+  Ripening in perfect innocence.
+  Here scattered, like a random seed,
+  Remote from men, thou dost not need
+  The embarrassed look of shy distress,
+  And maidenly shamefacedness:
+  Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear
+  The freedom of a mountaineer:
+  A face with gladness overspread!
+  Soft smiles, by human kindness bred!
+  And seemliness complete, that sways
+  Thy courtesies, about thee plays;
+  With no restraint, but such as springs
+  From quick and eager visitings
+  Of thoughts that lie beyond the reach
+  Of thy few words of English speech:
+  A bondage sweetly brooked, a strife
+  That gives thy gestures grace and life!
+  So have I, not unmoved in mind,
+  Seen birds of tempest-loving kind--
+  Thus beating up against the wind.
+
+  What hand but would a garland cull
+  For thee who art so beautiful?
+  O happy pleasure! here to dwell
+  Beside thee in some heathy dell;
+  Adopt your homely ways and dress,
+  A shepherd, thou a shepherdess:
+  But I could frame a wish for thee
+  More like a grave reality:
+  Thou art to me but as a wave
+  Of the wild sea; and I would have
+  Some claim upon thee, if I could,
+  Though but of common neighborhood
+  What joy to hear thee, and to see!
+  Thy elder brother I would be,
+  Thy father--anything to thee!
+
+  Now thanks to heaven! that of its grace
+  Hath led me to this lonely place.
+  Joy have I had; and going hence
+  I bear away my recompense.
+  In spots like these it is we prize
+  Our memory, feel that she hath eyes:
+  Then why should I be loth to stir?
+  I feel this place was made for her;
+  To give new pleasure like the past,
+  Continued long as life shall last.
+  Nor am I loth, though pleased at heart,
+  Sweet Highland Girl, from thee to part;
+  For I, methinks, till I grow old,
+  As fair before me shall behold,
+  As I do now, the cabin small,
+  The lake, the bay, the waterfall,
+  And thee, the spirit of them all!
+
+
+I had finished, and the poem had been to me like a draught of the fresh
+spring-water which I had sipped so often of late as it dropped from the
+cup of some large green leaf.
+
+Then I heard her gentle voice, like the first tone of the organ, which
+wakens us from our dreamy devotion, and she said:
+
+"Thus I desire you to love me, and thus the old Hofrath loves me, and
+thus in one way or another we should all love and believe in each
+other.  But the world, although I scarcely know it, does not seem to
+understand this love and faith, and, on this earth, where we could have
+lived so happily, men have made existence very wretched.
+
+"It must have been otherwise of old, else how could Homer have created
+the lovely, wholesome, tender picture of Nausikaa?  Nausikaa loves
+Ulysses at the first glance.  She says at once to her female friends:
+'Oh, that I could call such a man my spouse, and that it were his
+destiny to remain here.'  She was even too modest to appear in public
+at the same time with him, and she says, in his presence, that if she
+should bring such a handsome and majestic stranger home, the people
+would say, she may have taken him for a husband.  How simple and
+natural all this is!  But when she heard that he was going home to his
+wife and children, no murmur escaped her.  She disappears from our
+sight, and we feel that she carried the picture of the handsome and
+majestic stranger a long time afterward in her breast, with silent and
+joyful admiration.  Why do not our poets know this love--this joyful
+acknowledgment, this calm abnegation?  A later poet would have made a
+womanish Werter out of Nausikaa, for the reason that love with us is
+nothing more than the prelude to the comedy, or the tragedy, of
+marriage.  Is it true there is no longer any other love?  Has the
+fountain of this pure happiness wholly dried up?  Are men only
+acquainted with the intoxicating draught, and no longer with the
+invigorating well-spring of love?"
+
+At these words the English poet occurred to me, who also thus complains:
+
+  From heaven if this belief be sent,
+    If such be nature's holy plan,
+  Have I not reason to lament
+    What man has made of man.
+
+"Yet, how happy the poets are," said she.  "Their words call the
+deepest feelings into existence in thousands of mute souls, and how
+often their songs have become a confession of the sweetest secrets!
+Their heart beats in the breasts of the poor and the rich.  The happy
+sing with them, and the sad weep with them.  But I cannot feel any poet
+so completely my own as Wordsworth.  I know many of my friends do not
+like him.  They say he is not a poet.  But that is exactly why I like
+him; he avoids all the hackneyed poetical catch-words, all
+exaggeration, and everything comprehended in Pegasus-flights.  He is
+true--and does not everything lie in this one word?  He opens our eyes
+to the beauty which lies under our feet like the daisy in the meadow.
+He calls everything by its true name.  He never intends to startle,
+deceive, or dazzle any one.  He seeks no admiration for himself.  He
+only shows mankind how beautiful everything is which man's hand has not
+yet spoiled or broken.  Is not a dew-drop on a blade of grass more
+beautiful than a pearl set in gold?  Is not a living spring, which
+gushes up before us, we know not whence, more beautiful than all the
+fountains of Versailles?  Is not his Highland Girl a lovelier and truer
+expression of real beauty than Goethe's Helena, or Byron's Haidee?  And
+then the plainness of his language, and the purity of his thoughts!  Is
+it not a pity that we have never had such a poet?  Schiller could have
+been our Wordsworth, had he had more faith in himself than in the old
+Greeks and Romans.  Our Ruckert would come the nearest to him, had he
+not also sought consolation and home under Eastern roses, away from his
+poor Fatherland.  Few poets have the courage to be just what they are.
+Wordsworth had it; and as we gladly listen to great men, even in those
+moments when they are not inspired, but, like other mortals, quietly
+cherish their thoughts, and patiently wait the moment that will
+disclose new glimpses into the infinite, so have I also listened gladly
+to Wordsworth himself, in his poems, which contain nothing more than
+any one might have said.  The greatest poets allow themselves rest.  In
+Homer we often read a hundred verses without a single beauty, and just
+so in Dante; while Pindar, whom all admire so much, drives me to
+distraction with his ecstacies.  What would I not give to spend one
+summer on the lakes; visit with Wordsworth all the places to which he
+has given names; greet all the trees which he has saved from the axe;
+and only once watch a far-off sunset with him, which he describes as
+only Turner could have painted."
+
+It was a peculiarity of hers that her voice never dropped at the close
+of her talk, as with most people; on the contrary, it rose and always
+ended, as it were, in the broken seventh chord.  She always talked up,
+never down, to people.  The melody of her sentences resembled that of
+the child when it says: "Can't I, father?"  There was something
+beseeching in her tones, and it was well-nigh impossible to gainsay her.
+
+"Wordsworth," said I, "is a dear poet, and a still dearer man to me,
+and as one often has a more beautiful, wide-spread, and stirring
+outlook from a little hill which he ascends without effort, than when
+he has clambered up Mont Blanc with difficulty and weariness, so it
+seems to me with Wordsworth's poetry.  At first, he often appeared
+commonplace to me, and I have frequently laid down his poems unable to
+understand how the best minds of England to-day can cherish such an
+admiration for him.  The conviction has grown upon me that no poet whom
+his nation, or the intellectual aristocracy of his people, recognize as
+a poet, should remain unenjoyed by us, whatever his language.
+Admiration is an art which we must learn.  Many Germans say Racine does
+not please them.  The Englishman says, 'I do not understand Goethe.'
+The Frenchman says Shakespeare is a boor.  What does all this amount
+to?  Nothing more than the child who says it likes a waltz better than
+a symphony of Beethoven's.  The art consists in discovering and
+understanding what each nation admires in its great men.  He who seeks
+beauty will eventually find it, and discover that the Persians are not
+entirely deceived in their Hafiz, nor the Hindoos in their Kalidasa.
+We cannot understand a great man all at once.  It takes strength,
+effort, and perseverance, and it is singular that what pleases us at
+first sight seldom captivates us any length of time.
+
+"And yet," she continued, "there is something common to all great
+poets, to all true artists, to all the world's heroes, be they Persian
+or Hindoo, heathen or Christian, Roman or German; it is--I hardly know
+what to call it--it is the Infinite which seems to lie behind them, a
+far away glance into the Eternal, an apotheosis of the most trifling
+and transitory things.  Goethe, the grand heathen, knew the sweet peace
+which comes from Heaven; and when he sings:
+
+    "On every mountain-height
+      Is rest.
+    O'er each summit white
+      Thou feelest
+    Scarcely a breath.
+  The bird songs are still from each bough;
+  Only wait, soon shalt thou
+    Rest too, in death.
+
+"does not an endless distance, a repose which earth cannot give,
+disclose itself to him above the fir-clad summits?  This background is
+never wanting with Wordsworth.  Let the carpers say what they will, it
+is nevertheless only the super-earthly, be it ever so obscure, which
+charms and quiets the human heart.  Who has better understood this
+earthly beauty than Michel Angelo?--but he understood it, because it
+was to him a reflection of superearthly beauty.  You know his sonnet:
+
+  ["La forza d'un bel volto al ciel mi sprona
+  (Ch'altro in terra non e che mi diletti),
+  E vivo ascendo tra gli spirti eletti;
+  Grazia ch'ad uom mortal raro si dona.
