We are all, unconsciously, on heights from which the graves of our beloved dead are invisible. Were they ever present, there would be neither work nor song in this world.
Self-oblivion or self-knowledge--about this, everything revolves.
Even in hottest summer, I can always see the snowcapped mountains before me. I do not know how to express it, but they always inspire me with strange and confused emotions. I pay no regard to the date or the seasons, for I have them all at once.
In my heart there is also a spot on which rest eternal snows.
I have now been here between two and three years. I have formed a resolve which it will be difficult to carry out. I shall go out into the world once more. I must again behold the scenes of my past life. I have tested myself severely.
May it not be a love of adventure, that genteel yet vulgar desire to undertake what is unusual or fraught with peril. Or is it a morbid desire to wander through the world after having died, as it were?
No; far from it. What can it be? An intense longing to roam again, if it be only for a few days. I must kill the desire, lest it kill me.
Whence arises this sudden longing?
Every tool that I use while at work, burns my hand.
I must go.
I shall obey the impulse, without worrying myself with speculations as to its cause. I am subject to the rules of no order. My will is my only law. I harm no one by obeying it. I feel myself free; the world has no power over me.
I dreaded informing Walpurga of my intention. When I did so, her tone, her words, her whole manner, and the fact that she, for the first time, called me "child," made it seem as if her mother were still speaking to me.
"Child," said she, "you're right! Go! It'll do you good. I believe that you'll come back and will stay with us, but if you don't, and another life opens up to you--your expiation has been a bitter one, far heavier than your sin."
Uncle Peter was quite happy when he learned that we were to be gone from one Sunday to the Sunday following. When I asked him whether he was curious as to where we were going, he replied:
"It's all one to me. I'd travel over the whole world with you, wherever you'd care to go; and if you were to drive me away, I'd follow you like a dog and find you again."
I shall take my journal with me, and will note down every day.
(By the lake.)--I find it difficult to write a word. The threshold I am obliged to cross, in order to go out into the world, is my own gravestone.
I am equal to it.
How pleasant it was to descend toward the valley. Uncle Peter sang, and melodies suggested themselves to me, but I did not sing. Suddenly he interrupted himself and said:
"In the inns, you'll be my niece, won't you?"
"Yes."
"But you must call me 'uncle' when we're there?"
"Of course, dear uncle."
He kept nodding to himself, for the rest of the way, and was quite happy.
We reached the inn at the landing. He drank, and I drank, too, from the same glass.
"Where are you going?" asked the hostess.
"To the capital," said he, although I had not said a word to him about it. Then, in a whisper, he said to me:
"If you intend to go elsewhere, the people needn't know everything."
I let him have his own way.
I looked for the place where I had wandered at that time. There--there was the rock--and on it a cross, bearing, in golden characters, the inscription:
Here perishedIrma, Countess von Wildenort,In the twenty-first yearof her life.Traveler, pray for her and honor her memory.
I know not how long I lay there. When I revived there were several people busying themselves about me, and, among them, my little pitchman, who was quite violent in expressing his grief.
I was able to walk to the inn. My little pitchman said to the people:
"My niece isn't used to walking so far. She sits in her room all the year round. She's a wood-carver, and a mighty clever one, too."
The people were all kind to me. Guests were constantly coming and going. Some of them told the little pitchman that the beautiful monument out yonder was a great advantage to the inn; that, during the summer, it was visited by hundreds of persons; and that, every year, a nun from the convent came there, attended by another nun, and prayed at the cross.
"And who put up the monument?" asked the little pitchman.
"The brother of the unfortunate one."
"No, it was the king," said others.
The conversation often dropped off, but always began again anew.
Some said that the place must be haunted, for a beautiful creature known as Black Esther had drowned herself at the same time. She was a daughter of Zenza, who was now crazed and lived on the other side of the lake; and who could tell whether the beautiful lady--for she was very beautiful--hadn't drowned herself, too. To this the hostess angrily answered that the countess had had many gold chains and diamonds about her, and a diamond star on her forehead; that the horse which had thrown her had been seen; that her brother had wanted to shoot the horse, but it had been bewitched and, from that day, would eat nothing and at last dropped down dead. Others said that the Countess's father had commanded her to drown herself, and that she had been an obedient child and had done so.
