{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_14521/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_14521","id":"gutenberg_14521","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14521","summary":null,"tags":["Category: German Literature","Category: Novels","Germany","M\u00fcller, F. Max (Friedrich Max), 1823-1900","Religion historians -- Germany -- Biography"],"text":"Transcriber's note:  This book contains several brief passages in German,\n                     each of which is followed by an English translation.\n                     Several of the German words contain \"o-umlaut\",\n                     which has been rendered as \"oe\".  Several others\n                     contain the German \"Eszett\" character, which has\n                     been rendered as \"ss\".\n\n\n\n\nMEMORIES\n\nA Story of German Love\n\nTranslated from the German of\n\nMAX MULLER\n\nby\n\nGeorge P. Upton\n\nChicago\nA. C. McClurg & Co.\n\n1902\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n  TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE\n  AUTHOR'S PREFACE\n  FIRST MEMORY\n  SECOND MEMORY\n  THIRD MEMORY\n  FOURTH MEMORY\n  FIFTH MEMORY\n  SIXTH MEMORY\n  SEVENTH MEMORY\n  LAST MEMORY\n\n\n\nTRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.\n\nThe translation of any work is at best a difficult task, and must\ninevitably be prejudicial to whatever of beauty the original possesses.\nWhen the principal charm of the original lies in its elegant\nsimplicity, as in the case of the \"Deutsche Liebe,\" the difficulty is\nstill further enhanced.  The translator has sought to reproduce the\nsimple German in equally simple English, even at the risk of\ntransferring German idioms into the English text.\n\nThe story speaks for itself.  Without plot, incidents or situations, it\nis nevertheless dramatically constructed, unflagging in interest,\nabounding in beauty, grace and pathos, and filled with the tenderest\nfeeling of sympathy, which will go straight to the heart of every lover\nof the ideal in the world of humanity, and every worshipper in the\nworld of nature.  Its brief essays upon theology, literature and social\nhabits, contained in the dialogues between the hero and the heroine,\nwill commend themselves to the thoughtful reader by their clearness and\nbeauty of statement, as well as by their freedom from prejudice.\n\"Deutsche Liebe\" is a poem in prose, whose setting is all the more\nbeautiful and tender, in that it is freed from the bondage of metre,\nand has been the unacknowledged source of many a poet's most striking\nutterances.\n\nAs such, the translator gives it to the public, confident that it will\nfind ready acceptance among those who cherish the ideal, and a tender\nwelcome by every lover of humanity.\n\nThe translator desires to make acknowledgments to J. J. Lalor, Esq.,\nlate of the Chicago _Tribune_ for his hearty co-operation in the\nprogress of the work, and many valuable suggestions; to Prof. Feuling,\nthe eminent philologist, of the University of Wisconsin, for his\nliteral version of the extracts from the \"Deutsche Theologie,\" which\npreserve the quaintness of the original, and to Mrs. F. M. Brown, for\nher metrical version of Goethe's almost untranslatable lines, \"Ueber\nallen Gipfeln, ist Ruh,\" which form the keynote of the beautiful\nharmony in the character of the heroine.\n\n  G.P.U.\n  Chicago, November, 1874.\n\n\n\n\nAUTHOR'S PREFACE.\n\nWho has not, at some period of his life, seated himself at a\nwriting-table, where, only a short time before, another sat, who now\nrests in the grave?  Who has not opened the drawers, which for long\nyears have hidden the secrets of a heart now buried in the holy peace\nof the church-yard?  Here lie the letters which were so precious to\nhim, the beloved one; here the pictures, ribbons, and books with marks\non every leaf.  Who can now read and interpret them?  Who can gather\nagain the withered and scattered leaves of this rose, and vivify them\nwith fresh perfume?  The flames, in which the Greeks enveloped the\nbodies of the departed for the purpose of destruction; the flames, into\nwhich the ancients cast everything once dearest to the living, are now\nthe securest repository for these relics.  With trembling fear the\nsurviving friend reads the leaves no eye has ever seen, save those now\nso firmly closed, and if, after a glance, too hasty even to read them,\nhe is convinced these letters and leaves contain nothing which men deem\nimportant, he throws them quickly upon the glowing coals--a flash and\nthey are gone.\n\nFrom such flames the following leaves have been saved.  They were at\nfirst intended only for the friends of the deceased, yet they have\nfound friends even among strangers, and, since it is so to be, may\nwander anew in distant lands.  Gladly would the compiler have furnished\nmore, but the leaves are too much scattered and mutilated to be\nrearranged and given complete.\n\n\n\n\nFIRST MEMORY.\n\nChildhood has its secrets and its mysteries; but who can tell or who\ncan explain them!  We have all roamed through this silent\nwonder-wood--we have all once opened our eyes in blissful astonishment,\nas the beautiful reality of life overflowed our souls.  We knew not\nwhere, or who, we were--the whole world was ours and we were the whole\nworld's.  That was an infinite life--without beginning and without end,\nwithout rest and without pain.  In the heart, it was as clear as the\nspring heavens, fresh as the violet's perfume--hushed and holy as a\nSabbath morning.\n\nWhat disturbs this God's-peace of the child?  How can this unconscious\nand innocent existence ever cease?  What dissipates the rapture of this\nindividuality and universality, and suddenly leaves us solitary and\nalone in a clouded life?\n\nSay not, with serious face.  It is sin!  Can even a child sin?  Say\nrather, we know not, and must only resign ourselves to it.\n\nIs it sin, which makes the bud a blossom, and the blossom fruit, and\nthe fruit dust?\n\nIs it sin, which makes the worm a chrysalis, and the chrysalis a\nbutterfly, and the butterfly dust?\n\nAnd is it sin, which makes the child a man, and the man a gray-haired\nman, and the gray-haired man dust?  And what is dust?\n\nSay rather, we know not, and must only resign ourselves to it.\n\nYet it is so beautiful, recalling the spring-time of life, to look back\nand remember one's self.  Yes, even in the sultry summer, in the\nmelancholy autumn and in the cold winter of life, there is here and\nthere a spring day, and the heart says: \"I feel like spring.\"  Such a\nday is this--and so I lay me down upon the soft moss of the fragrant\nwoods, and stretch out my weary limbs, and look up, through the green\nfoliage, into the boundless blue, and think how it used to be in that\nchildhood.\n\nThen, all seems forgotten.  The first pages of memory are like the old\nfamily Bible.  The first leaves are wholly faded and somewhat soiled\nwith handling.  But, when we turn further, and come to the chapters\nwhere Adam and Eve were banished from Paradise, then, all begins to\ngrow clear and legible.  Now if we could only find the title-page with\nthe imprint and date--but that is irrevocably lost, and, in their\nplace, we find only the clear transcript--our baptismal\ncertificate--bearing witness when we were born, the names of our\nparents and godparents, and that we were not issued _sine loco et anno_.\n\nBut, oh this beginning!  Would there were none, since, with the\nbeginning, all thought and memories alike cease.  When we thus dream\nback into childhood, and from childhood into infinity, this bad\nbeginning continually flies further away.  The thoughts pursue it and\nnever overtake it; just as a child seeks the spot where the blue sky\ntouches the earth, and runs and runs, while the sky always runs before\nit, yet still touches the earth--but the child grows weary and never\nreaches the spot.\n\nBut even since we were once there--wherever it may be, where we had a\nbeginning, what do we know now?  For memory shakes itself like the\nspaniel, just come out of the waves, while the water runs in, his eyes\nand he looks very strangely.\n\nI believe I can even yet remember when I saw the stars for the first\ntime.  They may have seen me often before, but one evening it seemed as\nif it were cold.  Although I lay in my mother's lap, I shivered and was\nchilly, or I was frightened.  In short, something came over me which\nreminded me of my little Ego in no ordinary manner.  Then my mother\nshowed me the bright stars, and I wondered at them, and thought that\nshe had made them very beautifully.  Then I felt warm again, and could\nsleep well.\n\nFurthermore, I remember how I once lay in the grass and everything\nabout me tossed and nodded, hummed and buzzed.  Then there came a great\nswarm of little, myriad-footed, winged creatures, which lit upon my\nforehead and eyes and said, \"Good day.\"  Immediately my eyes smarted,\nand I cried to my mother, and she said: \"Poor little one, how the gnats\nhave stung him!\"  I could not open my eyes or see the blue sky any\nlonger, but my mother had a bunch of fresh violets in her hand, and it\nseemed as if a dark-blue, fresh, spicy perfume were wafted through my\nsenses.  Even now, whenever I see the first violets, I remember this,\nand it seems to me that I must close my eyes so that the old dark-blue\nheaven of that day may again rise over my soul.\n\nStill further do I remember, how, at another time, a new world\ndisclosed itself to me--more beautiful than the star-world or the\nviolet perfume.  It was on an Easter morning, and my mother had dressed\nme early.  Before the window stood our old church.  It was not\nbeautiful, but still it had a lofty roof and tower, and on the tower a\ngolden cross, and it appeared very much older and grayer than the other\nbuildings.  I wondered who lived in it, and once I looked in through\nthe iron-grated door.  It was entirely empty, cold and dismal.  There\nwas not even one soul in the whole building, and after that I always\nshuddered when I passed the door.  But on this Easter morning, it had\nrained early, and when the sun came out in full splendor, the old\nchurch with the gray sloping roof, the high windows and the tower with\nthe golden cross glistened with a wondrous shimmer.  All at once the\nlight which streamed through the lofty windows began to move and\nglisten.  It was so intensely bright that one could have looked within,\nand as I closed my eyes the light entered my soul and therein\neverything seemed to shed brilliancy and perfume, to sing and to ring.\nIt seemed to me a new life had commenced in myself and that I was\nanother being, and when I asked my mother what it meant, she replied it\nwas an Easter song they were singing in the church.  What bright, holy\nsong it was, which at that time surged through my soul, I have never\nbeen able to discover.  It must have been an old church hymn, like\nthose which many a time stirred the rugged soul of our Luther.  I never\nheard it again, but many a time even now when I hear an adagio of\nBeethoven's, or a psalm of Marcellus, or a chorus of Handel's, or a\nsimple song in the Scotch Highlands or the Tyrol, it seems to me as if\nthe lofty church windows again glistened and the organ-tones once more\nsurged through my soul, and a new world revealed itself--more beautiful\nthan the starry heavens and the violet perfume.\n\nThese things I remember in my earliest childhood, and intermingled with\nthem are my dear mother's looks, the calm, earnest gaze of my father,\ngardens and vine leaves, and soft green turf, and a very old and quaint\npicture-book--and this is all I can recall of the first scattered\nleaves of my childhood.\n\nAfterwards it grows brighter and clearer.  Names and faces appear--not\nonly father and mother, but brothers and sisters, friends and teachers,\nand a multitude of _strange people_.  Ah! yes, of these _strange\npeople_ there is so much recorded in memory.\n\n\n\n\nSECOND MEMORY.\n\nNot far from our house, and opposite the old church with the golden\ncross, stood a large building, even larger than the church, and having\nmany towers.  They looked exceedingly gray and old and had no golden\ncross, but stone eagles tipped the summits and a great white and blue\nbanner fluttered from the highest tower, directly over the lofty\ndoorway at the top of the steps, where, on either side, two mounted\nsoldiers stood sentinels.  The building had many windows, and behind\nthe windows you could distinguish red-silk curtains with golden\ntassels.  Old lindens encircled the grounds, which, in summer,\novershadowed the gray masonry with their green leaves and bestrewed the\nturf with their fragrant white blossoms.  I had often looked in there,\nand at evening when the lindens exhaled their perfumes and the windows\nwere illuminated, I saw many figures pass and repass like shadows.\nMusic swept down from on high, and carriages drove up, from which\nladies and gentlemen alighted and ascended the stairs.  They all looked\nso beautiful and good!  The gentlemen had stars upon their breasts, and\nthe ladies wore fresh flowers in their hair; and I often thought,--Why\ndo I not go there too?\n\nOne day my father took me by the hand and said: \"We are going to the\ncastle; but you must be very polite if the Princess speaks to you, and\nkiss her hand.\"\n\nI was about six years of age and as delighted as only one can be at six\nyears of age.  I had already indulged in many quiet fancies about the\nshadows which I had seen evenings through the lighted windows, and had\nheard many good things at home of the beneficence of the Prince and\nPrincess; how gracious they were; how much help and consolation they\nbrought to the poor and sick; and that they had been chosen by the\ngrace of God to protect the good and punish the bad.  I had long\npictured to myself what transpired in the castle, so that the Prince\nand Princess were already old acquaintances whom I knew as well as my\nnut-crackers and leaden soldiers.\n\nMy heart beat quickly as I ascended the high stairs with my father, and\njust as he was telling me I must call the Princess \"Highness,\" and the\nPrince \"Serene Highness,\" the folding-door opened and I saw before me a\ntall figure with brilliantly piercing eyes.  She seemed to advance and\nstretch out her hand to me.  There was an expression on her countenance\nwhich I had long known, and a heavenly smile played about her cheeks.\nI could restrain myself no longer, and while my father stood at the\ndoor bowing very low--I knew not why--my heart sprang into my throat.\nI ran to the beautiful lady, threw my arms round her neck and kissed\nher as I would my mother.  The beautiful, majestic lady willingly\nsubmitted, stroked my hair and smiled; but my father took my hand, led\nme away, and said I was very rude, and that he should never take me\nthere again.  I grew utterly bewildered.  The blood mounted to my\ncheeks, for I felt that my father had been unjust to me.  I looked at\nthe Princess as if she ought to shield me, but upon her face was only\nan expression of mild earnestness.  Then I looked round upon the ladies\nand gentlemen assembled in the room, believing that they would come to\nmy defense.  But as I looked, I saw that they were laughing.  Then the\ntears sprang into my eyes, and out of the door, down the stairs, and\npast the lindens in the castle yard, I rushed home, where I threw\nmyself into my mother's arms and sobbed and wept.\n\n\"What has happened to you?\" said she.\n\n\"Oh! mother!\" I cried; \"I was at the Princess', and she was such a good\nand beautiful woman, just like you, dear mother, that I had to throw my\narms round her neck and kiss her.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said my mother; \"you should not have done that, for they are\nstrangers and high dignitaries.\"\n\n\"And what then are strangers?\" said I.\n\n\"May I not love all people who look upon me with affectionate and\nfriendly eyes?\"\n\n\"You can love them, my son,\" replied my mother, \"but you should not\nshow it.\"\n\n\"Is it then something wrong for me to love people?\" said I.  \"Why\ncannot I show it?\"\n\n\"Well, perhaps you are right,\" said she, \"but you must do as your\nfather says, and when you are older you will understand why you cannot\nembrace every woman who regards you with affectionate and friendly\neyes.\"\n\nThat was a sad day.  Father came home, agreed I had been very uncivil.\nAt night my mother put me to bed, and I prayed, but I could not sleep,\nand kept wondering what these strange people were, whom one must not\nlove.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nThou poor human heart!  So soon in the spring are thy leaves broken and\nthe feathers torn from the wings!  When the spring-red of life opens\nthe hidden calyx of the soul, it perfumes our whole being with love.\nWe learn to stand and to walk, to speak and to read, but no one teaches\nus love.  It is inherent in us like life, they say, and is the very\ndeepest foundation of our existence.  As the heavenly bodies incline to\nand attract each other, and will always cling together by the\neverlasting law of gravitation, so heavenly souls incline to and\nattract each other, and will always cling together by the everlasting\nlaw of love.  A flower cannot blossom without sunshine, and man cannot\nlive without love.  