+  Si ben col suo Fattor l'opra consuona,
+  Ch'a lui mi levo per divin concetti;
+  E quivi informo i pensier tutti e i detti;
+  Ardendo, amando per gentil persona.
+  Onde, se mai da due begli occhi il guardo
+  Torcer non so, conosco in lor la luce
+  Che mi mostra la via, ch'a Dio mi guide;
+  E se nel lume loro acceso io ardo,
+  Nel nobil foco mio dolce riluce
+  La gioja che nel cielo eterna ride."]
+
+  "The might of one fair face sublimes my love,
+  For it hath weaned my heart from low desires;
+  Nor death I heed nor purgatorial fires.
+  Thy beauty, antepast of joys above
+  Instructs me in the bliss that saints approve;
+  For, Oh! how good, how beautiful must be
+  The God that made so good a thing as thee,
+  So fair an image of the Heavenly Dove.
+  Forgive me if I cannot turn away
+  From those sweet eyes that are my earthly heaven,
+  For they are guiding stars, benignly given
+  To tempt my footsteps to the upward way;
+  And if I dwell too fondly in thy sight,
+  I live and love in God's peculiar light."
+
+She was exhausted and silent, and how could I disturb that silence?
+When human hearts, after friendly interchange of thoughts feel calmed
+and quieted, it is as if an angel had flown through the room and we
+heard the gentle flutter of wings over our heads.  As my gaze rested
+upon her, her lovely form seemed illuminated in the twilight of the
+summer evening, and her hand, which I held in mine, alone gave me the
+consciousness of her real presence.  Then suddenly a bright refulgence
+spread over her countenance.  She felt it, opened her eyes and looked
+upon me wonderingly.  The wonderful brightness of her eyes, which the
+half-closed eyelids covered as with a veil, shone like the lightning.
+I looked around and at last saw that the moon had arisen in full
+splendor between two peaks opposite the castle, and brightened the lake
+and the village with its friendly smiles.  Never had I seen Nature,
+never had I seen her dear face so beautiful, never had such holy rest
+settled down upon my soul.  "Marie," said I, "in this resplendent
+moment, let me, just as I am, confess my whole love.  Let us, while we
+feel so powerfully the nearness of the superearthly, unite our souls in
+a tie which can never again be broken.  Whatever love may be, Marie, I
+love you and I feel, Marie, you are mine for I am thine."
+
+I knelt before her, but ventured not to look into her eyes.  My lips
+touched her hand and I kissed it.  At this she withdrew her hand from
+me, slowly at first and then quickly and decidedly, and as I looked at
+her an expression of pain was on her face.  She was silent for a time,
+but at last she raised herself and said with a deep sigh:
+
+"Enough for to-day.  You have caused me pain, but it is my fault.
+Close the window.  I feel a cold chill coming over me as if a strange
+hand were touching me.  Stay with me--but no, you must go.  Farewell!
+Sleep well!  Pray that the peace of God may abide with us.  We see each
+other again--shall we not?  To-morrow evening I await you."
+
+Oh, where all at once had this heavenly rest flown?  I saw how she
+suffered, and all that, I could do was to quickly hurry away, summon
+the English lady and then go alone in the darkness of night to the
+village.  Long time I wandered back and forth about the lake, long my
+gaze strayed to the lighted window where I had just been.  Finally, the
+last light in the castle was extinguished.  The moon mounted higher and
+higher, and every pinnacle and projection and decoration on the lofty
+walls grew visible in the fairy-like illumination.  Here was I all
+alone in the silent night.  It seemed to me my brain had refused its
+office, for no thought came to an end and I only felt I was alone on
+this earth, that it contained no soul for me.  The earth was like a
+coffin, the black sky a funeral pall, and I scarcely knew whether I was
+living or had long been dead.  Then I suddenly looked up to the stars
+with their blinking eyes, which went their way so quietly--and it
+seemed to me that they were only for the lighting and consolation of
+men, and then I thought of two heavenly stars which had risen in my
+dark heaven so unexpectedly, and a thanksgiving rang through my
+breast--a thanksgiving for the love of my angel.
+
+
+
+
+LAST MEMORY.
