Not hate, as the wise say, but love, separates people and fashions the world; and only in its light can we find this and observe it. Only in the answer of its Thou can every I completely feel its endless unity. Then the understanding tries to unfold the inner germ of godlikeness, presses closer and closer to the goal, is full of eagerness to fashion the soul, as an artist fashions his one beloved masterpiece. In the mysteries of culture the spirit sees the play and the laws of caprice and of life. The statue of Pygmalion moves; a joyous shudder comes over the astonished artist in the consciousness of his own immortality, and, as the eagle bore Ganymede, a divine hope bears him on its mighty pinion up to Olympus.
TWO LETTERS
I
Is it then really and truly so, what I have so often quietly wished for and have never dared to express? I see the light of holy joy beaming on your face, and you modestly give me the beautiful promise. You are to be a mother!
Farewell, Longing, and thou, gentle Grief, farewell; the world is beautiful again. Now I love the earth, and the rosy dawn of a new spring lifts its radiant head over my immortal existence. If I had some laurel, I would bind it around your brow to consecrate you to new and serious duties; for there begins now for you another life. Therefore, give to me the wreath of myrtle. It befits me to adorn myself with the symbol of youthful innocence, since I now wander in Nature's Paradise. Hitherto all that held us together was love and passion. Now Nature has united us more firmly with an indissoluble bond. Nature is the only true priestess of joy; she alone knows how to tie the nuptial knot, not with empty words that bring no blessing, but with fresh blossoms and living fruits from the fullness of her power. In the endless succession of new forms creating Time plaits the wreath of Eternity, and blessed is he whom Fortune selects to be healthy and bear fruit. We are not sterile flowers among other living beings; the gods do not wish to exclude us from the great concatenation of living things, and are giving us plain tokens of their will.
So let us deserve our position in this beautiful world, let us bear the immortal fruits which the spirit chooses to create, and let us take our place in the ranks of humanity. I will establish myself on the earth, I will sow and reap for the future as well as for the present. I will utilize all my strength during the day, and in the evening I will refresh myself in the arms of the mother, who will be eternally my bride. Our son, the demure little rogue, will play around us, and help me invent mischief at your expense.
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You are right; we must certainly buy the little estate. I am glad that you went right ahead with the arrangements, without waiting for my decision. Order everything just as you please; but, if I may say so, do not have it too beautiful, nor yet too useful, and, above all things, not too elaborate.
If you only arrange it all in accordance with your own judgment and do not allow yourself to be talked into the proper and conventional, everything will be quite right, and the way I want it to be; and I shall derive immense enjoyment from the beautiful property. Hitherto I have lived in a thoughtless way and without any feeling of ownership; I have tripped lightly over the earth and have never felt at home on it. Now the sanctuary of marriage has given me the rights of citizenship in the state of nature. I am no longer suspended in the empty void of general inspiration; I like the friendly restraint, I see the useful in a new light, and find everything truly useful that unites everlasting love with its object—in short everything that serves to bring about a genuine marriage. External things imbue me with profound respect, if, in their way, they are good for something; and you will some day hear me enthusiastically praise the blessedness of home and the merits of domesticity.
I understand now your preference for country life, I like you for it and feel as you do about it. I can no longer endure to see these ungainly masses of everything that is corrupt and diseased in mankind; and when I think about them in a general way they seem to me like wild animals bound by a chain, so that they cannot even vent their rage freely. In the country, people can live side by side without offensively crowding one another. If everything were as it ought to be, beautiful mansions and cosy cottages would there adorn the green earth, as do the fresh shrubs and flowers, and create a garden worthy of the gods.