Would not the child's heart break in despair when\nthe first cold storm of the world sweeps over it, if the warm sunlight\nof love from the eyes of mother and father did not shine upon him like\nthe soft reflection of divine light and love?  The ardent yearning,\nwhich then awakes in the child, is the purest and deepest love.  It is\nthe love which embraces the whole world; which shines resplendent\nwherever the eyes of men beam upon it, which exults wherever it hears\nthe human voice.  It is the old, immeasurable love, a deep well which\nno plummet has ever sounded; a fountain of perennial richness.  Whoever\nknows it also knows that in love there is no More and no Less; but that\nhe who loves can only love with the whole heart, and with the whole\nsoul; with all his strength and with all his will.\n\nBut, alas, how little remains of this love by the time we have finished\none-half of our life-journey!  Soon the child learns that there are\nstrangers, and ceases to be a child.  The spring of love becomes hidden\nand soon filled up.  Our eyes gleam no more, and heavy-hearted we pass\none another in the bustling streets.  We scarcely greet each other, for\nwe know how sharply it cuts the soul when a greeting remains\nunanswered, and how sad it is to be sundered from those whom we have\nonce greeted, and whose hands we have clasped.  The wings of the soul\nlose their plumes; the leaves of the flower fast fall off and wither;\nand of this fountain of love there remain but a few drops.  We still\ncall these few drops love, but it is no longer the clear, fresh,\nall-abounding child-love.  It is love with anxiety and trouble, a\nconsuming flame, a burning passion; love which wastes itself like\nrain-drops upon the hot sand; love which is a longing, not a sacrifice;\nlove which says \"Wilt thou be mine,\" not love which says, \"I must be\nthine.\"  It is a most selfish, vacillating love.  And this is the love\nwhich poets sing and in which young men and maidens believe; a fire\nwhich burns up and down, yet does not warm, and leaves nothing behind\nbut smoke and ashes.  All of us at some period of life have believed\nthat these rockets of sunbeams were everlasting love, but the brighter\nthe glitter, the darker the night which follows.\n\nAnd then when all around grows dark, when we feel utterly alone, when\nall men right and left pass us by and know us not, a forgotten feeling\nrises in the breast.  We know not what it is, for it is neither love\nnor friendship.  You feel like crying to him who passes you so cold and\nstrange: \"Dost thou not know me?\"  Then one realizes that man is nearer\nto man than brother to brother, father to son, or friend to friend.\nHow an old, holy saying rings through our souls, that strangers are\nnearest to us.  Why must we pass them in silence?  We know not, but\nmust resign ourselves to it.  When two trains are rushing by upon the\niron rails and thou seest a well-known eye that would recognize thee,\nstretch out thy hand and try to grasp the hand of a friend, and perhaps\nthou wilt understand why man passes man in silence here below.\n\nAn old sage says: \"I saw the fragments of a wrecked boat floating on\nthe sea.  Only a few meet and hold together a long time.  Then comes a\nstorm and drives them east and west, and here below they will never\nmeet again.  So it is with mankind.  Yet no one has seen the great\nshipwreck.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHIRD MEMORY.\n\nThe clouds in the sky of childhood do not last long, and disappear\nafter a short, warm tear-rain.  I was shortly again at the castle, and\nthe Princess gave me her hand to kiss and then brought her children,\nthe young princes and princesses, and we played together, as if we had\nknown each other for years.  Those were happy days when, after\nschool--for I was now attending school--I could go to the castle and\nplay.  We had everything the heart could wish.  I found playthings\nthere which my mother had shown me in the shop-windows, and which were\nso dear, she told me, that poor people could live a whole week on what\nthey cost.  When I begged the Princess' permission to take them home\nand show them to my mother, she was perfectly willing.  I could turn\nover and over and look for hours at a time at beautiful picture books,\nwhich I had seen in the book stores with my father, but which were made\nonly for very good children.  Everything which belonged to the young\nprinces belonged also to me--so I thought, at least.  Furthermore, I\nwas not only allowed to carry away what I wished, but I often gave away\nthe playthings to other children.  In short, I was a young Communist,\nin the full sense of the term.  I remember at one time the Princess had\na golden snake which coiled itself around her arm as if it were alive,\nand she gave it to us for a plaything.  As I was going home I put the\nsnake on my arm and thought I would give my mother a real fright with\nit.  On the way, however, I met a woman who noticed the snake and\nbegged me to show it to her; and then she said if she could only keep\nthe golden snake, she could release her husband from prison with it.\nNaturally I did not stop to think for a minute, but ran away and left\nthe woman alone with the golden serpent-bracelet.  The next day there\nwas much excitement.  The poor woman was brought to the castle and the\npeople said she had stolen it.  Thereupon I grew very angry and\nexplained with holy zeal that I had given her the bracelet and that I\nwould not take it back again.  What further occurred I know not, but I\nremember that after that time, I showed the Princess everything I took\nhome with me.\n\nIt was a long time before my conceptions of Meum and Tuum were fully\nsettled, and at a very late period they were at times confused, just as\nit was a long time before I could distinguish between the blue and red\ncolors.  The last time I remember my friends laughing at me on this\naccount was when my mother gave me some money to buy apples.  She gave\nme a groschen.  The apples cost only a sechser, and when I gave the\nwoman the groschen, she said, very sadly as it seemed to me, that she\nhad sold nothing the whole livelong day and could not give me back a\nsechser.  She wished I would buy a groschen's worth.  Then it occurred\nto me that I also had a sechser in my pocket, and thoroughly delighted\nthat I had solved the difficult problem, I gave it to the woman and\nsaid: \"Now you can give me back a sechser.\"  She understood me so\nlittle however that she gave me back the groschen and kept the sechser.\n\nAt this time, while I was making almost daily visits to the young\nprinces at the castle, both to play as well as to study French with\nthem, another image comes up in my memory.  It was the daughter of the\nPrincess, the Countess Marie.  The mother died shortly after the birth\nof the child and the Prince subsequently married a second time.  I know\nnot when I saw her for the first time.  She emerges from the darkness\nof memory slowly and gradually--at first like an airy shadow which\ngrows more and more distinct as it approaches nearer and nearer, at\nlast standing before my soul like the moon, which on some stormy night\nthrows back the cloud-veils from across its face.  She was always sick\nand suffering and silent, and I never saw her except reclining upon her\ncouch, upon which two servants brought her into the room and carried\nher out again, when she was tired.  There she lay in her flowing white\ndrapery, with her hands generally folded.  Her face was so pale and yet\nso mild, and her eyes so deep and unfathomable, that I often stood\nbefore her lost in thought and looked upon her and asked myself if she\nwas not one of the \"strange people\" also.  Many a time she placed her\nhand upon my head and then it seemed to me that a thrill ran through\nall my limbs and that I could not move or speak, but must forever gaze\ninto her deep, unfathomable eyes.  She conversed very little with us,\nbut watched our sports, and when at times we grew very noisy and\nquarrelsome, she did not complain but held her white hands over her\nbrow and closed her eyes as if sleeping.  But there were days when she\nsaid she felt better, and on such days she sat up on her couch,\nconversed with us and told us curious stories.  I do not know how old\nshe was at that time.  She was so helpless that she seemed like a\nchild, and yet was so serious and silent that she could not have been\none.  When people alluded to her they involuntarily spoke gently and\nsoftly.  They called her \"the angel,\" and I never heard anything said\nof her that was not good and lovely.  Often when I saw her lying so\nsilent and helpless, and thought that she would never walk again in\nlife, that there was for her neither work nor joy, that they would\ncarry her here and there upon her couch until they laid her upon her\neternal bed of rest, I asked myself why she had been sent into this\nworld, when she could have rested so gently on the bosom of the angels\nand they could have borne her through the air on their white wings, as\nI had seen in some sacred pictures.  Again I felt as if I must take a\npart of her burden, so that she need not carry it alone, but we with\nher.  I could not tell her all this for I knew it was not proper.  I\nhad an indefinable feeling.  It was not a desire to embrace her.  No\none could have done that, for it would have wronged her.  It seemed to\nme as if I could pray from the very bottom of my heart that she might\nbe released from her burden.\n\nOne warm spring day she was brought into our room.  She looked\nexceedingly pale; but her eyes were deeper and brighter than ever, and\nshe sat upon her couch and called us to her.  \"It is my birth-day,\"\nsaid she, \"and I was confirmed early this morning.  Now, it is\npossible,\" she continued as she looked upon her father with a smile,\n\"that God may soon call me to him, although I would gladly remain with\nyou much longer.  But if I am to leave you, I desire that you should\nnot wholly forget me; and, therefore, I have brought a ring for each of\nyou, which you must now place upon the fore-finger.  As you grow older\nyou can continue to change it until it fits the little finger; but you\nmust wear it for your lifetime.\"\n\nWith these words she took the five rings she wore upon her fingers,\nwhich she drew off, one after the other, with a look so sad and yet so\naffectionate, that I pressed my eyes closely to keep from weeping.  She\ngave the first ring to her eldest brother and kissed him, the second\nand third to the two princesses, and the fourth to the youngest prince,\nand kissed them all as she gave them the rings.  I stood near by, and,\nlooking fixedly at her white hand, saw that she still had a ring upon\nher finger; but she leaned back and appeared wearied.  My eyes met\nhers, and as the eyes of a child speak so loudly, she must have easily\nknown my thoughts, I would rather not have had the last ring, for I\nfelt that I was a stranger; that I did not belong to her, and that she\nwas not as affectionate to me as to her brothers and sisters.  Then\ncame a sharp pain in my breast as if a vein had burst or a nerve had\nbeen severed, and I knew not which way to turn to conceal my anguish.\n\nShe soon raised herself again, placed her hand upon my forehead and\nlooked down into my heart so deeply that I felt I had not a thought\ninvisible to her.  She slowly drew the last ring from her finger, gave\nit to me and said; \"I intended to have taken this with me, when I went\nfrom you, but it is better you should wear it and think of me when I am\nno longer with you.  Read the words engraved upon the ring: 'As God\nwills.'  You have a passionate heart, easily moved.  May life subdue\nbut not harden it.\"  Then she kissed me as she had her brothers and\ngave me the ring.\n\nAll my feelings I do not truly know.  I had then grown up to boyhood,\nand the mild beauty of the suffering angel could not linger in my young\nheart without alluring it.  I loved her as only a boy can love, and\nboys love with an intensity and truth and purity which few preserve in\ntheir youth and manhood; but I believed she belonged to the \"strange\npeople\" to whom you are not allowed to speak of love.  I scarcely\nunderstood the earnest words she spoke to me.  I only felt that her\nsoul was as near to mine as one human soul can be to another.  All\nbitterness was gone from my heart.  I felt myself no longer alone, no\nlonger a stranger, no longer shut out.  I was by her, with her and in\nher.  I thought it might be a sacrifice for her to give me the ring,\nand that she might have preferred to take it to the grave with her, and\na feeling arose in my soul which overshadowed all other feelings, and I\nsaid with quivering voice: \"Thou must keep the ring if thou dost not\nwish to give it to me; for what is thine is mine.\"  She looked at me a\nmoment surprised and thoughtfully.  Then she took the ring, placed it\non her finger, kissed me once more on the forehead, and said gently to\nme: \"Thou knowest not what thou sayest.  Learn to understand thyself.\nThen shall thou be happy and make many others happy.\"\n\n\n\n\nFOURTH MEMORY.\n\nEvery life has its years in which one progresses as on a tedious and\ndusty street of poplars, without caring to know where he is.  Of these\nyears nought remains in memory but the sad feeling that we have\nadvanced and only grown older.  While the river of life glides along\nsmoothly, it remains the same river; only the landscape on either bank\nseems to change.  But then come the cataracts of life.  They are firmly\nfixed in memory, and even when we are past them and far away, and draw\nnearer and nearer to the silent sea of eternity, even then it seems as\nif we heard from afar their rush and roar.  We feel that the life-force\nwhich yet remains and impels us onward still has its source and supply\nfrom those cataracts.\n\nSchool time was ended, the first fleeting years of university life were\nover, and many beautiful life-dreams were over also.  But one of them\nstill remained: Faith in God and man.  Otherwise life would have been\ncircumscribed within one's narrow brain.  Instead of that, a nobler\nconsecration had preserved all, and even the painful and\nincomprehensible events of life became a proof to me of the\nomnipresence of the divine in the earthly.  \"The least important thing\ndoes not happen except as God wills it.\"  This was the brief\nlife-wisdom I had accumulated.\n\nDuring the summer holidays I returned to my little native city.  What\njoy in these meetings again!  No one has explained it, but in this\nseeing and finding again, and in these self-memories, lie the real\nsecrets of all joy and pleasure.  What we see, hear or taste for the\nfirst time may be beautiful, grand and agreeable, but it is too new.\nIt overpowers, but gives no repose, and the fatigue of enjoying is\ngreater than the enjoyment itself.  To hear again, years afterward, an\nold melody, every note of which we supposed we had forgotten, and yet\nto recognize it as an old acquaintance; or, after the lapse of many\nyears, to stand once more before the Sistine Madonna at Dresden, and\nexperience afresh all the emotions which the infinite look of the child\naroused in us for years; or to smell a flower or taste a dish again\nwhich we have not thought of since childhood--all these produce such an\nintense charm that we do not know which we enjoy most, the actual\npleasure or the old memory.  So when we return again, after long\nabsence, to our birth-place, the soul floats unconsciously in a sea of\nmemories, and the dancing waves dreamily toss themselves upon the\nshores of times long passed.  The belfry clock strikes and we fear we\nshall be late to school, and recovering from this fear feel relieved\nthat our anxiety is over.  The same dog runs along the street on whose\naccount we used to go far out of our way.  Here sits the old huckster\nwhose apples often led us into temptation, and even now, we fancy they\nmust taste better than all other apples in the world, notwithstanding\nthe dust on them.  There one has torn down a house and built a new one.\nHere the old music-teacher lived.  He is dead--and yet how beautiful it\nseemed as we stood and listened on summer evenings under the window\nwhile the True Soul, when the hours of the day were over, indulged in\nhis own enjoyment and played fantasies, like the roaring and hissing\nengine letting off the steam which has accumulated during the day.\nHere in this little leafy lane, which seemed at that time so much\nlarger, as I was coming home late one evening, I met our neighbor's\nbeautiful daughter.  At that time I had never ventured to look at or\naddress her, but we school-children often spoke of her and called her\n\"the Beautiful Maiden,\" and whenever I saw her passing along the street\nat a distance I was so happy that I could only think of the time when I\nshould meet her nearer.  Here in this leafy walk which leads to the\nchurch-yard, I met her one evening and she took me by the arm, although\nwe had never spoken together before, and asked me to go home with her.\nI believe neither of us spoke a word the whole way; but I was so happy\nthat even now, after all these years, I wish it were that evening, and\nthat I could go home again, silently and blissfully, with \"the\nBeautiful Maiden.\"\n\nThus one memory follows another until the waves dash together over our\nheads, and a deep sigh swells the breast, which warns us that we have\nforgotten to breathe in the midst of these pure thoughts.  Then all at\nonce, the whole dream-world vanishes, like uprisen ghosts at the\ncrowing of the cock.\n\nAs I passed by the old castle and the lindens, and saw the sentinels\nupon their horses, how many memories awakened in my soul, and how\neverything had changed!  Many years had flown since I was at the\ncastle.  The Princess was dead.  The Prince had given up his rule and\ngone back to Italy, and the oldest prince, with whom I had grown up,\nwas regent.  His companions were young noblemen and officers, whose\nintercourse was congenial to him, and whose company in our early days\nhad often estranged us.  Other circumstances combined to weaken our\nyoung friendship.  Like every young man who perceives for the first\ntime the lack of unity in the German folk-life, and the defects of\nGerman rule, I had caught up some phrases of the Liberal party, which\nsounded as strangely at court as unseemly expressions in an honest\nminister's family.  In short, it was many years since I had ascended\nthose stairs, and yet a being dwelt in that castle whose name I had\nnamed almost daily, and who was almost constantly present in my memory.\nI had long dwelt upon the thought that I should never see her again in\nthis life.  She was transformed into an image which I felt neither did\nnor could exist in reality.  She had become my good angel--my other\nself, to whom I talked instead of talking with myself.  How she became\nso I could not explain to myself, for I scarcely knew her.  Just as the\neye sometimes pictures figures in the clouds, so I fancied my\nimagination had conjured up this sweet image in the heaven of my\nchildhood, and a complete picture of phantasy developed itself out of\nthe scarcely perceptible outlines of reality.  My entire thought had\ninvoluntarily become a dialogue with her, and all that was good in me,\nall for which I struggled, all in which I believed, my entire better\nself, belonged to her.  I gave it to her.  I received it from her, from\nher my good angel.\n\nI had been at home but a few days, when I received a letter one\nmorning.  It was written in English, and came from the Countess Marie:\n\n\n_Dear Friend_: I hear you are with us for a short time.  We have not\nmet for many years, and if it is agreeable to you, I should like to see\nan old friend again.  You will find me alone this afternoon in the\nSwiss Cottage.           Yours sincerely, MARIE.\n\n\nI immediately replied, also in English, that I would call in the\nafternoon.\n\nThe Swiss Cottage constituted a wing of the castle, which overlooked\nthe garden, and could be reached without going through the castle yard.\nIt was five o'clock when I passed through the garden and approached the\ncottage.  I repressed all emotion and prepared myself for a formal\nmeeting.  I sought to quiet my good angel, and to assure her that this\nlady had nothing to do with her.  And yet I felt very uneasy, and my\ngood angel would not listen to counsel.  Finally I took courage,\nmurmuring something to myself about the masquerade of life, and rapped\non the door, which stood ajar.\n\nThere was no one in the room except a lad whom I did not know, and who\nlikewise spoke English, and said the Countess would be present in a\nmoment.  She then left, and I was alone, and had time to look about.\n\nThe walls of the room were of rose-chestnut, and over an openwork\ntrellis, a luxuriant broadleaved ivy twined around the whole room.  All\nthe tables and chairs were of carved rose-chestnut.  The floor was of\nvariegated woodwork.  It gave me a curious sensation to see so much\nthat was familiar in the room.  Many articles from our old play-room in\nthe castle were old friends, but the others were new, especially the\npictures, and yet they were the same as those in my University\nroom--the same portraits of Beethoven, Handel and Mendelssohn, as I had\nselected--hung over the grand piano.  In one corner I saw the Venus di\nMilo, which I always regarded as the masterpiece of antiquity.  On the\ntable were volumes of Dante, Shakspeare, Tauler's Sermons, the \"German\nTheology,\" Ruckert's Poems, Tennyson and Burns, and Carlyle's \"Past and\nPresent,\"--the very same books--all of which I had had but recently in\nmy hands.  I was growing thoughtful, but I repressed my thoughts and\nwas just standing before the portrait of the deceased Princess, when\nthe door opened, and the same two servants, whom I had so often seen in\nchildhood, brought the Countess into the room upon her couch.\n\nWhat a vision!  She spoke not a word, and her countenance was as placid\nas the sea, until the servants left the room.  Then her eyes sought\nme--the old, deep, unfathomable eyes.  Her expression grew more\nanimated each instant.  At last her whole face lit up, and she said:\n\n\"We are old friends--I believe; we have not changed.  I cannot say\n'You,' and if I may not say 'Thou,' then we must speak in English.  Do\nyou understand me?\"\n\nI had not anticipated such a reception, for I saw here was no\nmasquerade--here was a soul which longed for another soul--here was a\ngreeting like that between two friends who recognize each other by the\nglance of the eye, notwithstanding their disguises and dark masks.  I\nseized the hand she held out to me, and replied: \"When we address an\nangel, we cannot say 'You.'\"\n\nAnd yet how singular, is the influence of the forms and habits of life!\nHow difficult it is to speak the language of nature even to the most\ncongenial souls!  Our conversation halted, and both of us felt the\nembarrassment of the moment.  I broke the silence and spoke out my\nthoughts: \"Men become accustomed to live from youth up as it were in a\ncage, and when they are once in the open air they dare not venture to\nuse their wings, fearing, if they fly, that they may stumble against\neverything.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" replied she, \"and that is very proper and cannot well be\notherwise.  One often wishes that he could live like the birds which\nfly in the woods, and meet upon the branches and sing together without\nbeing presented to each other.  But, my friend, even among the birds\nthere are owls and sparrows, and in life it is well that one can pass\nthem without knowing them.  It is sometimes with life as with poetry.\nAs the real poet can express the Truest and most Beautiful, although\nfettered by metrical form, so man should know how to preserve freedom\nof thought and feeling notwithstanding the restraints of society.\"\n\nI could not help recalling the words of Platen: \"That which proves\nitself everlasting under all circumstances, told in the fetters of\nwords, is the unfettered spirit.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said she, with a cordial but sweetly playful smile; \"but I have\na privilege which is at the same time my burden and loneliness.  I\noften pity the young men and maidens, for they cannot have a friendship\nor an intimacy without their relatives or themselves pronouncing it\nlove, or what they call love.  They lose much on this account.  The\nmaiden knows not what slumbers in her soul, and what might be awakened\nby earnest conversation with a noble friend; and the young man in turn\nwould acquire so much knightly virtue if women were suffered to be the\ndistant witnesses of the inner struggles of the spirit.  It will not\ndo, however, for immediately love comes in play, or what they call\nlove--the quick beating of the heart--the stormy billows of hope--the\ndelight over a beautiful face--the sweet sentimentality--sometimes also\nprudent calculation--in short, all that troubles the calm sea, which is\nthe true picture of pure human love------\"\n\nShe checked herself suddenly, and an expression of pain passed over her\ncountenance.  \"I dare not talk more to-day,\" said she; \"my physician\nwill not allow it.  I would like to hear one of Mendelssohn's\nsongs--that duet, which my young friend used to play years ago.  Is it\nnot so?\"\n\nI could not answer, for as she ceased speaking and gently folded her\nhands, I saw upon her hand a ring.  She wore it on her little\nfinger--the ring which she had given me and I had given her.  Thoughts\ncame too fast for utterance, and I seated myself at the piano and\nplayed.  When I had done, I turned around and said: \"Would one could\nonly speak thus in tones without words!\"\n\n\"That is possible,\" said she; \"I understood it all.  But I must not do\nanything more to-day, for every day I grow weaker.  We must be better\nacquainted, and a poor sick recluse may certainly claim forbearance.\nWe meet to-morrow evening, at the same hour; shall we not?\"\n\nI seized her hand and was about to kiss it, but she held my hand\nfirmly, pressed it and said: \"It is better thus.  Good bye.\"\n\n\n\n\nFIFTH MEMORY.\n\nIt would be difficult to describe my thoughts and emotions as I went\nhome.  The soul cannot at once translate itself perfectly in words, and\nthere are \"thoughts without words,\" which in every man are the prelude\nof supreme joy and suffering.  It was neither joy nor pain, only an\nindescribable bewilderment which I felt; thoughts flew through my\ninnermost being like meteors, which shoot from heaven towards earth but\nare extinguished before they reach the goal.  As we sometimes say in a\ndream, \"I am dreaming,\" so I said to myself \"thou livest\"--\"it is she.\"\nI tried again to reflect and calm myself, and said, \"She is a lovely\nvision--a very wonderful spirit.\"  At another time, I pictured the\ndelightful evenings I should pass during the holidays.  But no, no,\nthis cannot be.  She is everything I sought, thought, hoped and\nbelieved.  Here was at last a human soul, as clear and fresh as a\nspring morning.  I had seen at the first glance what she was and how\nshe felt, and we had greeted and recognized one another.  And my good\nangel in me, she answered me no more.  She was gone and I felt there\nwas no place on earth where I should find her again.\n\nNow began a beautiful life, for I was with her every evening.  We soon\nrealized that we were in truth old acquaintances and that we could only\ncall each other Thou.  It seemed also as if we had lived near and with\none another always, for she manifested not an emotion that did not find\nits counterpart in my soul, and there was no, thought which I uttered\nto which she did not nod friendly assent, as much as to say: \"I thought\nso too.\"  I had previously heard the greatest master of our time and\nhis sister extemporize on the piano, and scarcely comprehended how two\npersons could understand and feel themselves so perfectly and yet\nnever, not even in a single note, disturb the harmony of their playing.\nNow it became intelligible to me.  Yes, now I understood for the first\ntime that my soul was not so poor and empty as it had seemed to me, and\nthat it had been only the sun that was lacking to open all its germs,\nand buds to the light.  And yet what a sad and brief spring-time it was\nthat our souls experienced!  We forget in May that roses so soon\nwither, but here every evening reminded us that one leaf after another\nwas falling to the ground.  She felt it before I did, and alluded to it\napparently without pain, and our interviews grew more earnest and\nsolemn daily.\n\nOne evening, as I was about to leave, she said: \"I did not think I\nshould grow so old.  When I gave you the ring on my confirmation day I\nthought I should have to take my departure from you all, very soon.\nAnd yet I have lived so many years, and enjoyed so much beauty--and\nsuffered so very much!  But one forgets that!  Now, while I feel that\nmy departure is near, every hour, every minute, grows precious to me.\nGood night!  Do not come too late to-morrow.\"\n\nOne day as I went into her room, I met an Italian painter with her.\nShe spoke Italian with him, and although he was evidently more artisan\nthan artist, she addressed him with such amiability and modesty, with\nsuch respect even, one could not avoid recognizing that nobility of\nsoul which is the true nobility of birth.  When the painter had taken\nhis leave, she said to me: \"I wish to show you a picture which will\nplease you.  The original is in the gallery at Paris.  I read a\ndescription of it, and have had it copied by the Italian.\"  She showed\nme the painting, and waited my opinion.  It was a picture of a man of\nmiddle age, in the old German costume.  The expression was dreamy and\nresigned, and so characteristic that no one could doubt this man once\nlived.  The whole tone of the picture in the foreground was dark and\nbrownish; but in the background was a landscape, and on the horizon the\nfirst gleams of daybreak appeared.  I could discover nothing special in\nthe picture, and yet it produced a feeling of such satisfaction that\none might have tarried to look at it for hours at a time.  \"There is\nnothing like a genuine human face,\" said I; \"Raphael himself could not\nhave imagined a face like this.\"\n\n\"No,\" said she.  \"But now I will tell you why I wished to have the\npicture.  I read that no one knew the artist, nor whom the picture\nrepresents.  But it is very clearly a philosopher of the Middle Ages.\nJust such a picture I wanted for my gallery, for you are aware that no\none knows the author of the 'German Theology,' and moreover, that we\nhave no picture of him.  I wished to try whether the picture of an\nUnknown by an Unknown would answer for our German theologian, and if\nyou have no objections we will hang it here between the 'Albigenses'\nand the 'Diet of Worms,' and call it the 'German Theologian.'\"\n\n\"Good,\" said I; \"but it is somewhat too vigorous and manly for the\nFrankforter.\"\n\n\"That may be,\" replied she.  \"But for a suffering and dying life like\nmine, much consolation and strength may be derived from his book.  I\nthank him much, for it disclosed to me for the first time the true\nsecret of Christian doctrine in all its simplicity.  I felt that I was\nfree to believe or disbelieve the old teacher, whoever he may have\nbeen, for his doctrines had no external constraint upon me; at last it\nseized upon me with such power that it seemed to me I knew for the\nfirst time what revelation was.  It is precisely this fact that bars so\nmany out from true Christianity, namely: that its doctrines confront us\nas revelation before revelation takes place in ourselves.  This has\noften given me much anxiety; not that I had ever doubted the truth and\ndivinity of our religion, but I felt I had no right to a belief which\nothers had given me, and that what I, had learned and received when a\nchild, without comprehending, did not belong to me.  One can believe\nfor us as little as one can live and die for us.\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" said I; \"therein lies the cause of many hot and bitter\nstruggles; that the teachings of Christ, instead of winning our hearts\ngradually and irresistibly, as they won the hearts of the apostles and\nearly Christians, confront us from the earliest childhood as the\ninfallible law of a mighty church, and demand of us an unconditional\nsubmission, which they call faith.  Doubts arise sooner or later in the\nbreast of every one who has the power of thinking and reverence for the\ntruth; and then even when we are on the right road, to overcome our\nfaith, the terrors of doubt and unbelief arise and disturb the tranquil\ndevelopment of the new life.\"\n\n\"I read recently in an English work,\" she interrupted, \"that truth\nmakes revelation, and not revelation truth.  This perfectly expressed\nwhat I found in reading the 'German Theology.' I read the book, and I\nfelt the power of its truths so overwhelmingly that I was compelled to\nsubmit to it.  The truth was revealed to me; or rather, I was revealed\nto myself, and I felt for the first time what belief meant.  The truth\nwhich had long slumbered in my soul belonged to me, but it was the word\nof the unknown teacher which filled me with light, illuminated my inner\nvision, and brought out my indistinct presentiments in fuller clearness\nbefore my soul.  When I had thus experienced for the first time how the\nhuman soul can believe, I read the Gospels as if they, too, had been\nwritten by an Unknown man, and banished the thought as well as I could\nthat they were an inspiration from the Holy Ghost to the apostles, in\nsome wonderful manner; that they had been endorsed by the councils and\nproclaimed by the church as the supreme authority of the alone-saving\nbelief.  Then, for the first time, I understood what Christian faith\nand revelation were.\"\n\n\"It is wonderful,\" said I, \"that the theologians have not broken down\nall religion, and they will succeed yet, if the believers do not\nseriously confront them and say: 'Thus far but no farther.'  Every\nchurch must have its servants, but there has been as yet no religion\nwhich the Priests, the Brahmins, the Schamins, the Bonzes, the Lamas,\nthe Pharisees, or the Scribes have not corrupted and perverted.  