+
+The sun was already looking into my window over the mountains when I
+awoke.  Was it the same sun which looked upon us the evening before with
+lingering gaze, like a departing friend, as if it would bless the union
+of our souls, and which set like a lost hope?  It shone upon me now, like
+a child which bursts into our room with beaming glance to wish us good
+morning on a joyful holiday.  And was I the same man who, only a few
+hours before, had thrown himself upon his bed, broken in body and spirit?
+Immediately I felt once more the old life-courage and trust in God and
+myself, which quickened and animated my soul like the fresh morning,
+breeze.  What would become of man without sleep?  We know not where this
+nightly messenger leads us; and when he closes our eyes at night who can
+assure us that he will open them again in the morning--that he will bring
+us to ourselves?  It required courage and faith for the first man to
+throw himself into the arms of this unknown friend; and were there not in
+our nature a certain helplessness which forces us to submission, and
+compels us to have faith in all things we are to believe, I doubt whether
+any man, notwithstanding all his weariness, could close his eyes of his
+own free will and enter into this unknown dream-land.  The very
+consciousness of our weakness and our weariness gives us faith in a
+higher power, and courage to resign ourselves to the beautiful system of
+the All, and we feel invigorated and refreshed when, in waking or in
+sleeping, we have loosened, even for a short time only, the chains which
+bind our Eternal Self to our temporal Ego.
+
+What had appeared to me, only yesterday, dark as an evening cloud flying
+overhead, became instantly clear.  We belonged to one another, that I
+felt; be it as brother and sister, father and child, bridegroom and
+bride, we must remain together now and forever.  It only concerned us to
+find the right name for that which we in our stammering speech call Love.
+
+  "Thy elder brother I would be,
+  Thy father--anything to thee."
+
+It was this "anything" for which a name must be found, for the world now
+recognizes nothing as nameless.  She had told me herself that she loved
+me with that pure all-human love, out of which springs all other love.
+Her shuddering, her uneasiness, when I confessed my full love to her,
+were still incomprehensible to me, but it could no longer shatter my
+faith in our love.  Why should we desire to understand all that takes
+place in other human natures, when there is so much that is
+incomprehensible in our own?  After all, it is the inconceivable which
+generally captivates us, whether in nature, in man, or in our own
+breasts.  Men whom we understand, whose motives we see before us like an
+anatomical preparation, leave us cold, like the characters in most of our
+novels.  Nothing spoils our delight in life and men more than this ethic
+rationalism which insists upon clearing up everything, and illuminating
+every mystery of our inner being.  There is in every person a something
+that is inseparable--we call it fate, the suggestive power or
+character--and he knows neither himself nor mankind, who believes that he
+can analyze the deeds and actions of men without taking into account this
+ever-recurring principle.  Thus I consoled myself on all those points
+which had troubled me in the evening; and at last no streak of cloud
+obscured the heaven of the future.
+
+In this frame of mind I stepped out of the close house into the open air,
+when a messenger brought a letter for me.  It was from the Countess, as I
+saw by the beautiful, delicate handwriting.  I breathlessly opened it--I
+looked for the most blissful tidings man can expect.  But all my hopes
+were immediately shattered.  The letter contained only a request not to
+visit her to-day, as she expected a visit at the castle from the Court
+Residence.  No friendly word--no news of her health--only at the close, a
+postscript: "The Hofrath will be here to-morrow and the next day."
+
+Here were two days torn out at once from the book of life.  If they could
+only be completely obliterated--but no, they hang over me like the leaden
+roof of a prison.  They must be lived.  I could not give them away as a
+charity to king or beggar, who would gladly have sat two days longer upon
+his throne, or on his stone at the church door.  I remained in this
+abstraction for a long time; but then I thought of my morning prayer, and
+how I said to myself there was no greater unbelief than despondency--how
+the smallest and greatest in life are part of one great divine plan, to
+which we must submit, however hard it may be.  Like a rider who sees a
+precipice before him, I drew in the reins.  "Be it so, since it must be!"
+I cried out; "but God's earth is not the place for complaints and
+lamentations.  Is it not a happiness to hold in my hand these lines which
+she has written? and is not the hope of seeing her again in a short time
+a greater bliss than I have ever deserved?  'Always keep the head above
+water,' say all good life-swimmers.  As well sink at once as allow the
+water to run into your eyes and throat."  If it is hard for us, amid
+these little ills of life, to keep God's providence continually in view,
+and if we hesitate, perhaps rightly, in every struggle, to step out of
+the common-places of life into the presence of the divine, then life
+ought to appear, to us at least, an art, if not a duty.  What is more
+disagreeable than the child who behaves ungovernably and grows dejected
+and angry at every little loss and pain?  On the other hand, nothing is
+more beautiful than the child in whose tearful eyes the sunshine of joy
+and innocence soon beams again, like the flower, which quivers and
+trembles in the spring shower, and soon after blossoms and exhales its
+fragrance, as the sun dries the tears upon its cheeks.
