Then Albert came on the scene, and love became a torment, and Nature a tormentor:
August 18.--Must it ever be thus, that the source of our happiness must also be the fountain of our misery? The full and ardent sentiment which animated my heart with the love of Nature, overwhelming me with a torrent of delight, and which brought all paradise before me, has now become an insupportable torment, a demon which perpetually pursues and harasses me. When in bye-gone days I gazed from these rocks upon yonder mountains across the river and upon the green flowery valley before me, and saw all nature budding and bursting around--the hills clothed from foot to peak with tall thick forest trees, the valleys in all their varied windings shaded with the loveliest woods, and the soft river gliding along amongst the lisping reeds, mirroring the beautiful clouds which the soft evening breeze wafted across the sky--when I heard the groves about me melodious with the music of birds, and saw the million swarms of insects dancing in the last golden beams of the sun, whose setting rays awoke the humming beetles from their grassy beds, whilst the subdued tumult around directed my attention to the ground, and I there observed the arid rock compelled to yield nutriment to the dry moss, whilst the heath flourished upon the barren sands below me--all this displayed to me the inner warmth which animates all Nature, and filled and glowed within my heart. I felt myself exalted by this overflowing fulness to the perception of the Godhead, and the glorious forms of an infinite universe became visible to my soul.... From the inaccessible mountains across the desert, which no mortal foot has trod, far as the confines of the unknown ocean, breathes the spirit of the eternal Creator, and every atom to which He has given existence finds favour in His sight. Ah! how often at that time has the flight of a bird soaring above my head inspired me with the desire of being transported to the shores of the immeasurable waters, there to quaff the pleasure of life from the foaming goblet of the infinite, and to partake, if but for a moment, even with the confined powers of my soul, the beatitude of the Creator, who accomplishes all things in himself and through himself.... It is as if a curtain had been drawn from before my eyes.... My heart is wasted by the thought of that destructive power which lies concealed in every part of universal nature--Nature has formed nothing that does not consume itself and every object near it; so that, surrounded by earth, and air, and all the active powers, I wander on my way with aching heart, and the universe is to me a fearful monster, for ever devouring its own offspring.... If in such moments I find no sympathy ... I either wander through the country, climb some precipitous cliff, or force a path through the trackless thicket, where I am lacerated and torn by thorns and briars, and thence I find relief.
Then, as he was going away, he felt how sympathetic the place had been to him:
I was walking up and down the very avenue which was so dear to me--a secret sympathy had frequently drawn me thither....
the moon rose from behind a hill, increasing his melancholy, and Charlotte put his feeling into words, saying (like Klopstock):
September 10.--Whenever I walk by moonlight, it brings to my remembrance all my beloved and departed friends, and I am filled with thoughts of death and futurity.
Even in his misery he realises the [Greek: charisgoôn] of Euripides, Petrarch's dolendi voluptas--the Wonne der Wehmuth.
On September 4th he wrote:
It is even so! As Nature puts on her autumn tints, it becomes autumn with me and around me. My leaves are sere and yellow, and the neighbouring trees are divested of their foliage.
It was due to this autumn feeling that he could say: