I feel a desire for more perfect solitude. Shall I find greater seclusion, profounder silence, up there? It seems as if I were ever hearing the words, "lonely as death." (mutterseelenallein.) Oh, thou blessed, German tongue! What a blessing it is that, without effort, I bear the rich stores of my mother-tongue within me, and that, when thoughts gush forth from every nook and cranny of the brain, I have some word-vessel at command with which to receive the idea. It seems to me as if I must be always speaking and writing and rejoicing because of this possession.
I must break off. Our most mysterious, our deepest thoughts, are like the bird on the bough. He sings, but as soon as he sees an eye watching him, he flies away.
I can now accurately tell the season of the year and, often, the hour of the day by the way in which the first sunbeams fall into my room and on my workbench in the morning. My chisel hangs before me on the wall, and is my index.
The drizzling, spring showers now fall on the trees--and thus it is with me. It seems as if there were a new delight in store for me. What can it be? I shall patiently wait!
A strange feeling comes over me, as if I were lifted up from the chair on which I am sitting, and were flying, I know not whither!
What is it? I feel as if dwelling in eternity.