+
+A good thought speedily occurred to me, that I could live both these days
+with her, notwithstanding fate.  For a long time I had intended to write
+down the dear words she had said, and the many beautiful thoughts she had
+confided to me; and so the days passed away in memory of the many
+charming hours spent, together, and in the hope of a still more beautiful
+future, and I was by her and with her, and lived in her, and felt the
+nearness of her spirit and her love more than I had ever felt them when I
+held her hand in mine.
+
+How dear to me now are these leaves!  How often have I read and re-read
+them--not that I had forgotten one word she said, but they were the
+witnesses of my happiness, and something looked out of them upon me like
+the gaze of a friend, whose silence speaks more than words.  The memory
+of a past happiness, the memory of a past sorrow, the silent meditation
+upon the past, when everything disappears that surrounds and restrains
+us, when the soul throws itself down, like a mother upon the green
+grave-mound of her child who has slept under it many long years, when no
+hope, no desire, disturbs the silence of peaceful resignation, we may
+well call sadness, but there is a rapture in this sadness which only
+those know who have loved and suffered much.  Ask the mother what she
+feels when she ties upon the head of her daughter the veil _she_ once
+wore as a bride, and thinks of the husband no longer with her!  Ask a man
+what he feels when the maiden whom he has loved, and the world has torn
+from him, sends him after death the dried rose which he gave her in
+youth!  They may both weep, but their tears are not tears of sorrow, but
+tears of joy; tears of sacrifice, with which man consecrates himself to
+the Divine, and with faith in God's love and wisdom, looks upon the
+dearest he has passing away from him.
+
+Still let us go back in memory, back in the living presence of the past.
+The two days flew so swiftly that I was agitated, as the happiness of
+seeing her again drew nearer and nearer.  As the carriages and horsemen
+arrived on the first day from the city, I saw that the castle was alive
+with gaily-dressed visitors.  Banners fluttered from the roof, music
+sounded through the castle-yard.  In the evening, the lake swarmed with
+pleasure-boats.  The moennerchors sounded over the waves, and I could not
+but listen, for I fancied she also listened to these songs from the
+window.  Everything was stirring, also, on the second day, and early in
+the afternoon the guests prepared for departure.  Late in the evening I
+saw the Hofrath's carriage also going back alone to the city.  I could
+not restrain myself any longer, I knew she was alone.  I knew she thought
+of me, and longed for me.  Should I allow one night to pass without at
+least pressing her hand, without saying to her that the separation was
+over, that the next morning would waken us to new rapture.  I still saw a
+light in her window--why should she be alone?  Why should I not, for one
+moment at least, feel her sweet presence?  Already I stood at the castle;
+already I was about to pull the bell--then suddenly I stopped and said:
+"No! no weakness!  You should be ashamed to stand before her like a thief
+in the night.  Early in the morning go to her like a hero, returning from
+battle, for whom she is now weaving the crown of love, which she will
+place upon thy head in the morning."
+
+And the morning came--and I was with her, really with her.  Oh, speak not
+of the spirit as if it could exist without the body.  Complete existence,
+consciousness, and enjoyment, can only be where body and soul are one--an
+embodied spirit, a spiritualized body.  There is no spirit without body,
+else it would be a ghost: there is no body without spirit, else it would
+be a corpse.  Is the flower in the field without spirit? Does it not
+appear in a divine will, in a creative thought which preserves it, and
+gives it life and existence?  That is its soul--only it is silent in the
+flower, while it manifests itself in man by words.  Real life is, after
+all, the bodily and spiritual life; real consciousness is, after all, the
+bodily and spiritual consciousness; real being together is, after all,
+bodily and spiritually being together, and the whole world of memory in
+which I had lived so happily for two days, disappeared like a shadow,
+like a nonentity, as I stood before her, and was really with her.  I
+could have laid my hands upon her brow, her eyes, and her cheeks, to
+know, to unmistakably know, if it were really she--not only the image
+which had hovered before my soul day and night, but a being who was not
+mine, and still could and would be mine; a being in whom I could believe
+as in myself; a being far from me and yet nearer to me than my own self;
+a being without whom my life was no life, death was no death; without
+whom my poor existence would dissolve into infinity like a sigh.  I felt,
+as my thoughts and glances rested upon her, that now, in this very
+instant, the happiness of my existence was complete--and a shudder crept
+over me as I thought of death--but it seemed no longer to have any terror
+for me; for death could not destroy this love; it would only purify;
+ennoble, and immortalize it.