They\nwrangle and dispute in a language unintelligible to nine-tenths of\ntheir congregations, and instead of permitting themselves to be\ninspired by the apostles, and of inspiring others with their\ninspiration, they construct long arguments to show that the Gospels\nmust be true, because they were written by inspired men.  But this is\nonly a makeshift for their own unbelief.  How can they know that these\nmen were inspired in a wonderful manner, without ascribing to\nthemselves a still more wonderful inspiration?  Therefore they extend\nthe gift of inspiration to the fathers of the church; they attribute to\nthem those very things which the majority have incorporated in the\ncanons of the councils; and there again, when the question arises how\nwe know that of fifty bishops twenty-six were inspired and twenty-four\nwere not, they finally take the last desperate step, and say that\ninfallibility and inspiration are inherent in the heads of the church\ndown to the present day, through the laying on of hands, so that\ninfallibility, majority and inspiration make all our convictions, all\nresignation, all devout intuitions, superfluous.  And yet,\nnotwithstanding all these connecting links, the first question returns\nin all its simplicity: How can B know that A is inspired, if B is not\nequally, or even more, inspired than A?  For it is of more consequence\nto know that A was inspired than for one's self to be inspired.\"\n\n\"I have never comprehended this so clearly myself,\" said she.  \"But I\nhave often felt how difficult it must be to know whether one loves who\nshows not a sign of love that could not be imitated.  And, again, I\nhave thought that no one could know it unless he knew love himself, and\nthat he could only believe in the love of another so far as he believed\nin his own love.  As with the gift of love so is it with the gift of\nthe Holy Spirit.  They upon whom it descended heard a rushing from\nheaven as of a mighty wind, and there appeared to them cloven tongues\nlike as of fire.  But the rest were either amazed and perplexed, or\nthey made sport of them and said: 'They are full of sweet wine.'\n\n\"Still, as I said to you, it is the 'German Theology' to which I am\nindebted for learning to believe in my belief, and what will seem a\nweakness to many, strengthened me the most; namely, that the old master\nnever stops to demonstrate his propositions rigidly, but scatters them\nlike a sower, in the hope that some grains will fall upon good soil and\nbear fruit a thousand fold.  So our Divine Master never attempted to\nprove his doctrines, for the perfect conviction of truth disdains the\nform of a demonstration.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I interrupted her, for I could not help thinking of the\nwonderful chain of proof in Spinoza's 'Ethics,' the straining after\ndemonstration by Spinoza gives me the impression that this acute\nthinker could not have believed in his own doctrines with his whole\nheart, and that he therefore felt the necessity of fastening every mesh\nof his net with the utmost care.  \"Still,\" I continued, \"I must\nacknowledge I do not share this great admiration for the 'German\nTheology,' although I owe the book many a doubt.  To me there is a lack\nof the human and the poetical in it, and of warm feeling and reverence\nfor reality altogether.  The entire mysticism of the fourteenth century\nis wholesome as a preparative, but it first reaches solution in the\ndivinely holy and divinely courageous return to real life, as was\nexemplified by Luther.  Man must at some time in his life recognize his\nnothingness.  He must feel that he is nothing of himself, that his\nexistence, his beginning, his everlasting life are rooted in the\nsuperearthly and incomprehensible.  That is the returning to God which\nin reality is never concluded on earth but yet leaves behind in the\nsoul a divine home sickness, which never again ceases.  But man cannot\nignore the creation as the Mystics would.  Although created out of\nnothing, that is, through and out of God, he cannot of his own power\nresolve himself back into this nothingness.  The self-annihilation of\nwhich Tauler so often speaks is scarcely better than the sinking away\nof the human soul in Nirvana, as the Buddhists have it.  Thus Tauler\nsays: 'That if he by greater reverence and love could reach the highest\nexistence in non-existence, he would willingly sink from his height\ninto the deepest abyss.'  But this annihilation of the creature was not\nthe purpose of the Creator since he made it.  'God is transformed in\nman,' says Augustine, 'not man in God.'  Thus mysticism should be only\na fire-trial which steels the soul but does not evaporate it like\nboiling water in a kettle.  He who has recognized the nothingness of\nself ought to recognize this self as a reflection of the actual divine.\nThe 'German Theology' says:\n\n[\"Was nu us geflossen ist, das ist nicht war wesen, und hat kein wesen\nanders dan in dem volkomen, sunder es ist ein zufal oder ein glast und\nein schin, der nicht wesen ist oder nicht wesen hat anders, dan in dem\nsewer, da der glast us flusset, als in der sunnen oder in einem\nliechte.\"]\n\n\"What has flown out is not real substance and has no other reality\nexcept in the perfect; but it is an incident or a glare or a shimmer,\nwhich is no substance, and has no other reality, except in the fire\nfrom which a glare proceeds, as in the sun or a light.\"\n\n\"What is emitted from the divine, though it be only like the reflection\nfrom the fire, still has the divine reality in itself, and one might\nalmost ask what were the fire without glow, the sun without light, or\nthe Creator without the creature?  These are questions of which it is\nsaid very truthfully:\n\n[\"Welch mensche und welche creatur begert zu erfaren und zu wissen den\nheimlichen rat und willen gottes, der begert nicht anders denne als\nAdam tet und der boese geist.\"]\n\n\"What man or creature desires to learn and to know the secret counsel\nand will of God--desires nothing else but what Adam did and the evil\nspirit.\n\n\"For this reason, it should be enough for us to feel and to appear that\nwe are a reflection of the divine until we are divine.  No one should\nplace under a bushel or extinguish the divine light which illuminates\nus, but let it beam out, that it may brighten and warm all about it.\nThen one feels a living fire in his veins, and a higher consecration\nfor the struggle of life.  The most trivial duties remind us of God.\nThe earthly becomes divine, the temporal eternal, and our entire life a\nlife in God.  God is not eternal repose.  He is everlasting life, which\nAngelus Silesius forgets when he says: 'God is without will.'\n\n  \"'We pray: 'Thy will my Lord and God be done,'\n  And lo, He has no will!  He is an eternal silence.'\"\n\nShe listened to me quietly, and, after a moment's reflection, said:\n\"Health and strength belong to your faith; but there are life-weary\nsouls, who long for rest and sleep, and feel so lonely that when they\nfall asleep in God, they miss the world as little as the world misses\nthem.  It is a foretaste of divine rest to them when they can wrap\nthemselves in the divine; and this they can do, since no tie binds them\nfast to earth, and no wish troubles their hearts except the wish for\nrest.\n\n  \"'Rest is the highest good, and were God not rest,\n  Then would I avert my gaze even from Him.'\n\n\"You do the German theologian an injustice.  It is true he teaches the\nnothingness of the external life, but he does not wish to see it\nannihilated.  Read me the twenty-eighth chapter.\"\n\nI took the book and read, while she closed her eyes and listened:\n\n[\"Und wa die voreinunge geschicht in der wahrheit und wesentlich wirt,\nda stet vorbass der inner mensche in der einung unbeweglich und got\nlest den ussern menschen her und dar bewegt werden von diesem zu dem.\nDas muss und sol sin und geschehen, dass der usser mensche spricht und\nes ouch in der warheit also ist, 'ich wil weder sin noch nit sin, weder\nleben oder sterben, wissen oder nicht wissen, tun oder lassen, und\nalles das disem glich ist, sunder alles, das da muss und sol sin und\ngeschehen, da bin ich bereit und gehorsam zu, es si in lidender wise\noder in tuender wise.'  Und alsoe hat der usser mensch kein warumbe\noder gesuch, sunder alleine dem ewigen willen genuk zu sin.  Wan das\nwirt bekannt in der warheit, das der inner mensche sten sol unbeweglich\nund der usser mensch muss und sol bewegt werden, und hat der inner\nmensch in siner beweglikeit ein warumb, das ist anders nichts dann ein\nmuss- und sol-sin, geordnet von dem ewigen willen.  Und wa got selber\nder mensch were oder ist, da ist es also.  Das merket man wol in\nKristo.  Auch wa das in goetlichem und us goetlichem liechte ist, da\nist nit geistliche hochfart noch unachtsame friheit oder frie gemute,\nsunder ein gruntlose demutigkeit und ein nider geschlagen und ein\ngesunken betrubet gemut, und alle ordenligkeit und redeligkeit,\nglichheit und warheit, fride und genugsamkeit, und alles das, das allen\ntugenden zu gehoert, das muss da sin.  Wa es anders ist, da ist im nit\nrecht, als vor gesprochen ist.  Wan recht als dises oder das zu diser\neinung nit gehelfen oder gedienen kan, also is ouch nichtes, das es\ngeirren oder gehindern mag, denn alleine der mensch mit sinem eigen\nwillen, der tut im disen grossen schaden.  Das sol man wissen.\"]\n\n\"And when the union takes place in truth and becomes real, then the\ninner man stands henceforth immovable in the union, and God permits the\nouter man to be driven hither and thither from this to that.  It must\nand shall be and happen, that the outer man says--and is so also in\ntruth--'I will neither be nor not be, neither live nor die, neither\nknow nor not know, neither do nor leave undone--and everything which is\nsimilar to this, but I am ready and obedient to do everything, which\nmust and shall be done, be it passively or actively.'  And thus has the\nouter man no question or desire, but to, satisfy only the Eternal Will.\nWhen this will be known in truth, that the inner man shall stand,\nimmovable, and that the outer man shall and must be moved,--the inner\nman has a why and wherefore of his moving, which is nothing but an 'it\nmust and shall be' ordered by the Eternal Will.  And if God himself\nwere or is the man, it would be so.  This is well seen in Christ.  And\nwhat in the Divine Light is and from the Divine Light, has neither\nspiritual pride nor careless license nor an independent spirit--but a\ngreat humility, and a broken and contrite heart,--and all propriety and\nhonesty, justice and truth, peace and happiness,--all that belongs to\nall virtues, it must have.  When it is otherwise, then he is not happy,\nas has been said.  When this does not help to this union, then there is\nnothing which may hinder it but man alone with his own will, which does\nhim such great harm.  That, one ought to know.\"\n\n\"This is sufficient,\" said she; \"I believe we understand each other\nnow.  In another place, our unknown friend says still more unmistakably\nthat no man is passive before death, and that the glorified man is like\nthe hand of God, which does nothing of itself except as God wills; or,\nlike a house in which God dwells.  A God-possessed man feels this\nperfectly, but does not speak of it.  He treasures his life in God like\na love secret.  It often seems to me like that silver poplar before my\nwindow.  It is perfectly still at evening, and not a leaf trembles or\nstirs.  When the morning breeze rustles and tosses every leaf, the\ntrunk with its branches stands still and immovable, and when autumn\nconies, though every leaf which once rustled falls to the ground and\nwithers, the trunk waits for a new spring.\"\n\nShe had lived so deep a life in her world that I did not wish to\ndisturb it.  I had but just released myself with difficulty from the\nmagic circle of these thoughts, and scarcely knew whether she had not\nchosen the better part which could not be taken away from her; while we\nhave so much trouble and care.\n\nThus every evening brought its new conversation, and with each evening,\nsome new phase of her fathomless mind disclosed itself.  She kept no\nsecret from me.  Her talk was only thinking and feeling aloud, and what\nshe said must have dwelt with her many long years, for she poured out\nher thoughts as freely as a child that picks its lap full of flowers\nand then sprinkles them upon the grass.  I could not disclose my soul\nto her as freely as she did to me, and this oppressed and pained me.\nYet how few can, with those continual deceptions imposed upon us by\nsociety, called manners, politeness, consideration, prudence, and\nworldly wisdom, which make our entire life a masquerade!  How few, even\nwhen they would, can regain the complete truth of their existence!\nLove itself dares not speak its own language and maintain its own\nsilence, but must learn the set phrases of the poet and idealize, sigh\nand flirt instead of freely greeting, beholding and surrendering\nitself, I would most gladly have confessed and said to her: \"You know\nme not,\" but I found that the words were not wholly true.  Before I\nleft, I gave her a volume of Arnold's poems, which I had had a short\ntime, and begged her to read the one called \"The Buried Life.\"  It was\nmy confession, and then I kneeled at her couch and said \"Good Night.\"\n\"Good Night,\" said she, and laid her hand upon my head, and again her\ntouch thrilled through, every limb and the dreams of childhood uprose\nin my soul.  I could not go, but gazed into her deep unfathomable eyes\nuntil the peace of her soul completely overshadowed mine.  Then I arose\nand went home in silence--and in the night I dreamed of the silver\npoplar around which the wind roared--but not a leaf stirred on its\nbranches.\n\n\n  THE BURIED LIFE.\n\n  Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet\n  Behold, with tears my eyes are wet;\n  I feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll.\n\n  Yes, yes, we know that we can jest;\n  We know, we know that we can smile;\n  But there's a something in this breast\n  To which thy light words bring no rest,\n  And thy gay smiles no anodyne.\n\n  Give me thy hand, and hush awhile,\n  And turn those limpid eyes on mine,\n  And, let me read there, love, thy inmost soul.\n\n  Alas, is even love too weak\n  To unlock the heart, and let it speak?\n  Are even lovers powerless to reveal\n  To one another what indeed they feel?\n  I knew the mass of men concealed\n  Their thoughts, for fear that if revealed\n  They would by other men be met\n  With blank indifference, or with blame reproved;\n  I knew they lived and moved,\n  Tricked in disguises, alien to the rest\n  Of men and alien to themselves--and yet,\n  The same heart beats in every human breast.\n\n  But we, my love--does a like spell benumb\n  Our hearts--our voices?--must we too be dumb?\n\n  Ah! well for us, if even we,\n  Even for a moment, can yet free\n  Our hearts and have our lips unchained;\n  For that which seals them hath been deep ordained.\n  Fate which foresaw\n  How frivolous a baby man would be,\n  By what distractions he would be possessed,\n  How he would pour himself in every strife,\n  And well-nigh change his own identity,\n  That it might keep from his capricious play\n  His genuine self, and force him to obey,\n  Even in his own despite, his being's law,\n  Bade through the deep recesses of our breast\n  The unregarded River of our Life,\n  Pursue with indiscernible flow its way;\n  And that we should not see\n  The buried stream, and seem to be\n  Eddying about in blind uncertainty,\n  Though driving on with it eternally.\n\n  But often, in the world's most crowded streets,\n  But often in the din of strife,\n  There rises an unspeakable desire\n  After the knowledge of our buried life;\n\n  A thirst to spend our fire and restless force\n  In tracking out our true original course;\n  A longing to inquire\n  Into the mystery of this heart that beats\n  So wild, so deep, in us; to know\n  Whence our thoughts come, and where they go.\n  And many a man in his own breast then delves,\n  But deep enough, alas, none ever mines;\n  And we have been on many thousand lines,\n  And we have shown on each, talent and power,\n  But hardly have we, for one little hour,\n  Been on our own line, have we been ourselves;\n  Hardly had skill to utter one of all\n  The nameless feelings that course through our breast,\n  But they course on forever unexpressed.\n  And long we try in vain to speak and act\n  Our hidden self, and what we say and do\n  Is eloquent, is well--but 'tis not true.\n\n  And then we will no more be racked\n  With inward striving, and demand\n  Of all the thousand nothings of the hour\n  Their stupefying power;\n  Ah! yes, and they benumb us at our call;\n  Yet still, from time to time, vague and forlorn,\n  From the soul's subterranean depth upborne,\n  As from an infinitely distant land,\n  Come airs and floating echoes, and convey\n  A melancholy into all our day.\n\n  Only--but this is rare--\n  When a beloved hand is laid in ours,\n  When, jaded with the rush and glare\n  Of the interminable hours,\n  Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear,\n  When our world-deafened ear\n  Is by the tones of a loved voice caressed,--\n  A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast,\n  And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again:\n  The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain,\n  And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know;\n\n  A man becomes aware of his life's flow,\n  And, hears its winding murmur, and he sees\n  The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze.\n\n  And there arrives a lull in the hot race\n  Wherein he doth forever chase\n  That flying and elusive shadow, Rest;\n  An air of coolness plays upon his face,\n  And an unwonted calm pervades his breast.\n\n  And then he thinks he knows\n  The Hills where his life rose,\n  And the Sea where it goes. . . . . . .\n\n\n\n\nSIXTH MEMORY.\n\nEarly the next morning, there was a knock at the door, and my old doctor,\nthe Hofrath, entered.  He was the friend, the body-and-soul-guardian of\nour entire little village.  He had seen two generations grow up.\nChildren whom he had brought into the world had in turn become fathers\nand mothers, and he treated them as his children.  He himself was\nunmarried, and even in his old age was strong and handsome to look upon.\nI never knew him otherwise than as he stood before me at that time; his\nclear blue eyes gleaming under the bushy brows, his flowing white hair\nstill full of youthful strength, curling and vigorous.  I can never\nforget, also, his shoes, with their silver buckles, his white stockings,\nhis brown coat, which always looked new, and yet seemed to be old, and\nhis cane, which was the same I had seen standing by my bedside in\nchildhood, when he felt my pulse and prescribed my medicines.  I had\noften been sick, but it was always faith in this man which made me well\nagain.  I never had the slightest doubt of his ability to cure me, and\nwhen my mother said she must send for the Hofrath that I might get well\nagain, it was as if she had said she must send for the tailor to mend my\ntorn trousers.  I had only to take the medicine, and I felt that I must\nbe well again.\n\n\"How are you, my child?\" said he, as he entered the room.  \"You are not\nlooking perfectly well.  You must not study too much.  But I have little\ntime to-day to talk, and only came to tell you, you must not go to see\nthe Countess Marie again.  I have been with her all night, and it is your\nfault.  So be careful, if her life is dear to you, that you do not go\nagain.  She must leave here as soon as possible, and be taken into the\ncountry.  It would be best for you also to travel for a long time.  So\ngood morning, and be a good child.\"\n\nWith these words, he gave me his hand, looked at me affectionately in the\neyes, as if he would exact the promise, and then went on his way to look\nafter his sick children.\n\nI was so astonished that another had penetrated so deeply into the\nsecrets of my soul, and that he knew what I did not know myself, that\nwhen I recovered from it he had already been long upon the street.  An\nagitation began to seize me, as water, which has long been over the fire\nwithout stirring, suddenly bubbles up, boils, heaves and rages until it\noverflows.\n\nNot see her again!  I only live when I am with her.  I will be calm; I\nwill not speak a word to her; I will only stand at her window as she\nsleeps and dreams.  But not to see her again!  Not to take one farewell\nfrom her!  She knows not, they cannot know, that I love her.  Surely I do\nnot love her--I desire nothing, I hope for nothing, my heart never beats\nmore quietly then when I am with her.  But I must feel her presence--I\nmust breathe her spirit--I must go to her!  She waits for me.  Has\ndestiny thrown us together without design?  Ought I not to be her\nconsolation, and ought she not to be my repose?  Life is not a sport.  It\ndoes not force two souls together like the grains of sand in the desert,\nwhich the sirocco whirls together and then asunder.  We should hold fast\nthe souls which friendly fate leads to us, for they are destined for us,\nand no power can tear them from us if we have the courage to live, to\nstruggle, and to die for them.  She would despise me if I deserted her\nlove at the first roll of the thunder, as it were in the shadow of a\ntree, under which I have dreamed so many happy hours.\n\nThen I suddenly grew calm, and heard only the words \"her love;\" they\nreverberated through all the recesses of my soul like an echo, and I was\nterrified at myself.  \"Her love,\" and how had I deserved it?  She hardly\nknows me, and even if she could love me, must I not confess to her I do\nnot deserve the love of an angel?  Every thought, every hope which arose\nin my soul, fell back like a bird which essays to soar into the blue sky\nand does not see the wires which restrain it.  And yet, why all this\nblissfulness, so near and so unattainable?  Cannot God work wonders?\nDoes He not work wonders every morning?  Has He not often heard my prayer\nwhen it importuned him, and would not cease, until consolation and help\ncame to the weary one?  These are not earthly blessings for which we\npray.  It is only that two souls, which have found and recognized each\nother, may be allowed to finish their brief life-journey, arm in arm, and\nface to face; that I may be a support to her in suffering, and that she\nmay be a consolation and precious burden to me until we reach the end.\nAnd if a still later spring were promised to her life, if her burdens\nwere taken from her--Oh, what blissful scenes crowded upon my vision!\nThe castle of her deceased mother, in the Tyrol, belonged to her.  There,\non the green mountains, in the fresh mountain air, among a sturdy and\nuncorrupted people, far away from the hurly-burly of the world, its cares\nand its struggles, its opinion and its censure, how blissfully we could\nawait the close of life, and silently fade away like the evening-red!\nThen I pictured the dark lake, with the dancing shimmer of waves, and the\nclear shadows of distant glaciers reflected in it; I heard the lowing of\ncattle and the songs of the herdsmen; I saw the hunters with their rifles\ncrossing the mountains, and the old and young gathering together at\ntwilight in the village; and, to crown all, I saw her passing along like\nan angel of peace in benediction, and I was her guide and friend.  \"Poor\nfool!\" I cried out, \"poor fool!  Is thy heart always to be so wild and so\nweak?  Be a man.  Think who thou art, and how far thou art from her.  She\nis a friend.  She gladly reflects herself in another's soul, but her\nchildlike trust and candor at best only show that no deeper feeling lives\nin her breast for thee.  Hast thou not, on many a clear summer's night,\nwandering alone, through the beech groves, seen how the moon sheds its\nlight upon all the branches and leaves, how it brightens the dark, dull\nwater of the pool and reflects itself clearly in the smallest drops?  In\nlike manner she shines upon this dark life, and thou may'st feel her\ngentle radiance reflected in thy heart--but hope not for a warmer glow!\"\n\nSuddenly an image approached me as it were from life; she stood before\nme, not like a memory but as a vision, and I realized for the first time\nhow beautiful she was.  It was not that beauty of form and face which\ndazzles us at the first sight of a lovely maiden, and then fades away as\nsuddenly as a blossom in spring.  It was much more the harmony of her\nwhole being, the reality of every emotion, the spirituality of\nexpression, the perfect union of body and soul which blesses him so who\nlooks upon it.  The beauty which nature lavishes so prodigally does not\nbring any satisfaction, if the person is not adapted to it and as it were\ndeserves and overcomes it.  On the other hand, it is offensive, as when\nwe look upon an actress striding along the stage in queenly costume, and\nnotice at every step how poorly the attire fits her, how little it\nbecomes her.  True beauty is sweetness, and sweetness is the\nspiritualizing of the gross, the corporeal and the earthly.  It is the\nspiritual presence which transforms ugliness into beauty.  The more I\nlooked upon the vision which stood before me, the more I perceived, above\nall else, the majestic beauty of her person and the soulful depths of her\nwhole being.  Oh, what happiness was near me!  And was this all--to be\nshown the summit of earthly bliss and then be thrust out into the flat,\nsandy wastes of existence?  Oh, that I had never known what treasures the\nearth conceals!  Once to love, and then to be forever alone!  Once to\nbelieve, and then forever to doubt!  Once to see the light, and then\nforever to be blinded!  In comparison with this rack, all the\ntorture-chambers of man are insignificant.\n\nThus rushed the wild chase of my thoughts farther and farther away until\nat last all was silent.  The confused sensations gradually collected and\nsettled.  This repose and exhaustion they call meditation, but it is\nrather an inspection--one allows time for the mixture of thoughts to\ncrystallize themselves according to eternal laws, and regards the process\nlike an observing chemist; and the elements having assumed a form, we\noften wonder that they, as well as ourselves, are so entirely different\nfrom what we expected.\n\nWhen I awoke from my abstraction, my first words were, \"I must away.\"  I\nimmediately sat down and wrote the Hofrath that I should travel for\nfourteen days and submit entirely to him.  I easily made an excuse to my\nparents, and at night I was on my way to the Tyrol.\n\n\n\n\nSEVENTH MEMORY.\n\nWandering, arm in arm with a friend, through the valleys and over the\nmountains of the Tyrol, one sips life's fresh air and enjoyment; but to\ntravel the same road solitary and alone with your thoughts is time and\ntrouble lost.  Of what interest to me are the green mountains, the dark\nravines, the blue lake, and the mighty cataracts?  Instead of\ncontemplating them they look at me and wonder among themselves at this\nsolitary being.  It smote me to the heart that I had found no one in\nall the world who loved me more than all others.  With such thoughts I\nawoke every morning, and they haunted me all the day like a song which\none cannot drive away.  When I entered the inn at night and sat down\nwearied, and the people in the room watched me, and wondered at the\nsolitary wanderer, it often urged me out into the night again, where no\none could see I was alone.  At a late hour I would steal back, go\nquietly up to my room and throw myself upon my hot bed, and the song of\nSchubert's would ring through my soul until I went to sleep: \"Where\nthou art not, is happiness.\"  At last the sight of men, whom I\ncontinually met laughing, rejoicing and exulting in this glorious\nnature, became so intolerable that I slept by day, and pursued my\njourney from place to place in the clear moonlight nights.  There was\nat least one emotion which dispelled and dissipated my thoughts: it was\nfear.  Let any one attempt to scale mountains alone all night long in\nignorance of the way--where the eye, unnaturally strained, beholds\ndistant shapes it cannot solve--where the ear, with morbid acuteness,\nhears sounds without knowing whence they come--where the foot suddenly\nstumbles, it may be over a root which forces its way through the rocks,\nor on a slippery path which the waterfall has drenched with its\nspray--and besides all this, a disconsolate waste in the heart, no\nmemory to cheer us, no hope to which we may cling--let any one attempt\nthis, and he will feel the cold chill of night both outwardly and\ninwardly.  The first fear of the human heart arises from God forsaking\nus; but life dissipates it, and mankind, created after the image of\nGod, consoles us in our solitariness.  When even this consolation and\nlove, however, forsake us, then we feel what it means to be deserted by\nGod and man, and nature with her silent face terrifies rather than\nconsoles us.  Even when we firmly plant our feet upon the solid rocks,\nthey seem to tremble like the mists of the sea from which they once\nslowly emerged.  When the eye longs for the light, and the moon rises\nbehind the firs, reflecting their tapering tops against the bright rock\nopposite, it appears to us like the dead hand of a clock which was once\nwound up, and will some day cease to strike.  There is no retreat for\nthe soul, which feels itself alone and forsaken even among the stars,\nor in the heavenly world itself.  One thought brings us a little\nconsolation: the repose, the regularity, the immensity, and the\nunavoidableness of nature.  Here, where the waterfall has clothed the\ngray rocks on either side with green moss, the eye suddenly recognizes\na blue forget-me-not in the cool shade.  It is one of millions of\nsisters now blossoming along all the rivulets and in all the meadows of\nearth, and which have blossomed ever since the first morning of\ncreation shed its entire inexhaustible wealth over the world.  Every\nvein in its leaves, every stamen in its cup, every fibre of its roots,\nis numbered, and no power on earth can make the number more or less.\nStill more, when we strain our weak eyes and, with superhuman power,\ncast a more searching glance into the secrets of nature, when the\nmicroscope discloses to us the silent laboratory of the seed, the bud\nand the blossom, do we recognize the infinite, ever-recurring form in\nthe most minute tissues and cells, and the eternal unchangeableness of\nNature's plans in the most delicate fibre.  Could we pierce still\ndeeper, the same form-world would reveal itself, and the vision would\nlose itself as in a hall hung with mirrors.  Such an infinity as this\nlies hidden in this little flower.  If we look up to the sky, we see\nagain the same system--the moon revolving around the planets, the\nplanets around suns, and the suns around new suns, while to the\nstraining eye the distant star-nebulae themselves seem to be a new and\nbeautiful world.  Reflect then how these majestic constellations\nperiodically revolve, that the seasons may change, that the seed of\nthis forget-me-not may shed itself again and again, the cells open, the\nleaves shoot out, and the blossoms decorate the carpet of the meadow;\nand look upon the lady-bug which rocks itself in the blue cup of the\nflower, and whose awakening into life, whose consciousness of\nexistence, whose living breath, are a thousand-fold more wonderful than\nthe tissue of the flower, or the dead mechanism of the heavenly bodies.\nConsider that thou also belongest to this infinite warp and woof, and\nthat thou art permitted to comfort thyself with the infinite creatures\nwhich revolve and live and disappear with thee.  But if this All, with\nits smallest and its greatest, with its wisdom and its power, with the\nwonders of its existence, and the existence of its wonders, is the work\nof a Being in whose presence thy soul does not shrink back, before whom\nthou fallest prostrate in a feeling of weakness and nothingness, and to\nwhom thou risest again in the feeling of His love and mercy--if thou\nreally feelest that something dwells in thee more endless and eternal\nthan the cells of the flowers, the spheres of the planets, and the life\nof the insect--if thou recognizest in thyself as in a shadow the\nreflection of the Eternal which illuminates thee--if thou feelest in\nthyself, and under and above thyself, the omnipresence of the Real, in\nwhich thy seeming becomes being, thy trouble, rest, thy solitude,\nuniversality--then thou knowest the One to Whom thou criest in the dark\nnight of life: \"Creator and Father, Thy will be done in Heaven as upon\nearth, and as on earth so also in me.\"  Then it grows bright in and\nabout thee.  The daybreak disappears with its cold mists, and a new\nwarmth streams through shivering nature.  Thou hast found a hand which\nnever again leaves thee, which holds thee when the mountains tremble\nand moons are extinguished.  Wherever thou may'st be, thou art with\nHim, and He with thee.  He is the eternally near, and His is the world\nwith its flowers and thorns, His is man with his joys and sorrows.\n\"The least important thing does not happen except as God wills it.\"\n\nWith such thoughts I went on my way.  At one time, all was well with\nme; at another, troubled; for even when we have found rest and peace in\nthe lowest depths of the soul, it is still hard to remain undisturbed\nin this holy solitude.  Yes, many forget it after they find it and\nscarcely know the way which leads back to it.\n\nWeeks had flown, and not a syllable had reached me from her.  \"Perhaps\nshe is dead and lies in quiet rest,\" was another song forever on my\ntongue, and always returning as often as I drove it from me.  It was\nnot impossible, for the Hofrath had told me she suffered with heart\ntroubles, and that he expected to find her no more among the living\nevery morning he visited her.  Could I ever forgive myself if she had\nleft this world and I had not taken farewell of her, nor told her at\nthe last moment how I loved her?  Must I not follow until I found her\nagain in another life, and heard from her that she loved me and that I\nwas forgiven?  How mankind defers from day to day the best it can do,\nand the most beautiful things it can enjoy, without thinking that every\nday may be the last one, and that lost time is lost eternity!  