A tribute of affection and respect for my dear Steinle.
"In a record of whatever concerns me as an artist, his name should be at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end. Now, at the beginning, for our parting is still painfully present to my mind; our parting, and the last few days we spent together: the sad face and moistened eye with which he watched the diligence in which I rolled off from Bregenz; his fitful way, when we travelled together—one moment jovial and facetious, another laying his hand affectionately on my shoulder and remaining silent; his saying to me before I started, 'I shall be all alone to-morrow, here, and yet I shall be with you all the day.'...
"In the middle, all through, and to the end—because if ever, hereafter, my works wear the mark of a pure taste, if ever I succeed in raising some portion of the public to the level of high art, rather than obsequiously acquiesce in the judgments of the tasteless and the ignorant, and if I keep alive, to the end, the active conviction that an artist, who deserves the name, never ceases to learn, the key of such success will be in one name: Steinle; in having constantly borne in mind his precept, and his example.
I find on reflection that though I started a week ago, I am only just gone!
I look forward,
"Although a week has already elapsed since I left Frankfurt, so long my home, it is only now that I have parted from Steinle that I really feel that I have taken the great step, that I have opened the introductory chapter of the second volume of my life, a volume on the title-page of which is written "Artist." It seems to me that my wanderings began at Bregenz, and that in retracing, as I presently shall, my route until I got there, I am tearing open again leaves that were closed—to remain so. I seize the opportunity offered by this first day of repose to take breath, and, as I stand within the threshold, to look before me and reconnoitre. Italy rises before my mind. Sunny Italy! the land that I have so long yearned after with ardent longing, and that has dwelt in my memory since last I saw it as a never-fading, gentle-beckoning image of loveliness; I am about again to tread the soil of that beloved country, the day-dream of long years is to become a reality. I am enraptured!
but don't feel quite it.
"And yet—how is it that my pleasure is not unalloyed? that I involuntarily shrink from grasping the height of my wishes? It is because I feel a kind of sacred awe at breaking through the charm that has been so long gathering around the image that I have carried in my inward heart, as one who loves, at touching with cold reality that which has so long been the far removed object of dreamy, sweetly melancholy longings!
"I cannot help thinking that an imaginative man must feel something similar when on the point of changing courtship for marriage.
Get better.