+
+It was so beautiful to be silent with her.  The whole depth of her soul
+was reflected in her countenance, and as I looked upon her I saw and
+heard her every thought and emotion.  "You make me sad," she seemed on
+the point of saying, and yet would not, "Are we not together again at
+last?  Be quiet!  Complain not!  Ask not!  Speak not!  Be welcome to me!
+Be not bad to me!"  All this looked from her eyes, and still we did not
+venture to disturb the peace of our happiness with a word.
+
+"Have you received a letter from the Hofrath?" was the first question,
+and her voice trembled with each word.
+
+"No," I replied.
+
+She was silent for a time, and then said:
+
+"Perhaps it is better it has happened thus, and that I can tell you
+everything myself.  My friend, we see each other to-day for the last
+time.  Let us part in peace, without complaint and without anger.  I feel
+that I have done you a great wrong.  I have intruded upon your life
+without thinking that even a light breath often withers a flower.  I know
+so little of the world that I did not believe a poor suffering being like
+myself could inspire anything but pity.  I welcome you in a frank and
+friendly way because I had known you so long, because I felt so well in
+your presence--why should I not tell all?--because I loved you.  But the
+world does not understand or tolerate this love.  The Hofrath has opened
+my eyes.  The whole city is talking about us.  My brother, the Regent,
+has written to the Prince, and he requests me never to see you again.  I
+deeply regret that I have caused you this sorrow.  Tell me you forgive
+me--and then let us separate as friends."
+
+Her eyes had filled with tears, and she closed them that I should not see
+her weeping.
+
+"Marie," said I, "for me there is but one life which is with you; but for
+you there is one will which is your own.  Yes, I confess, I love you with
+the whole fire of love, but I feel I am not worthily yours.  You stand
+far above me in nobility, sublimity and purity, and I can scarcely
+understand the thought of ever calling you my wife.  And, yet, there is
+no other road on which we could travel through life together.  Marie, you
+are wholly free; I ask for no sacrifice.  The world is great, and if you
+wish it, we shall never see each other again.  But if you love me, if you
+feel you are mine, oh, then, let us forget the world and its cold
+verdict.  In my arms I will bear you to the altar, and on my knees I will
+swear to be yours in life and in death."
+
+"My friend," said she, "we must never wish for the impossible.  Had it
+been God's will that such a tie should unite us in this life, would He,
+forsooth, have imposed these burdens upon me which make me incapable of
+being else than a helpless child?  Do not forget that what we call Fate,
+Circumstance, Relations, in life, is in reality only the work of
+Providence.  To resist it is to resist God himself, and were it not so
+childish one might call it presumptuous.  Men wander on earth like the
+stars in heaven.  God has indicated the paths upon which they meet, and
+if they are to separate, they must.  Resistance were useless, otherwise
+it would destroy the whole system of the world.  We cannot understand it,
+but we can submit to it.  I cannot myself understand why my inclination
+towards you was wrong.  No!  I cannot, will not call it wrong.  But it
+cannot be, it is not to be.  My friend, this is enough--we must submit in
+humility and faith."
+
+Notwithstanding the calmness with which she spoke, I saw how deeply she
+suffered; and yet I thought it wrong to surrender so quickly in this
+battle of life.  I restrained myself as much as I could, so that no
+passionate word should increase her trouble, and said:
+
+"If this is the last time we are to meet in this life, let us see clearly
+to whom we offer this sacrifice.  If our love violated any higher law
+whatsoever, I would, as you say, bow myself in humility.  It were a
+forgetfulness of God to oppose one's self to a higher will.  It may seem
+at times as if men could delude God, as if their small sense had gained
+some advantage over the Divine wisdom.  This is frenzy--and the man who
+commences this Titanic battle; will be crushed and annihilated.  But what
+opposes our love? Nothing but the talk of the world.  I respect the
+customs of human society.  I even respect them when, as in our time, they
+are over-refined and confused.  A sick body needs artificial medicines,
+and without the barriers, the respect and the prejudices of society, at
+which we smile, it were impossible to hold mankind together as at present
+existing, and to accomplish the purpose of our temporal co-existence.  We
+must sacrifice much to these divinities.  Like the Athenians, we send
+every year a heavy boatload of youths and maidens as tribute to this
+monster which rules the labyrinth of our society.  There is no longer a
+heart that has not broken; there is no longer a man of true feelings who
+has not been obliged to break the wings of his love before he came into
+the cage of society for rest.  It must be so.  It cannot be otherwise.