Then all\nthe words of the Hofrath, the last time I saw him, recurred to me, and\nI felt that I had only resolved to make my sudden journey to show my\nstrength to him, and that it would have been a still more difficult\ntask to have confessed my weakness and remained.  It was clear to me\nthat it was my simple duty to return to her immediately and to bear\neverything which Heaven ordained.  But as soon as I had laid the plan\nfor my return journey, I suddenly remembered the words of the Hofrath:\n\"As soon as possible she must go away and be taken into the country.\"\nShe had herself told me that she spent the most of her time, in summer,\nat her castle.  Perhaps she was there, in my immediate vicinity; in one\nday I could be with her.  Thinking was doing; at daybreak I was off,\nand at evening I stood at the gate of the castle.\n\nThe night was clear and bright.  The mountain peaks glistened in the\nfull gold of the sunset and the lower ridges were bathed in a rosy\nblue.  A gray mist rose from the valleys which suddenly glistened when\nit swept up into the higher regions, and then like a cloud-sea rolled\nheavenwards.  The whole color-play reflected itself in the gently\nagitated breast of the dark lake from whose shores the mountains seemed\nto rise and fall, so that only the tops of the trees and the peaks of\nthe church steeples and the rising smoke from the houses defined the\nlimits which separated the reality of the world from its reflection.\nMy glance, however, rested upon only one spot--the old castle--where a\npresentiment told me I should find her again.  No light could be seen\nin the windows, no footstep broke the silence of the night.  Had my\npresentiment deceived me?  I passed slowly through the outer gateway\nand up the steps until I stood at the fore-court of the castle.  Here I\nsaw a sentinel pacing back and forwards, and I hastened to the soldier\nto inquire who was in the castle.  \"The Countess and her attendants are\nhere,\" was the brief reply, and in an instant I stood at the main\nportal and had even pulled the bell.  Then, for the first time, my\naction occurred to me.  No one knew me.  I neither could nor dare say\nwho I was.  I had wandered for weeks about the mountains, and looked\nlike a beggar.  What should I say?  For whom should I ask?  There was\nlittle time for consideration, however, for the door opened and a\nservant in princely livery stood before me, and regarded me with\namazement.\n\nI asked if the English lady, who I knew would never forsake the\nCountess, was in the castle, and when the servant replied in the\naffirmative, I begged for paper and ink and wrote her I was present to\ninquire after the health of the Countess.\n\nThe servant called an attendant, who took the letter away.  I heard\nevery step in the long halls, and every moment I waited, my position\nbecame more unendurable.  The old family portraits of the princely\nhouse hung upon the walls--knights in full armor, ladies in antique\ncostume, and in the center a lady in the white robes of a nun with a\nred cross upon her breast.  At any other time I might have looked upon\nthese pictures and never thought that a human heart once beat in their\nbreasts.  But now it seemed to me I could suddenly read whole volumes\nin their features, and that all of them said to me: \"We also have once\nlived and suffered.\"  Under these iron armors secrets were once hidden\nas even now in my own breast.  These white robes and the red cross are\nreal proofs that a battle was fought here like that now raging in my\nown heart.  Then I fancied all of them regarded me with pity, and a\nloftier haughtiness rested on their features as if they would say, Thou\ndost not belong to us.  I was growing uneasy every moment, when\nsuddenly a light step dissipated my dream.  The English lady came down\nthe stairs and asked me to step into an apartment.  I looked at her\nclosely to see if she suspected my real emotions, but her face was\nperfectly calm, and without manifesting the slightest expression of\ncuriosity or wonder, she said in measured tones, the Countess was much\nbetter to-day and would see me in half an hour.\n\nWhen I heard these words, I felt like the good swimmer who has ventured\nfar out into the sea, and first thinks of returning when his arms have\nbegun to grow weary.  He cleaves the waves with haste, scarcely\nventuring to cast a glance at the distant shore, feeling with every\nstroke that his strength is failing and that he is making no headway,\nuntil at last, purposeless and cramped, he scarcely has any realization\nof his position; then suddenly his foot touches the firm bottom, and\nhis arm hugs the first rock on the shore.  A fresh reality confronted\nme, and my sufferings were a dream.  There are but few such moments in\nthe life of man, and thousands have never known their rapture.  The\nmother whose child rests in her arms for the first time, the father\nwhose only son returns from war covered with glory, the poet in whom\nhis countrymen exult, the youth whose warm grasp of the hand is\nreturned by the beloved being with a still warmer pressure--they know\nwhat it means when a dream becomes a reality.\n\nAt the expiration of the half hour, a servant came and conducted me\nthrough a long suite of rooms, opened a door, and in the fading light\nof the evening I saw a white figure, and above her a high window, which\nlooked out upon the lake and the shimmering mountains.\n\n\"How singularly people meet!\" she cried out in a clear voice, and every\nword was like a cool rain-drop on a hot summer's day.\n\n\"How singularly people meet, and how singularly they lose each other,\"\nsaid I; and thereupon I seized her hand, and realized that we were\ntogether again.\n\n\"But people are to blame if they lose each other,\" she continued; and\nher voice, which seemed always to accompany her words, like music,\ninvoluntarily modulated into a tenderer key.\n\n\"Yes, that is true,\" I replied; \"but first tell me, are you well, and\ncan I talk with you?\"\n\n\"My dear friend,\" said she, smiling, \"you know I am always sick, and if\nI say that I feel well, I do so for the sake of my old Hofrath; for he\nis firmly convinced that my entire life since my first year is due to\nhim and his skill.  Before I left the Court-residence I caused him much\nanxiety, for one evening my heart suddenly ceased beating, and I\nexperienced such distress that I thought it would never beat again.\nBut that is past, and why should we recall it?  Only one thing troubles\nme, I have hitherto believed I should some time close my eyes in\nperfect repose, but now I feel that my sufferings will disturb and\nembitter my departure from life.\"  Then she placed her hand upon her\nheart, and said: \"But tell me, where have you been, and why have I not\nheard from you all this time?  The old Hofrath has given me so many\nreasons for your sudden departure, that I was finally compelled to tell\nhim I did not believe him--and at last he gave me the most incredible\nof all reasons, and counselled--what do you suppose?\"\n\n\"He might seem untruthful,\" I interrupted, so that she should not\nexplain the reason, \"and yet, perhaps he was only too truthful.  But\nthis also is past, and why should we recall it?\"\n\n\"No, no, my friend,\" said she, \"why call it past?  I told the Hofrath,\nwhen he gave me the last reason for your sudden departure, that I\nunderstood neither him nor you.  I am a poor sick, forsaken being, and\nmy earthly existence is only a slow death.  Now if Heaven sends me a\nfew souls who understand me, or love me, as the Hofrath calls it, why\nthen should it disturb their joy or mine?  I had been reading my\nfavorite poet, the old Wordsworth, when the Hofrath made his\nacknowledgment, and I said: 'My dear Hofrath, we have so many thoughts\nand so few words that we must express many thoughts in every word.  Now\nif one who does not know us understood that our young friend loved me,\nor I him, in such manner as we suppose Romeo loved Juliet and Juliet\nRomeo, you would be entirely right in saying it should not be so.  But\nis it not true that you love me also, my old Hofrath, and that I love\nyou, and have loved you for many years?  And has it not sometimes\noccurred to you that I have neither been past remedy nor unhappy on\nthat account?  Yes, my dear Hofrath, I will tell you still more--I\nbelieve you have an unfortunate love for me, and are jealous of our\nyoung friend.  Do you not come every morning and inquire how I am, even\nwhen you know I am very well?  Do you not bring me the finest flowers\nfrom your garden?  Did you not oblige me to send you my portrait,\nand--perhaps I ought not to disclose it--did you not come to my room\nlast Sunday and think I was asleep?  I was really sleeping--at least I\ncould not stir myself.  I saw you sitting at my bedside for a long\ntime, your eyes steadfastly fixed upon me, and I felt your glances\nplaying upon my face like sunbeams.  At last your eyes grew weary, and\nI perceived the great tears falling from them.  You held your face in\nyour hands, and loudly sobbed: Marie, Marie!  Ah, my dear Hofrath, our\nyoung friend has never done that, and yet you have sent him away.'  As\nI thus talked with him, half in jest and half in earnest, as I always\nspeak, I perceived that I had hurt the old man's feelings.  He became\nperfectly silent, and blushed like a child.  Then I took the volume of\nWordsworth's poems which I had been reading, and said: 'Here is another\nold man whom I love, and love with my whole heart, who understands me,\nand whom I understand, and yet I have never seen him, and shall never\nsee him on earth, since it is so to be.  Now I will read you one of his\npoems, that you may see how one can love, and that love is a silent\nbenediction which the lover lays upon the head of the beloved, and then\ngoes on his way in rapturous sorrow.'  Then I read to him Wordsworth's\n'Highland Girl;' and now, my friend, place the lamp nearer, and read\nthe poem to me, for it refreshes me every time I hear it.  A spirit\nbreathes through it like the silent, everlasting evening-red, which\nstretches its arms in love and blessing over the pure breast of the\nsnow-covered mountains.\"\n\nAs her words thus gradually and peacefully filled my soul, it at last\ngrew still and solemn in my breast again; the storm was over, and her\nimage floated like the silvery moonlight upon the gently rippling waves\nof my love--this world-sea which rolls through the hearts of all men,\nand which each calls his own while it is an all-animating pulse-beat of\nthe whole human race.  I would most gladly have kept silent like Nature\nas it lay before our view without, and ever grew stiller and darker:\nBut she gave me the book, and I read:\n\n\n  Sweet Highland Girl, a very shower\n  Of beauty is thy earthly dower!\n  Twice seven consenting years have shed\n  Their utmost bounty on thy head:\n  And these gray rocks, that household lawn,\n  Those trees, a veil just half withdrawn,\n  This fall of water that doth make\n  A murmur near the silent lake,\n  This little bay; a quiet road\n  That holds in shelter thy abode--\n  In truth, together do ye seem\n  Like something fashioned in a dream;\n  Such forms as from their covert peep\n  When earthly cares are laid asleep!\n  But, O fair creature! in the light\n  Of common day, so heavenly bright,\n  I bless thee, vision as thou art,\n  I bless thee with a human heart;\n  God shield thee to thy latest years!\n  Thee neither know I, nor thy peers;\n  And yet my eyes are filled with tears.\n\n  With earnest feeling I shall pray\n  For thee when I am far away;\n  For never saw I mien or face,\n  In which more plainly I could trace\n  Benignity and home-bred sense\n  Ripening in perfect innocence.\n  Here scattered, like a random seed,\n  Remote from men, thou dost not need\n  The embarrassed look of shy distress,\n  And maidenly shamefacedness:\n  Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear\n  The freedom of a mountaineer:\n  A face with gladness overspread!\n  Soft smiles, by human kindness bred!\n  And seemliness complete, that sways\n  Thy courtesies, about thee plays;\n  With no restraint, but such as springs\n  From quick and eager visitings\n  Of thoughts that lie beyond the reach\n  Of thy few words of English speech:\n  A bondage sweetly brooked, a strife\n  That gives thy gestures grace and life!\n  So have I, not unmoved in mind,\n  Seen birds of tempest-loving kind--\n  Thus beating up against the wind.\n\n  What hand but would a garland cull\n  For thee who art so beautiful?\n  O happy pleasure! here to dwell\n  Beside thee in some heathy dell;\n  Adopt your homely ways and dress,\n  A shepherd, thou a shepherdess:\n  But I could frame a wish for thee\n  More like a grave reality:\n  Thou art to me but as a wave\n  Of the wild sea; and I would have\n  Some claim upon thee, if I could,\n  Though but of common neighborhood\n  What joy to hear thee, and to see!\n  Thy elder brother I would be,\n  Thy father--anything to thee!\n\n  Now thanks to heaven! that of its grace\n  Hath led me to this lonely place.\n  Joy have I had; and going hence\n  I bear away my recompense.\n  In spots like these it is we prize\n  Our memory, feel that she hath eyes:\n  Then why should I be loth to stir?\n  I feel this place was made for her;\n  To give new pleasure like the past,\n  Continued long as life shall last.\n  Nor am I loth, though pleased at heart,\n  Sweet Highland Girl, from thee to part;\n  For I, methinks, till I grow old,\n  As fair before me shall behold,\n  As I do now, the cabin small,\n  The lake, the bay, the waterfall,\n  And thee, the spirit of them all!\n\n\nI had finished, and the poem had been to me like a draught of the fresh\nspring-water which I had sipped so often of late as it dropped from the\ncup of some large green leaf.\n\nThen I heard her gentle voice, like the first tone of the organ, which\nwakens us from our dreamy devotion, and she said:\n\n\"Thus I desire you to love me, and thus the old Hofrath loves me, and\nthus in one way or another we should all love and believe in each\nother.  But the world, although I scarcely know it, does not seem to\nunderstand this love and faith, and, on this earth, where we could have\nlived so happily, men have made existence very wretched.\n\n\"It must have been otherwise of old, else how could Homer have created\nthe lovely, wholesome, tender picture of Nausikaa?  Nausikaa loves\nUlysses at the first glance.  She says at once to her female friends:\n'Oh, that I could call such a man my spouse, and that it were his\ndestiny to remain here.'  She was even too modest to appear in public\nat the same time with him, and she says, in his presence, that if she\nshould bring such a handsome and majestic stranger home, the people\nwould say, she may have taken him for a husband.  How simple and\nnatural all this is!  But when she heard that he was going home to his\nwife and children, no murmur escaped her.  She disappears from our\nsight, and we feel that she carried the picture of the handsome and\nmajestic stranger a long time afterward in her breast, with silent and\njoyful admiration.  Why do not our poets know this love--this joyful\nacknowledgment, this calm abnegation?  A later poet would have made a\nwomanish Werter out of Nausikaa, for the reason that love with us is\nnothing more than the prelude to the comedy, or the tragedy, of\nmarriage.  Is it true there is no longer any other love?  Has the\nfountain of this pure happiness wholly dried up?  Are men only\nacquainted with the intoxicating draught, and no longer with the\ninvigorating well-spring of love?\"\n\nAt these words the English poet occurred to me, who also thus complains:\n\n  From heaven if this belief be sent,\n    If such be nature's holy plan,\n  Have I not reason to lament\n    What man has made of man.\n\n\"Yet, how happy the poets are,\" said she.  \"Their words call the\ndeepest feelings into existence in thousands of mute souls, and how\noften their songs have become a confession of the sweetest secrets!\nTheir heart beats in the breasts of the poor and the rich.  The happy\nsing with them, and the sad weep with them.  But I cannot feel any poet\nso completely my own as Wordsworth.  I know many of my friends do not\nlike him.  They say he is not a poet.  But that is exactly why I like\nhim; he avoids all the hackneyed poetical catch-words, all\nexaggeration, and everything comprehended in Pegasus-flights.  He is\ntrue--and does not everything lie in this one word?  He opens our eyes\nto the beauty which lies under our feet like the daisy in the meadow.\nHe calls everything by its true name.  He never intends to startle,\ndeceive, or dazzle any one.  He seeks no admiration for himself.  He\nonly shows mankind how beautiful everything is which man's hand has not\nyet spoiled or broken.  Is not a dew-drop on a blade of grass more\nbeautiful than a pearl set in gold?  Is not a living spring, which\ngushes up before us, we know not whence, more beautiful than all the\nfountains of Versailles?  Is not his Highland Girl a lovelier and truer\nexpression of real beauty than Goethe's Helena, or Byron's Haidee?  And\nthen the plainness of his language, and the purity of his thoughts!  Is\nit not a pity that we have never had such a poet?  Schiller could have\nbeen our Wordsworth, had he had more faith in himself than in the old\nGreeks and Romans.  