"But, ah! more than one tempest thunders into the life's-dream of the rest of us, and makes it distressful. If a higher being could enter into the hurly-burly of ideas which encompasses our spirit, and from which it must draw its breath, as we breathe in an air composed of all kinds of gases poured together,—if he were to see what kinds of nutriment pass through our inner man, from which it has to extract its chyle: that medley of comic operas,—Bayle's Dictionaries,—concerts of Mozart,—Messiahs,—military operations,—Goethe's poems,—Kant's writings,—table-talks,—lunar observations,—vices and virtues,—men and sicknesses and sciences of all sorts:—if the Being should examine this olla-podrida of life, would he not be curious to know what heterogeneous and mutually repulsive juices thereby run together in the poor soul, and would he not wonder that anything settled and uniform is left as a residuum in man? Ah, Emanuel! if thy friend is now in a fine banquet-hall, now in a garden, now in an opera-box, now under the great night-heavens, now in the presence of a coquette, and now before thee,—surely, this ambiguous alternation of scenes must bring him sorrows, and perhaps leave stains....

"No, I will not deceive my Emanuel—O, are, then, the trifles and the pebbles of this life worth our choosing crooked paths to avoid them, as the sapping-caterpillar submits to winding courses through the twig-work of its leaf? No, all that I have said is true; but I should not have said it, had not other sorrows led me to speak of these also; and yet, thou innocently, simple-heartedly, sublimely trusting teacher, thou wouldst have believed me! Ah, thou hast too good an opinion of me!... O, it is a long and weary step from admiration to imitation! But now look into my open heart!

"Since I have, here in the charnel-house of my childish joys, in the beds where my childhood's years bloomed and faded, been conversing with perhaps too many dreams of the past,—and, still more, from the day when thou gavest my heart the provocative to the fever-stroke which has shaken my whole life,—since thou disclosedst to me the life wherein man exfoliates, and the thin, sharp moment whereon he so painfully stands,—since that farewell-night when my soul was great and my tears inexhaustible,—an eternal wound has been running within me, and the sigh of a longing which nothing can name but dreams and tears and love has lain like a stagnant vein, oppressive and consuming in my breast.—Ah! I still smile as ever, I still philosophize as ever, but my innermost heart only the beloved friend sees to whom I now lay it bare.

"O Fate, why dost thou strike in man the spark of a love which must be smothered in his own heart's blood? Have we not all, abiding within us, the sweet image of a beloved, of a friend, before whom we weep, after whom we seek, for whom we hope,—ah, and so vainly, so vainly? Does not man stand before a human bosom, as the turtle-dove before a mirror, and, like her, coo himself hoarse before a dead, flat image therein, which he takes for the sister of his complaining soul? Why is it, then, that every fair spring-evening, every melting lay, every overflowing rapture, asks us, 'Where dost thou find the beloved soul to which thou wilt tell and impart thy bliss?' Why does music give the tempest-stricken heart, instead of peace, only greater waves,—as the tolling of bells, instead of dispelling, draws down the thunder-storms? And why is it, that out of doors, on a fair, still, bright day, when thou lookest over the whole unrolled picture of a landscape, over the seas of flowers that tremble upon it, over the shadows flung down by the clouds which fly from one hill to another, and over the mountains which stretch like shores and walls round our flowery circle,—why does then a voice within thee cry incessantly, 'Ah! behind the smoking[[224]] mountains, beyond the clouds that repose upon them, there rests a fairer land, there dwells the soul thou seekest, there heaven lies nearer to the earth'? But behind the mountain and behind the cloud there sighs also an unappreciated heart, that looks over towards this thy horizon, and thinks, 'Ah, in that far region I should doubtless be happier!'

"Are we not, then, all happy?—Do not assert it, nor say to me, Emanuel, that, in the winter of this life, the few warm sunbeams that interrupt it burst and destroy the better man like a vegetable; say not that every year steals away something from our heart, and that, like ice, it grows less and less, the farther it drifts down the stream of Time; only say not that the wandering Psyche, though she hears her second self in her prison, yet can never get into its arms.—But thou hast already somewhere said: 'All loving souls on earth dwell apart from each other in two bodies, as on two hills; a waste lies between them, as between solar systems; they see each other, speak across by distant signs; at last they hear each other's voices from hill to hill; but they never touch each other, and each embraces only its thought. And yet this poor love crumbles like an old corpse, when it is exhibited; and its flame flickers like a burial-lamp, when it is uncovered.'

"Are we, then, all not happy?—Do not say so!—Ah, man, who, even from childhood up, has been calling after an unknown soul that grew up in one heart with his own,—that entered into all the dreams of his years, and therein gleamed from afar, and, after his waking, started his tears,—that in spring sent him nightingales, that he might think of her and long for her,—that in every tender hour visited his soul, with so much virtue, so much love, that he would so gladly have offered in his heart, as in a sacrificial chalice, all his blood to the beloved,—but who, alas! never, appeared, and only sent her image in every fair form, but forever kept back her heart;—oh, if at last, oh, if suddenly, oh, if blissfully, her heart beats against his heart, and the two souls embrace each other forever, he can no longer say it, but we can: 'This man, indeed, is happy, and is loved.' ...

"Good Emanuel, thou forgivest me the pain of the fear that I may never be the happy man,—no, never!—Oh, even for this earth, broken up into graves, I should be perhaps too happy, I should be permitted to enjoy, perhaps, too great an Eden for so young a life, and one justified by such slight merits, if my too soft soul, which even now gives way under three happy minutes, which loves every human being, and hangs with the arms of a child on the heart of the whole creation,—oh, which is already made too blissful by this mere dream of love, and is overpowered by this description!—no, it were too blessed, such a soul, long since dissolved by melancholy and humanity, if it should once, after such a long, deathly yearning, at last, at last—O Emanuel, I tremble again for joy, and yet it can never, never be!—if it should find all its wishes, its whole heaven, so much love, accumulated in one dear, dear soul; if in the presence of great Nature, and before the face of Virtue, and before God himself, who gave love to her and to me, I could dare to say, weeping, to this only, this sweet, this beloved—O God, how shall I name her? this fore-loved one, whom in my frenzy I would now name: 'At last my heart has thee, thou good soul! to-day God gives us to each other, and we remain together through all eternity!' No, I would not say it; I should for ecstasy be dumb and die!

"—Lo! it seemed to me just now as if a form passed across my chamber, and called, 'Victor!' I looked round, and beheld my empty room, and the Sunday clothes which I had taken off, and now, for the first time, I remembered that I was unhappy and not loved.

"But thou, irreplaceable friend, misunderstand me not. I swear to thee that I will give thee these sheets unaltered, though to-morrow, when the whirlpools of to-night flow stiller and smoother, I should find all sorts of alterations necessary. Thy foolish friend remains, nevertheless, thy friend forever.

"S. V. H."