Thus I had a glimpse of a legend in process of formation.
"And why was the father supposed to have commanded that?" inquired the little pitchman.
"Because she loved a married man. It won't do to talk of that."
"Why won't it?" whispered a sailor. "She and the king were fond of each other, and, to save herself from doing wrong, she took her life."
How can I describe my emotions, while listening to their conversation?
Years hence, perhaps, some solitary child of man may cross the lake and sing the song of the beautiful countess with the diamond star on her brow.
I do not remember how night came on, and how I at last fell asleep. I awoke and still heard the song of the drowned countess. Its sad, deep strain had filled my dream. All that I had experienced seemed but as a vision. I looked out of my window--I looked across the lake and beheld the golden characters in the rosy dawn.
What was I to do? Should I turn back?
My little pitchman was quite happy when he saw me so fresh again. The hostess offered me a picture of the monument, saying that every visitor bought one. My uncle bargained with her, got it for half the price she had asked, and then presented it to me. I carry the picture of my gravestone with me.
I felt irresistibly drawn toward another grave--my father's. While my hand rested on the mound, an inner voice said to me: "You will be reconciled."--I expiate and atone for my sin.
How the memories awakened by these different spots agitated me. I cannot write about it--my heart is breaking! Besides this, it is filled with fear. I shall be brief. I am unable to continue my recital. I shall never again look at these pages.
We went to the Frauensee and crossed over to the convent. Among the nuns, I saw my beloved Emma, who makes a yearly pilgrimage to my gravestone. For the first time in many years, I prayed with her. What difference does it make whether one still lives or is dead, as long as the thought--
My hand trembles while I write, but I will....
I had left the convent and was returning across the lake, when the thought flashed upon me: "I expiate in freedom! That is my only pride. My will holds me as fast as the bolts of the convent gate would do, and I--I--work--"
Everything was carried out just as I had determined. I saw the whole world once more and bade it adieu.
We journeyed to the capital. The city noises and the rapid driving alarmed me.
When I again heard the rustling of a silk gown, for the first time, the sound quite affected me. I felt as if impelled to accost the first lady I met in a fashionable bonnet and veil. These people seemed to belong to me. I felt as if returning from the lower regions into sunlight.
I stopped to read the placards that were posted up at the corners of the streets. Am I still living in the same world?
There is music, singing, etc. One amuses the other. No one finds life's joys within himself.
All things in this world are related to each other. Thou hast lost the connecting link.
I was sitting in a small inn, while I looked on at the bustling life of the city.
I saw the houses here and there--and it seemed as if I beheld the ghost of a part of my life. If the people knew-- There are streets here with which I am not acquainted. Men pass without a thought for each other. City folk all look ill-humored; I have not met one sunny, happy face.
I went to the picture-gallery. What delights the eye there feeds upon! And besides these, there is the intoxicating wealth of color and the solemn stillness of the place itself. I saw my old teacher and heard him saying to a stranger: "A work of art does not derive its great historical character from the importance of the subject, or the size of the picture. What is required of the artist is that he should be filled with, and, at the same time, transport the beholder to, the scene that he attempts to depict. The same subject can be conceived in various ways, and may be executed either as a light,genrepiece, or in the grand and more enduring historical style."
While I passed through the rooms, I felt like one intoxicated. All my old friends greeted me. They are clothed in undying colors, and have remained faithful and unchanged. The power of nature and of art lie in their truthfulness. But they do not speak; they merely exist. No--nature alone is mute; art lends its voice. It is not by the lips alone that the human mind expresses itself. I felt as if the Maria Ægyptica must suddenly turn toward me and ask: "Do you know me now?"
I grew dizzy and fearful.
While in the Raphael gallery, environed by the highest beauty earth has ever known, conceived as only the clearest eye could conceive it, I felt as if in another world.