Our Ruckert would come the nearest to him, had he\nnot also sought consolation and home under Eastern roses, away from his\npoor Fatherland.  Few poets have the courage to be just what they are.\nWordsworth had it; and as we gladly listen to great men, even in those\nmoments when they are not inspired, but, like other mortals, quietly\ncherish their thoughts, and patiently wait the moment that will\ndisclose new glimpses into the infinite, so have I also listened gladly\nto Wordsworth himself, in his poems, which contain nothing more than\nany one might have said.  The greatest poets allow themselves rest.  In\nHomer we often read a hundred verses without a single beauty, and just\nso in Dante; while Pindar, whom all admire so much, drives me to\ndistraction with his ecstacies.  What would I not give to spend one\nsummer on the lakes; visit with Wordsworth all the places to which he\nhas given names; greet all the trees which he has saved from the axe;\nand only once watch a far-off sunset with him, which he describes as\nonly Turner could have painted.\"\n\nIt was a peculiarity of hers that her voice never dropped at the close\nof her talk, as with most people; on the contrary, it rose and always\nended, as it were, in the broken seventh chord.  She always talked up,\nnever down, to people.  The melody of her sentences resembled that of\nthe child when it says: \"Can't I, father?\"  There was something\nbeseeching in her tones, and it was well-nigh impossible to gainsay her.\n\n\"Wordsworth,\" said I, \"is a dear poet, and a still dearer man to me,\nand as one often has a more beautiful, wide-spread, and stirring\noutlook from a little hill which he ascends without effort, than when\nhe has clambered up Mont Blanc with difficulty and weariness, so it\nseems to me with Wordsworth's poetry.  At first, he often appeared\ncommonplace to me, and I have frequently laid down his poems unable to\nunderstand how the best minds of England to-day can cherish such an\nadmiration for him.  The conviction has grown upon me that no poet whom\nhis nation, or the intellectual aristocracy of his people, recognize as\na poet, should remain unenjoyed by us, whatever his language.\nAdmiration is an art which we must learn.  Many Germans say Racine does\nnot please them.  The Englishman says, 'I do not understand Goethe.'\nThe Frenchman says Shakespeare is a boor.  What does all this amount\nto?  Nothing more than the child who says it likes a waltz better than\na symphony of Beethoven's.  The art consists in discovering and\nunderstanding what each nation admires in its great men.  He who seeks\nbeauty will eventually find it, and discover that the Persians are not\nentirely deceived in their Hafiz, nor the Hindoos in their Kalidasa.\nWe cannot understand a great man all at once.  It takes strength,\neffort, and perseverance, and it is singular that what pleases us at\nfirst sight seldom captivates us any length of time.\n\n\"And yet,\" she continued, \"there is something common to all great\npoets, to all true artists, to all the world's heroes, be they Persian\nor Hindoo, heathen or Christian, Roman or German; it is--I hardly know\nwhat to call it--it is the Infinite which seems to lie behind them, a\nfar away glance into the Eternal, an apotheosis of the most trifling\nand transitory things.  Goethe, the grand heathen, knew the sweet peace\nwhich comes from Heaven; and when he sings:\n\n    \"On every mountain-height\n      Is rest.\n    O'er each summit white\n      Thou feelest\n    Scarcely a breath.\n  The bird songs are still from each bough;\n  Only wait, soon shalt thou\n    Rest too, in death.\n\n\"does not an endless distance, a repose which earth cannot give,\ndisclose itself to him above the fir-clad summits?  This background is\nnever wanting with Wordsworth.  Let the carpers say what they will, it\nis nevertheless only the super-earthly, be it ever so obscure, which\ncharms and quiets the human heart.  Who has better understood this\nearthly beauty than Michel Angelo?--but he understood it, because it\nwas to him a reflection of superearthly beauty.  You know his sonnet:\n\n  [\"La forza d'un bel volto al ciel mi sprona\n  (Ch'altro in terra non e che mi diletti),\n  E vivo ascendo tra gli spirti eletti;\n  Grazia ch'ad uom mortal raro si dona.\n  Si ben col suo Fattor l'opra consuona,\n  Ch'a lui mi levo per divin concetti;\n  E quivi informo i pensier tutti e i detti;\n  Ardendo, amando per gentil persona.\n  Onde, se mai da due begli occhi il guardo\n  Torcer non so, conosco in lor la luce\n  Che mi mostra la via, ch'a Dio mi guide;\n  E se nel lume loro acceso io ardo,\n  Nel nobil foco mio dolce riluce\n  La gioja che nel cielo eterna ride.\"]\n\n  \"The might of one fair face sublimes my love,\n  For it hath weaned my heart from low desires;\n  Nor death I heed nor purgatorial fires.\n  Thy beauty, antepast of joys above\n  Instructs me in the bliss that saints approve;\n  For, Oh! how good, how beautiful must be\n  The God that made so good a thing as thee,\n  So fair an image of the Heavenly Dove.\n  Forgive me if I cannot turn away\n  From those sweet eyes that are my earthly heaven,\n  For they are guiding stars, benignly given\n  To tempt my footsteps to the upward way;\n  And if I dwell too fondly in thy sight,\n  I live and love in God's peculiar light.\"\n\nShe was exhausted and silent, and how could I disturb that silence?\nWhen human hearts, after friendly interchange of thoughts feel calmed\nand quieted, it is as if an angel had flown through the room and we\nheard the gentle flutter of wings over our heads.  As my gaze rested\nupon her, her lovely form seemed illuminated in the twilight of the\nsummer evening, and her hand, which I held in mine, alone gave me the\nconsciousness of her real presence.  Then suddenly a bright refulgence\nspread over her countenance.  She felt it, opened her eyes and looked\nupon me wonderingly.  The wonderful brightness of her eyes, which the\nhalf-closed eyelids covered as with a veil, shone like the lightning.\nI looked around and at last saw that the moon had arisen in full\nsplendor between two peaks opposite the castle, and brightened the lake\nand the village with its friendly smiles.  Never had I seen Nature,\nnever had I seen her dear face so beautiful, never had such holy rest\nsettled down upon my soul.  \"Marie,\" said I, \"in this resplendent\nmoment, let me, just as I am, confess my whole love.  Let us, while we\nfeel so powerfully the nearness of the superearthly, unite our souls in\na tie which can never again be broken.  Whatever love may be, Marie, I\nlove you and I feel, Marie, you are mine for I am thine.\"\n\nI knelt before her, but ventured not to look into her eyes.  My lips\ntouched her hand and I kissed it.  At this she withdrew her hand from\nme, slowly at first and then quickly and decidedly, and as I looked at\nher an expression of pain was on her face.  She was silent for a time,\nbut at last she raised herself and said with a deep sigh:\n\n\"Enough for to-day.  You have caused me pain, but it is my fault.\nClose the window.  I feel a cold chill coming over me as if a strange\nhand were touching me.  Stay with me--but no, you must go.  Farewell!\nSleep well!  Pray that the peace of God may abide with us.  We see each\nother again--shall we not?  To-morrow evening I await you.\"\n\nOh, where all at once had this heavenly rest flown?  I saw how she\nsuffered, and all that, I could do was to quickly hurry away, summon\nthe English lady and then go alone in the darkness of night to the\nvillage.  Long time I wandered back and forth about the lake, long my\ngaze strayed to the lighted window where I had just been.  Finally, the\nlast light in the castle was extinguished.  The moon mounted higher and\nhigher, and every pinnacle and projection and decoration on the lofty\nwalls grew visible in the fairy-like illumination.  Here was I all\nalone in the silent night.  It seemed to me my brain had refused its\noffice, for no thought came to an end and I only felt I was alone on\nthis earth, that it contained no soul for me.  The earth was like a\ncoffin, the black sky a funeral pall, and I scarcely knew whether I was\nliving or had long been dead.  Then I suddenly looked up to the stars\nwith their blinking eyes, which went their way so quietly--and it\nseemed to me that they were only for the lighting and consolation of\nmen, and then I thought of two heavenly stars which had risen in my\ndark heaven so unexpectedly, and a thanksgiving rang through my\nbreast--a thanksgiving for the love of my angel.\n\n\n\n\nLAST MEMORY.\n\nThe sun was already looking into my window over the mountains when I\nawoke.  Was it the same sun which looked upon us the evening before with\nlingering gaze, like a departing friend, as if it would bless the union\nof our souls, and which set like a lost hope?  It shone upon me now, like\na child which bursts into our room with beaming glance to wish us good\nmorning on a joyful holiday.  And was I the same man who, only a few\nhours before, had thrown himself upon his bed, broken in body and spirit?\nImmediately I felt once more the old life-courage and trust in God and\nmyself, which quickened and animated my soul like the fresh morning,\nbreeze.  What would become of man without sleep?  We know not where this\nnightly messenger leads us; and when he closes our eyes at night who can\nassure us that he will open them again in the morning--that he will bring\nus to ourselves?  It required courage and faith for the first man to\nthrow himself into the arms of this unknown friend; and were there not in\nour nature a certain helplessness which forces us to submission, and\ncompels us to have faith in all things we are to believe, I doubt whether\nany man, notwithstanding all his weariness, could close his eyes of his\nown free will and enter into this unknown dream-land.  The very\nconsciousness of our weakness and our weariness gives us faith in a\nhigher power, and courage to resign ourselves to the beautiful system of\nthe All, and we feel invigorated and refreshed when, in waking or in\nsleeping, we have loosened, even for a short time only, the chains which\nbind our Eternal Self to our temporal Ego.\n\nWhat had appeared to me, only yesterday, dark as an evening cloud flying\noverhead, became instantly clear.  We belonged to one another, that I\nfelt; be it as brother and sister, father and child, bridegroom and\nbride, we must remain together now and forever.  It only concerned us to\nfind the right name for that which we in our stammering speech call Love.\n\n  \"Thy elder brother I would be,\n  Thy father--anything to thee.\"\n\nIt was this \"anything\" for which a name must be found, for the world now\nrecognizes nothing as nameless.  She had told me herself that she loved\nme with that pure all-human love, out of which springs all other love.\nHer shuddering, her uneasiness, when I confessed my full love to her,\nwere still incomprehensible to me, but it could no longer shatter my\nfaith in our love.  Why should we desire to understand all that takes\nplace in other human natures, when there is so much that is\nincomprehensible in our own?  After all, it is the inconceivable which\ngenerally captivates us, whether in nature, in man, or in our own\nbreasts.  Men whom we understand, whose motives we see before us like an\nanatomical preparation, leave us cold, like the characters in most of our\nnovels.  Nothing spoils our delight in life and men more than this ethic\nrationalism which insists upon clearing up everything, and illuminating\nevery mystery of our inner being.  There is in every person a something\nthat is inseparable--we call it fate, the suggestive power or\ncharacter--and he knows neither himself nor mankind, who believes that he\ncan analyze the deeds and actions of men without taking into account this\never-recurring principle.  Thus I consoled myself on all those points\nwhich had troubled me in the evening; and at last no streak of cloud\nobscured the heaven of the future.\n\nIn this frame of mind I stepped out of the close house into the open air,\nwhen a messenger brought a letter for me.  It was from the Countess, as I\nsaw by the beautiful, delicate handwriting.  I breathlessly opened it--I\nlooked for the most blissful tidings man can expect.  But all my hopes\nwere immediately shattered.  The letter contained only a request not to\nvisit her to-day, as she expected a visit at the castle from the Court\nResidence.  No friendly word--no news of her health--only at the close, a\npostscript: \"The Hofrath will be here to-morrow and the next day.\"\n\nHere were two days torn out at once from the book of life.  If they could\nonly be completely obliterated--but no, they hang over me like the leaden\nroof of a prison.  They must be lived.  I could not give them away as a\ncharity to king or beggar, who would gladly have sat two days longer upon\nhis throne, or on his stone at the church door.  I remained in this\nabstraction for a long time; but then I thought of my morning prayer, and\nhow I said to myself there was no greater unbelief than despondency--how\nthe smallest and greatest in life are part of one great divine plan, to\nwhich we must submit, however hard it may be.  Like a rider who sees a\nprecipice before him, I drew in the reins.  \"Be it so, since it must be!\"\nI cried out; \"but God's earth is not the place for complaints and\nlamentations.  Is it not a happiness to hold in my hand these lines which\nshe has written? and is not the hope of seeing her again in a short time\na greater bliss than I have ever deserved?  'Always keep the head above\nwater,' say all good life-swimmers.  As well sink at once as allow the\nwater to run into your eyes and throat.\"  If it is hard for us, amid\nthese little ills of life, to keep God's providence continually in view,\nand if we hesitate, perhaps rightly, in every struggle, to step out of\nthe common-places of life into the presence of the divine, then life\nought to appear, to us at least, an art, if not a duty.  What is more\ndisagreeable than the child who behaves ungovernably and grows dejected\nand angry at every little loss and pain?  On the other hand, nothing is\nmore beautiful than the child in whose tearful eyes the sunshine of joy\nand innocence soon beams again, like the flower, which quivers and\ntrembles in the spring shower, and soon after blossoms and exhales its\nfragrance, as the sun dries the tears upon its cheeks.\n\nA good thought speedily occurred to me, that I could live both these days\nwith her, notwithstanding fate.  For a long time I had intended to write\ndown the dear words she had said, and the many beautiful thoughts she had\nconfided to me; and so the days passed away in memory of the many\ncharming hours spent, together, and in the hope of a still more beautiful\nfuture, and I was by her and with her, and lived in her, and felt the\nnearness of her spirit and her love more than I had ever felt them when I\nheld her hand in mine.\n\nHow dear to me now are these leaves!  How often have I read and re-read\nthem--not that I had forgotten one word she said, but they were the\nwitnesses of my happiness, and something looked out of them upon me like\nthe gaze of a friend, whose silence speaks more than words.  The memory\nof a past happiness, the memory of a past sorrow, the silent meditation\nupon the past, when everything disappears that surrounds and restrains\nus, when the soul throws itself down, like a mother upon the green\ngrave-mound of her child who has slept under it many long years, when no\nhope, no desire, disturbs the silence of peaceful resignation, we may\nwell call sadness, but there is a rapture in this sadness which only\nthose know who have loved and suffered much.  Ask the mother what she\nfeels when she ties upon the head of her daughter the veil _she_ once\nwore as a bride, and thinks of the husband no longer with her!  Ask a man\nwhat he feels when the maiden whom he has loved, and the world has torn\nfrom him, sends him after death the dried rose which he gave her in\nyouth!  They may both weep, but their tears are not tears of sorrow, but\ntears of joy; tears of sacrifice, with which man consecrates himself to\nthe Divine, and with faith in God's love and wisdom, looks upon the\ndearest he has passing away from him.\n\nStill let us go back in memory, back in the living presence of the past.\nThe two days flew so swiftly that I was agitated, as the happiness of\nseeing her again drew nearer and nearer.  As the carriages and horsemen\narrived on the first day from the city, I saw that the castle was alive\nwith gaily-dressed visitors.  Banners fluttered from the roof, music\nsounded through the castle-yard.  In the evening, the lake swarmed with\npleasure-boats.  The moennerchors sounded over the waves, and I could not\nbut listen, for I fancied she also listened to these songs from the\nwindow.  Everything was stirring, also, on the second day, and early in\nthe afternoon the guests prepared for departure.  Late in the evening I\nsaw the Hofrath's carriage also going back alone to the city.  I could\nnot restrain myself any longer, I knew she was alone.  I knew she thought\nof me, and longed for me.  Should I allow one night to pass without at\nleast pressing her hand, without saying to her that the separation was\nover, that the next morning would waken us to new rapture.  