+You know not life, but thinking only of my friends, I can tell you many
+volumes of tragedy.
+
+"One loved a maiden, and the love was returned; but he was poor, she was
+rich.  The fathers and relatives wrangled and sneered, and two hearts
+were broken.  Why?  Because the world looked upon it as a misfortune for
+a woman to wear a dress made of the wool of a shrub in America, and not
+of the fibres of a worm in China.
+
+"Another loved a maiden, and was loved in return; but he was a
+Protestant, she was a Catholic.  The mothers and the priests bred
+mischief, and two hearts were broken.  Why?  On account of a political
+game of chess which Charles V and Henry VIII played together, three
+hundred years ago.
+
+"A third loved a maiden, and was loved in return; but he was a noble, she
+a peasant.  The sisters were angry, and quarreled, and two hearts were
+broken.  Why?  Because, a hundred years ago, one soldier slew another in
+battle, who threatened the life of his king.  This gave him title and
+honors, and his great grandson expiated the blood shed at that time, with
+a disappointed life.
+
+"The statisticians say a heart is broken every hour, and I believe it.
+But why?  In almost every case, because the world does not recognize love
+between 'strange people,' unless it be between man and wife.  If two
+maidens love the same man--the one must fall as a sacrifice.  If two men
+love the same maiden, one or both must fall as a sacrifice.  Why?  Cannot
+one love a maiden, without wishing to marry her?  Cannot one look upon a
+woman, without desiring her for his own?  You close your eyes, and I feel
+I have said too much.  The world has changed the most sacred things in
+life into the most common.  But, Marie, enough!  Let us talk the language
+of the world when we must talk, and act in it, and with it.  But let us
+preserve a sanctuary where two hearts can speak the pure language of the
+heart, undisturbed by the raging of the world without.  The world itself
+honors this seclusion, this courageous resistance, which noble hearts,
+conscious of their own rectitude, oppose to the ordinary course of
+things.  The attentions, the amenities, the prejudices of the world are
+like a climbing plant.  It is pleasant to see an ivy, with its thousand
+tendrils and roots, decorating the solid wall-work; but it should not be
+allowed too luxuriant growth, else it will penetrate every crevice of the
+structure, and destroy the cement which welds it together.  Be mine,
+Marie; follow the voice of your heart.  The word which now hangs upon
+your lips decides forever your life and mine--my happiness and yours."
+
+I was silent.  The hand I held in mine returned the warm pressure of the
+heart.  A storm raged in her breast, and the blue heaven before me never
+seemed so beautiful as now, while the storm swept by, cloud upon cloud.
+
+"Why do you love me?" said she, gently, as if she must still delay the
+moment of decision.
+
+"Why, Marie?  Ask the child why it is born; ask the flower why it
+blossoms; ask the sun why it shines.  I love you because I must love you.
+But if I am compelled to answer further, let this book, lying by you,
+which you love so much, speak for me:
+
+
+["Das beste solte das liebste sin, und in diser libe solte nicht
+angesehen werden nuss und unnuss, fromen oder schaden, gewin oder
+vorlust, ere oder unere, lob oder unlob oder diser keins, sunder was in
+der warheit das edelste und das aller beste ist, das solt auch das
+allerliebste sin, und umb nichts anders dan allein umb das, das es das
+edelst und das beste ist.  Hie nach mocht ein mensche sin leben gerichten
+von ussen und von innen.  Von ussen: wan under den creaturen ist eins
+besser dan das ander, dar nach dan das ewig gut in einem mer oder minner
+schinet und wurket dan in dem andern.  In welchem nun das ewig gut aller
+meist schinet, luchtet, wurket und bekant und geliebet wirt, das ist ouch
+das beste under den creaturen; und in welchem dis minst ist, das ist ouch
+das aller minst gut.  So nu der mensche die creatur handelt und da mit
+umb get, und disen underscheit bekennet, so sol im ie die beste creatur
+die liebste sin und sol sich mit flis zu ir halden und sich da mit
+voreinigen. . ."]
+
+
+"The best should be the most loved, and in this love there should be no
+consideration of advantage or disadvantage, gain or loss, honor or
+dishonor, praise or blame, or anything else, but of that which in reality
+is the noblest and best, which should be the dearest of all; and for no
+other reason, but because it is the noblest and best.  According to this
+a man should plan his inner and outer life.  From without: if among
+mankind there is one better than another, in proportion as the eternally
+good shines or works more in one than in another.  That being in whom the
+eternally good shines, works, is known and loved most, is therefore the
+best among mankind; and in whom this is most, there is also the most
+good.  As now a man has intercourse with a being, and apprehends this
+distinction, then the best being should be the dearest to him, and he
+should fervently cling to it, and unite himself with it. . . . . ."
+
+
+"Because you are the most perfect creature that I know, Marie, therefore
+I am good to you, therefore you are dear to me, therefore we love each
+other.  Speak the word which lives in you, say that you are mine.  Deny
+not your innermost convictions.  God has imposed a life of suffering upon
+you.  He sent me to bear it with you.  Your sorrow shall be my sorrow,
+and we will bear it together, as the ship bears the heavy sails which
+guide it through the storms of life into the safe haven at last."
+
+She grew more and more silent, A gentle flush played upon her cheeks like
+the quiet evening gleam.  Then she opened her eyes full--the sun gleamed
+all at once with marvellous lustre.
+
+"I am yours," said she.  "God wills it.  Take me just as I am; so long as
+I live I am yours, and may God bring us together again in a more
+beautiful life, and recompense your love."
+
+We lay heart to heart.  My lips closed the lips upon which had just now
+hung the blessing of my life, with a gentle kiss.  Time stood still for
+us.  The world about us disappeared.  Then a deep sigh escaped from her
+breast.  "May God forgive me for this rapture," she whispered.  "Leave me
+alone now, I cannot endure more.  _Auf wiedersehen_!  my friend, my loved
+one, my savior."
+
+These were the last words I ever heard from her.  But no--I had reached
+home and was lying upon my bed in troubled dreams.  It was past midnight
+when the Hofrath entered my room.  "Our angel is in Heaven," said he;
+"here is the last greeting she sends you."  With these words he gave me a
+letter.  It enclosed the ring which she had given me, and I once had
+given her, with the words: "_As God wills_."  It was wrapped in an old
+paper, whereon she had some time written the words I spoke to her when a
+child: "What is thine, is mine.  Thy Marie."
+
+Hours long, we sat together without speaking.  It was a spiritual swoon
+which Heaven sends us when the load of pain becomes greater than we can
+bear.  At last the old man arose, took my hand and said: "We see each
+other to-day for the last time, for you must leave here, and my days are
+numbered.  There is but one thing I must say to you--a secret which I
+have carried all my life, and confessed to no one.  I have always longed
+to confess it to some one.  Listen to me.  The spirit which has left us
+was a beautiful spirit, a majestic, pure soul, a deep, true heart.  I
+knew one spirit as beautiful as hers--still more beautiful.  It was her
+mother.  I loved her mother, and she loved me.  We were both poor, and I
+struggled with life to obtain an honorable position both on her account
+and my own.  The young Prince saw my bride and loved her.  He was my
+Prince; he loved her ardently.  He was ready to make any sacrifice and to
+elevate her, the poor orphan, to the rank of Princess.  I loved her so
+that I sacrificed the happiness of my love for her.  I forsook my native
+land and wrote her I would release her from her vow.  I never saw her
+again, except on her death-bed.  She died in giving birth to her first
+daughter.  Now you know why I loved your Marie, and prolonged her life
+from day to day.  She was the only being that linked my heart to this
+life.  Bear life as I have borne it.  Lose not a day in useless
+lamentation.  Help mankind whenever you can.  Love them and thank God
+that you have seen and known and loved on this earth such a human heart
+as hers--and that you have lost it."
+
+"_As God will_." said I, and we parted for life.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+And days and weeks and months and years have flown.  Home is a stranger
+to me, and a foreign land is my home.  But her love remains with me, and
+as a tear drops into the ocean, so has her love dropped into the living
+ocean of humanity and pervades and embraces millions--millions of the
+"strange people" whom I have so loved from childhood.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Only on quiet summer days like this, when one in the green woods has
+nature alone at heart, and knows not whether there are human beings.
+without, or he is living entirely alone in the world, then there is a
+stir in the graveyard of memory, the dead thoughts, rise again, the full
+omnipotence of love returns to the heart and streams out from that
+beautiful being who once looked upon me with her deep unfathomable eyes.
+Then it seems as if the love for the millions were lost in the love for
+the one, my good angel, and my thoughts are dumb in the presence of the
+incomprehensible enigma of endless and everlasting love.
+
+
+
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