A happy thought occurred to me: Art is the first liberator of humanity, evoking a second, joy-creating life, and--what is even a greater boon--revealing the highest realm, where every one who is called may enter. The poor son of the people says: "I and my spirit shall dwell in this lofty, this blessed abode." He reigns there eternally, surrounded by his ancestors in art. There dwells immortality; or, better still, death never enters there. The paternal mansion of free, creative art contains infinite space, and is an eternal home. Let him who has lived happily, enter there.
I stood before the palace. The windows of the room that I once occupied were open. My parrot was still there in its golden cage, and called out: "God keep you! God keep you!" But it does not add my name, for it has forgotten it.
On the table before me there lay a newspaper, the first that I had seen for years. It was long before I could summon resolution to read it, but I did so at last and read as follows:
"His majesty the king has departed for the sea baths, where he will remain for six weeks. Prime minister Von Bronnen," (Von Bronnen minister!) "Count Wildenort, master of the horse," (my brother!) "and privy councilor Sixtus, the king's physician, are of his suite."
How much these few lines conveyed to me! There was no need of my reading any further. Yet there was another paragraph, saying:
"Her majesty the queen, accompanied by his royal highness the crown prince, has removed to the summer palace."
I walked about the city and looked into the shop windows and at the many objects which I no longer require. In one of the windows, I found some of my carvings on exhibition. "That's our work!" exclaimed the little pitchman, who boldly went into the shop and inquired as to the price, and also asked by whom they had been done. The price named was a high one, and the merchant added: "These works of art"--yes, he spoke of them as works of art--"are made by a half-crazy peasant girl, who lives in the Highlands."
I looked at my little pitchman. He was terribly afraid. His glance seemed to implore me not to lose my senses while away from home. His fear was not without good grounds, for, in spite of my self-control, my faithful guide must have found much that was strange in my behavior.
I bought several small plaster casts of gems of Greek art; and now I have types of undying beauty ever with me. It required clever management to effect such unusual purchases, and I only ventured to attempt it during the twilight hour.
I saw many familiar faces, but always quickly averted mine. I would so gladly have spoken to Mademoiselle Kramer. She has become quite aged. She was carrying a book with the yellow label of the circulating library. How many thousands of books the dear old woman must have read! She reads book after book, just as men smoke cigars.
I went to Gunther's house. The courtyard gate was open. There is now a factory there, and the lovely trees have all been felled.
On the head of the figure of Victory at the arsenal, there sat a pigeon with glossy plumage--Although without eye-glasses, I could see the figure quite distinctly.
The evening afforded me pure delight--the purest I ever knew, or, as I firmly believe, ever will know.
Mozart's "Magic Flute" was performed at the theater.
I went there with my little pitchman. We sat in the uppermost tier. I saw no one, although the crowded house must have contained many whom I knew. All my senses were held captive by music's magic spell.
It is past midnight. My little pitchman and I are stopping at a teamster's inn. I cannot rest until I put my feelings into words.
Mozart's "Magic Flute" is one of those immortal creations that dwell in purest ether, in a region beyond the passions and struggles of mankind. I have often heard the text objected to as puerile, but, at that height, all action, all understanding, all personages, all surroundings, must needs be allegorical. All that is hard and narrow is cast aside, and man becomes a bird, his life pure and natural, full of love and wisdom. The childlike or childish character of the text is singularly true to nature. It is only theblaséwho can find it dull and insipid.
It is Mozart's last dramatic work, and in it he appears at his best, in all the fullness of his genius, as if already transfigured. His various figures pass before him in review, created anew, as it were; less fixed and individualized, but all the more pure and ethereal. Using the word in its best sense, there is something supernatural in the way in which he has here gathered and combined the chords that else were scattered, into one harmonious whole.
The opening chorus of priests is the march of humanity, and the "O Isis!" is full of the sunshine of blissful peace. This is the fabled paradise--a life above this, in the free ether, beyond the reach of storm or tempest; a region to which music alone can transport us.
For hours, I felt as if thus transported, and know not how I descended again. Thoughts without number hover about me. This music breathes a spirit of noble, self-conscious repose, and is free from all oppressed humility. It is a life that can never fade; nay, it is the odor of ripened fruit.