I still saw a\nlight in her window--why should she be alone?  Why should I not, for one\nmoment at least, feel her sweet presence?  Already I stood at the castle;\nalready I was about to pull the bell--then suddenly I stopped and said:\n\"No! no weakness!  You should be ashamed to stand before her like a thief\nin the night.  Early in the morning go to her like a hero, returning from\nbattle, for whom she is now weaving the crown of love, which she will\nplace upon thy head in the morning.\"\n\nAnd the morning came--and I was with her, really with her.  Oh, speak not\nof the spirit as if it could exist without the body.  Complete existence,\nconsciousness, and enjoyment, can only be where body and soul are one--an\nembodied spirit, a spiritualized body.  There is no spirit without body,\nelse it would be a ghost: there is no body without spirit, else it would\nbe a corpse.  Is the flower in the field without spirit? Does it not\nappear in a divine will, in a creative thought which preserves it, and\ngives it life and existence?  That is its soul--only it is silent in the\nflower, while it manifests itself in man by words.  Real life is, after\nall, the bodily and spiritual life; real consciousness is, after all, the\nbodily and spiritual consciousness; real being together is, after all,\nbodily and spiritually being together, and the whole world of memory in\nwhich I had lived so happily for two days, disappeared like a shadow,\nlike a nonentity, as I stood before her, and was really with her.  I\ncould have laid my hands upon her brow, her eyes, and her cheeks, to\nknow, to unmistakably know, if it were really she--not only the image\nwhich had hovered before my soul day and night, but a being who was not\nmine, and still could and would be mine; a being in whom I could believe\nas in myself; a being far from me and yet nearer to me than my own self;\na being without whom my life was no life, death was no death; without\nwhom my poor existence would dissolve into infinity like a sigh.  I felt,\nas my thoughts and glances rested upon her, that now, in this very\ninstant, the happiness of my existence was complete--and a shudder crept\nover me as I thought of death--but it seemed no longer to have any terror\nfor me; for death could not destroy this love; it would only purify;\nennoble, and immortalize it.\n\nIt was so beautiful to be silent with her.  The whole depth of her soul\nwas reflected in her countenance, and as I looked upon her I saw and\nheard her every thought and emotion.  \"You make me sad,\" she seemed on\nthe point of saying, and yet would not, \"Are we not together again at\nlast?  Be quiet!  Complain not!  Ask not!  Speak not!  Be welcome to me!\nBe not bad to me!\"  All this looked from her eyes, and still we did not\nventure to disturb the peace of our happiness with a word.\n\n\"Have you received a letter from the Hofrath?\" was the first question,\nand her voice trembled with each word.\n\n\"No,\" I replied.\n\nShe was silent for a time, and then said:\n\n\"Perhaps it is better it has happened thus, and that I can tell you\neverything myself.  My friend, we see each other to-day for the last\ntime.  Let us part in peace, without complaint and without anger.  I feel\nthat I have done you a great wrong.  I have intruded upon your life\nwithout thinking that even a light breath often withers a flower.  I know\nso little of the world that I did not believe a poor suffering being like\nmyself could inspire anything but pity.  I welcome you in a frank and\nfriendly way because I had known you so long, because I felt so well in\nyour presence--why should I not tell all?--because I loved you.  But the\nworld does not understand or tolerate this love.  The Hofrath has opened\nmy eyes.  The whole city is talking about us.  My brother, the Regent,\nhas written to the Prince, and he requests me never to see you again.  I\ndeeply regret that I have caused you this sorrow.  Tell me you forgive\nme--and then let us separate as friends.\"\n\nHer eyes had filled with tears, and she closed them that I should not see\nher weeping.\n\n\"Marie,\" said I, \"for me there is but one life which is with you; but for\nyou there is one will which is your own.  Yes, I confess, I love you with\nthe whole fire of love, but I feel I am not worthily yours.  You stand\nfar above me in nobility, sublimity and purity, and I can scarcely\nunderstand the thought of ever calling you my wife.  And, yet, there is\nno other road on which we could travel through life together.  Marie, you\nare wholly free; I ask for no sacrifice.  The world is great, and if you\nwish it, we shall never see each other again.  But if you love me, if you\nfeel you are mine, oh, then, let us forget the world and its cold\nverdict.  In my arms I will bear you to the altar, and on my knees I will\nswear to be yours in life and in death.\"\n\n\"My friend,\" said she, \"we must never wish for the impossible.  Had it\nbeen God's will that such a tie should unite us in this life, would He,\nforsooth, have imposed these burdens upon me which make me incapable of\nbeing else than a helpless child?  Do not forget that what we call Fate,\nCircumstance, Relations, in life, is in reality only the work of\nProvidence.  To resist it is to resist God himself, and were it not so\nchildish one might call it presumptuous.  Men wander on earth like the\nstars in heaven.  God has indicated the paths upon which they meet, and\nif they are to separate, they must.  Resistance were useless, otherwise\nit would destroy the whole system of the world.  We cannot understand it,\nbut we can submit to it.  I cannot myself understand why my inclination\ntowards you was wrong.  No!  I cannot, will not call it wrong.  But it\ncannot be, it is not to be.  My friend, this is enough--we must submit in\nhumility and faith.\"\n\nNotwithstanding the calmness with which she spoke, I saw how deeply she\nsuffered; and yet I thought it wrong to surrender so quickly in this\nbattle of life.  I restrained myself as much as I could, so that no\npassionate word should increase her trouble, and said:\n\n\"If this is the last time we are to meet in this life, let us see clearly\nto whom we offer this sacrifice.  If our love violated any higher law\nwhatsoever, I would, as you say, bow myself in humility.  It were a\nforgetfulness of God to oppose one's self to a higher will.  It may seem\nat times as if men could delude God, as if their small sense had gained\nsome advantage over the Divine wisdom.  This is frenzy--and the man who\ncommences this Titanic battle; will be crushed and annihilated.  But what\nopposes our love? Nothing but the talk of the world.  I respect the\ncustoms of human society.  I even respect them when, as in our time, they\nare over-refined and confused.  A sick body needs artificial medicines,\nand without the barriers, the respect and the prejudices of society, at\nwhich we smile, it were impossible to hold mankind together as at present\nexisting, and to accomplish the purpose of our temporal co-existence.  We\nmust sacrifice much to these divinities.  Like the Athenians, we send\nevery year a heavy boatload of youths and maidens as tribute to this\nmonster which rules the labyrinth of our society.  There is no longer a\nheart that has not broken; there is no longer a man of true feelings who\nhas not been obliged to break the wings of his love before he came into\nthe cage of society for rest.  It must be so.  It cannot be otherwise.\nYou know not life, but thinking only of my friends, I can tell you many\nvolumes of tragedy.\n\n\"One loved a maiden, and the love was returned; but he was poor, she was\nrich.  The fathers and relatives wrangled and sneered, and two hearts\nwere broken.  Why?  Because the world looked upon it as a misfortune for\na woman to wear a dress made of the wool of a shrub in America, and not\nof the fibres of a worm in China.\n\n\"Another loved a maiden, and was loved in return; but he was a\nProtestant, she was a Catholic.  The mothers and the priests bred\nmischief, and two hearts were broken.  Why?  On account of a political\ngame of chess which Charles V and Henry VIII played together, three\nhundred years ago.\n\n\"A third loved a maiden, and was loved in return; but he was a noble, she\na peasant.  The sisters were angry, and quarreled, and two hearts were\nbroken.  Why?  Because, a hundred years ago, one soldier slew another in\nbattle, who threatened the life of his king.  This gave him title and\nhonors, and his great grandson expiated the blood shed at that time, with\na disappointed life.\n\n\"The statisticians say a heart is broken every hour, and I believe it.\nBut why?  In almost every case, because the world does not recognize love\nbetween 'strange people,' unless it be between man and wife.  If two\nmaidens love the same man--the one must fall as a sacrifice.  If two men\nlove the same maiden, one or both must fall as a sacrifice.  Why?  Cannot\none love a maiden, without wishing to marry her?  Cannot one look upon a\nwoman, without desiring her for his own?  You close your eyes, and I feel\nI have said too much.  The world has changed the most sacred things in\nlife into the most common.  But, Marie, enough!  Let us talk the language\nof the world when we must talk, and act in it, and with it.  But let us\npreserve a sanctuary where two hearts can speak the pure language of the\nheart, undisturbed by the raging of the world without.  The world itself\nhonors this seclusion, this courageous resistance, which noble hearts,\nconscious of their own rectitude, oppose to the ordinary course of\nthings.  The attentions, the amenities, the prejudices of the world are\nlike a climbing plant.  It is pleasant to see an ivy, with its thousand\ntendrils and roots, decorating the solid wall-work; but it should not be\nallowed too luxuriant growth, else it will penetrate every crevice of the\nstructure, and destroy the cement which welds it together.  Be mine,\nMarie; follow the voice of your heart.  The word which now hangs upon\nyour lips decides forever your life and mine--my happiness and yours.\"\n\nI was silent.  The hand I held in mine returned the warm pressure of the\nheart.  A storm raged in her breast, and the blue heaven before me never\nseemed so beautiful as now, while the storm swept by, cloud upon cloud.\n\n\"Why do you love me?\" said she, gently, as if she must still delay the\nmoment of decision.\n\n\"Why, Marie?  Ask the child why it is born; ask the flower why it\nblossoms; ask the sun why it shines.  I love you because I must love you.\nBut if I am compelled to answer further, let this book, lying by you,\nwhich you love so much, speak for me:\n\n\n[\"Das beste solte das liebste sin, und in diser libe solte nicht\nangesehen werden nuss und unnuss, fromen oder schaden, gewin oder\nvorlust, ere oder unere, lob oder unlob oder diser keins, sunder was in\nder warheit das edelste und das aller beste ist, das solt auch das\nallerliebste sin, und umb nichts anders dan allein umb das, das es das\nedelst und das beste ist.  Hie nach mocht ein mensche sin leben gerichten\nvon ussen und von innen.  Von ussen: wan under den creaturen ist eins\nbesser dan das ander, dar nach dan das ewig gut in einem mer oder minner\nschinet und wurket dan in dem andern.  In welchem nun das ewig gut aller\nmeist schinet, luchtet, wurket und bekant und geliebet wirt, das ist ouch\ndas beste under den creaturen; und in welchem dis minst ist, das ist ouch\ndas aller minst gut.  So nu der mensche die creatur handelt und da mit\numb get, und disen underscheit bekennet, so sol im ie die beste creatur\ndie liebste sin und sol sich mit flis zu ir halden und sich da mit\nvoreinigen. . .\"]\n\n\n\"The best should be the most loved, and in this love there should be no\nconsideration of advantage or disadvantage, gain or loss, honor or\ndishonor, praise or blame, or anything else, but of that which in reality\nis the noblest and best, which should be the dearest of all; and for no\nother reason, but because it is the noblest and best.  According to this\na man should plan his inner and outer life.  From without: if among\nmankind there is one better than another, in proportion as the eternally\ngood shines or works more in one than in another.  That being in whom the\neternally good shines, works, is known and loved most, is therefore the\nbest among mankind; and in whom this is most, there is also the most\ngood.  As now a man has intercourse with a being, and apprehends this\ndistinction, then the best being should be the dearest to him, and he\nshould fervently cling to it, and unite himself with it. . . . . .\"\n\n\n\"Because you are the most perfect creature that I know, Marie, therefore\nI am good to you, therefore you are dear to me, therefore we love each\nother.  Speak the word which lives in you, say that you are mine.  Deny\nnot your innermost convictions.  God has imposed a life of suffering upon\nyou.  He sent me to bear it with you.  Your sorrow shall be my sorrow,\nand we will bear it together, as the ship bears the heavy sails which\nguide it through the storms of life into the safe haven at last.\"\n\nShe grew more and more silent, A gentle flush played upon her cheeks like\nthe quiet evening gleam.  Then she opened her eyes full--the sun gleamed\nall at once with marvellous lustre.\n\n\"I am yours,\" said she.  \"God wills it.  Take me just as I am; so long as\nI live I am yours, and may God bring us together again in a more\nbeautiful life, and recompense your love.\"\n\nWe lay heart to heart.  My lips closed the lips upon which had just now\nhung the blessing of my life, with a gentle kiss.  Time stood still for\nus.  The world about us disappeared.  Then a deep sigh escaped from her\nbreast.  \"May God forgive me for this rapture,\" she whispered.  \"Leave me\nalone now, I cannot endure more.  _Auf wiedersehen_!  my friend, my loved\none, my savior.\"\n\nThese were the last words I ever heard from her.  But no--I had reached\nhome and was lying upon my bed in troubled dreams.  It was past midnight\nwhen the Hofrath entered my room.  \"Our angel is in Heaven,\" said he;\n\"here is the last greeting she sends you.\"  With these words he gave me a\nletter.  It enclosed the ring which she had given me, and I once had\ngiven her, with the words: \"_As God wills_.\"  It was wrapped in an old\npaper, whereon she had some time written the words I spoke to her when a\nchild: \"What is thine, is mine.  Thy Marie.\"\n\nHours long, we sat together without speaking.  It was a spiritual swoon\nwhich Heaven sends us when the load of pain becomes greater than we can\nbear.  At last the old man arose, took my hand and said: \"We see each\nother to-day for the last time, for you must leave here, and my days are\nnumbered.  There is but one thing I must say to you--a secret which I\nhave carried all my life, and confessed to no one.  I have always longed\nto confess it to some one.  Listen to me.  The spirit which has left us\nwas a beautiful spirit, a majestic, pure soul, a deep, true heart.  I\nknew one spirit as beautiful as hers--still more beautiful.  It was her\nmother.  I loved her mother, and she loved me.  We were both poor, and I\nstruggled with life to obtain an honorable position both on her account\nand my own.  The young Prince saw my bride and loved her.  He was my\nPrince; he loved her ardently.  He was ready to make any sacrifice and to\nelevate her, the poor orphan, to the rank of Princess.  I loved her so\nthat I sacrificed the happiness of my love for her.  I forsook my native\nland and wrote her I would release her from her vow.  I never saw her\nagain, except on her death-bed.  She died in giving birth to her first\ndaughter.  Now you know why I loved your Marie, and prolonged her life\nfrom day to day.  She was the only being that linked my heart to this\nlife.  Bear life as I have borne it.  Lose not a day in useless\nlamentation.  Help mankind whenever you can.  Love them and thank God\nthat you have seen and known and loved on this earth such a human heart\nas hers--and that you have lost it.\"\n\n\"_As God will_.\" said I, and we parted for life.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nAnd days and weeks and months and years have flown.  Home is a stranger\nto me, and a foreign land is my home.  But her love remains with me, and\nas a tear drops into the ocean, so has her love dropped into the living\nocean of humanity and pervades and embraces millions--millions of the\n\"strange people\" whom I have so loved from childhood.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nOnly on quiet summer days like this, when one in the green woods has\nnature alone at heart, and knows not whether there are human beings.\nwithout, or he is living entirely alone in the world, then there is a\nstir in the graveyard of memory, the dead thoughts, rise again, the full\nomnipotence of love returns to the heart and streams out from that\nbeautiful being who once looked upon me with her deep unfathomable eyes.\nThen it seems as if the love for the millions were lost in the love for\nthe one, my good angel, and my thoughts are dumb in the presence of the\nincomprehensible enigma of endless and everlasting love.","title":"Memories: A Story of German Love","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":24836}