"I know that I am old, old before my time; that I am ugly and disagreeable, unpleasant, and perhaps ridiculous; but I do not think that nature intended me to be so. I have gone through life in such infinite solitude; neither father nor mother, brother nor sister, have followed my path; no sunshine fell upon my childhood or my youth; I have wandered solitarily through life, combating with difficulties. Once I bound myself to a friend—he deserted me, and thence grew the rock about my heart; thence became my demeanour severe, unattractive, and rough. Is it to remain so always? Will my life never bloom upon earth? Will no breath of heaven call forth my roses?
"Do you fear my melancholy temperament? Oh, you have not seen how a glance, a word of yours chases every cloud from my brow; not because you are beautiful, but because you are good and pure. Will you teach me to be good? I will learn willingly from you! From you I would learn to love mankind, and to find more good in the world than I have hitherto done. I will live for you, if not for the world. By my wish the world should know nothing of me till the cross upon my grave told 'here rests——'
"Oh, it is beautiful to live nameless under the poisoned glance of the world; poisoned, whether it praise or blame; beautiful, not to be polluted by its observation, but more beautiful to be intimately known to one—to possess one gentle and honest friend, and that one a wife! Beautiful to be able to look into her pure soul as in a mirror, and to be aware there of every blot on one's own soul, and to be able thus to purify it against the day of the great trial.
"But I speak only of myself and my own happiness. Ah, the egotist—the cursed egotist! Can I make you happy also, Eva? Is it not audacity in me to desire—ah, Eva, I love you inexpressibly!
"I leave the egotist in your hand: do with him what you will, he will still remain
"Yours."
This letter made Eva very anxious and uneasy. She would so willingly have said yes, and made so good a man happy, but then so many voices within her said no!
She spoke with her parents, with her brother and sisters. "He is so good, so excellent!" said she. "Ah, if I could but properly love him! But I cannot—and then he is so old; and I have no desire to marry; I am so happy in my own home."
"And do not leave it!" was the unanimous chorus of all the family. The father, indeed, was actually desperate with all this courtship; and the mother thought it quite absurd that her blooming Eva and Jeremias Munter should go together. No one voice spoke for the Assessor but the little Petrea's, and a silent sigh in Eva's own bosom. The result of all this consideration was, that Eva wrote with tearful eyes the following answer to her lover:
"My best, my truly good Friend!