This last work of Mozart's has a companion piece in Lessing's last work: "Nathan the Wise." In both of them the soul wings its flight far beyond the disjointed, struggling world and dwells in the pure region beyond, where peace and piety have become actual existences, and where the vexations of narrow, circumscribed, finite humanity provoke but a smile. The great treasure of humanity is not buried in the past; it must be dug out, fashioned and created from the future.
"Nathan" and the "Magic Flute" abound with precious gems. They prove that happiness is not an illusion, but they speak in a language unintelligible to him who does not bear within himself a sense of things above this life.
To have lived such hours is life eternal.
The song of the three boys is full of divine bliss. If the angels in Raphael's Sistine Madonna were to sing, such would be their melodies, and in this register would their voices move.
I would like to hear such sounds at my dying hour, for that would be an ecstatic death.
If such ecstasy could only continue without interruption.
After the opera was over, I sat in the park for a long time. All was dark and silent.
Filled with this music, I would gladly fly back to my forest solitude, have nothing more to do with the world, and silently pass away. After these, no other tones should fall upon my ear and disturb me.
But I was obliged to return to the world.
And here I sit, late at night, the whole world resting in sleep and self-oblivion, while I am awake in self-oblivion.
O ye eternal spirits! Could one but be with you and utter a word, a sound, that should pass into infinity! In yonder gallery, eyes that never close, look down upon the coming and departing generations. And here there are undying harmonies and imperishable words.
Oh ye blessed spirits, ye who through art create a second world! The world confuses and perplexes us, but ye make everything clear as the light of day. Ye are the blessed genii who ever offer mankind the wine of life in the golden chalice which, though millions drink from it, is never emptied.
It is with deep pain that I depart from the realm of color and that of sound. This, and this only, is indeed a deprivation.
And now for the last halting-place.
We wandered on in the direction of the summer palace. We walked up and down before the park railing. Up by the chapel, and under the weeping ash, I could see the court ladies sitting on the ornamented chairs and busy with their embroidery. Ah, there is many a one there, no better than I am, and yet she jests and laughs, is happy and respected. Aye, there lies the misery. We are constantly blunting our moral sense and saying to ourselves: "Look about you; others are no better than you are."
Presently they all arose and bowed profoundly. The gates were opened and the queen drove out, the prince sitting beside her. She looked at me and the little pitchman, and greeted us. My eyes failed me.
I know not. Did I see aright? The queen looked cheerful.
The prince has become a fine boy. He has kept the promise of his infancy.
My little pitchman conversed with a stone-breaker, who was working on the road. He was loud in his praises of the queen and her only child, the crown prince. So she has only one child--
I was so weary that I was obliged to rest by the wayside. In former days, I had so often proudly passed by the spot where I was now sitting. No matter! It is well that it is so. The little pitchman was delighted when I told him that our path now lay homeward. He must have felt quite alarmed about me, and must have thought to himself: "The folks who say that you're not quite right, were not so far out after all."
Those who see me not, think me dead; those who do see me, think me crazed.
I had determined that, in case of discovery, I would tell all to the king and queen, and, after that, quietly return to my retreat.
It is better thus.
We returned home. When I reached the foot of the mountain on which we live, and had begun to ascend it, I asked myself: "Is this your home?" And yet, absence makes it seem like a new home. The life I lead here is a real life.
Since I have noted down this thought, I feel as if a weight were lifted from my heart. While writing, I often feel as giddy as if standing on the edge of a precipice; but I shall remain firm. I will not look at these pages again. But now work begins once more, and my head will cease to be filled with thoughts of repentance. The next minute is ours; the passing moment is scarcely so; and the past one not at all.
There is much work awaiting me. I am glad that it is so. Walpurga and the children are quite happy to have me with them again.
During my absence, Walpurga had my room painted a pale red. It is in wretched taste, and yet I must needs show myself grateful. She thought that I would not return.
These people constitute my whole world, and yet I could leave them any minute. Will it be thus when I, too, leave the world?
Courageously to forego the world--I think I have read the expression somewhere; but now I understand it. I feel it within myself and am carrying it out; not timidly, not sadly,--but courageously.
I am no longer sad. The calm satisfaction with which I resign the world emancipates me.
When I look at life, I ask myself: "Why all these struggles and all these barriers, until we come to the last barrier of all, unto death itself?" The great heroes of history and my little pitchman--not one of them had the odds of fortune in his favor. No destiny is completely and purely fulfilled.
Old Jochem said his prayers every day, and would often pass whole hours thus employed; yet he would curse mankind and his own fate. And I have known ladies of quality, who, after listening in rapt ecstasy to the music of Beethoven, would dispute and wrangle after the most vulgar fashion.
"Courageously to forego." The words are ever haunting me. Thanks for this precept, kind spirit, whoever thou mayst be! To live out the day and not allow it to be darkened by the knowledge that night must come, to forego with courage--that is the sum of all.
I never would have believed that I could live without joy, without pleasures; but now I see that I can. Joy and pleasure are not the conditions upon which my life is based.
We have it in our power to attune the mind to cheerfulness; that is, to calmness and clearness.
How many years was it that Hermione, of the "Winter's Tale," remained hidden? I have quite forgotten.
I am constantly reminded, while at work, of various passages, of the solos, the great choruses, and even the instrumental accompaniments, in Mozart's "Magic Flute." They fill the silent air with their sounds, and bear me aloft.
Above all, the appeal, "Be steadfast!" with the three short notes, d, e, d, and the trumpet-blast that follows, is ever sounding in my ears like some spiritual watchword. The highest truths should be conveyed by music alone, and would thus become more forcible and enduring. Be steadfast--
I am again trying to solve the enigma of life.
Man may not do all that he can, or to which he feels impelled. Since he is human, he must recognize the limit of his rights before he reaches the limit of his powers.
At court they often discussed the saying: "Right before might." I have melted down the phrase in the alembic of thought. I have coined it anew.
How beautiful is the legend of paradise! The first human pair were placed there; as far as their powers went, everything, with a single exception, was permitted to them--and the fruit tempted them. But there is no paradise. The beast alone possesses what may be termed paradise. It is free to do whatever it can. As long, however, as there is a prohibition which man, as a moral being, must know, there can be no paradise, for perfect freedom is at an end.
What I mean is this: self-consciousness is gained by overstepping the barrier. It is eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. From that moment, man's joys are no longer provided for him. He must create them, either from within himself or from his surroundings. Now he begins to wrestle with nature, and his life becomes one of deeds. Work, whether directed to self-perfection or intended to benefit the world, is a second creation.
My every thought seems as if it were an inarticulate, stammering attempt to express the words of knowledge.
The little world around me and the so-called great world that still lives in my memory, now seem to me as if illumined and rendered transparent by the golden sunlight.
To perceive the barriers, and thus recognize the necessity of law, is liberty. I am free at last.
I did well in going out into the world again. Or do I merely think so because I feel that I have done right? I am a freer being now. I have ceased to be the poor soul that longed to return to the world. My life is no longer a hell. I could now return to the world without fear. Now that I can courageously forego it, I do not feel the privation. Oh, how presumptuous we are to imagine that others need us! I, too, no longer need any one.
The telegraph wires are being put up between here and my forest view. The busy doings of the great world are now to pass by me. I can see men on the ladders, fastening the wires to the high poles.
Walpurga tells me that my voice is quite hoarse, but I feel quite well. Perhaps it is because I speak so little, sometimes passing whole days without uttering a word.
The cool, pure breezes that I inhale every morning are like a refreshing draught, and the blue of the sky is far deeper up here.
Gunther once told me that I am of an unrhythmic temperament. He was in the right. If I were not, I would now express my deepest thoughts in melodious words. I feel so happy, so free, that my thoughts could find proper expression in poetry alone.
Although Hansei has now been in possession for a long while, he seems grateful for everything. It makes him happy to know that he is able to buy fine cows and pretty bells for them, and this gratitude for his good fortune lends an inner tenderness to his rough exterior.
(August 28th.)--After long, sunless days of deathlike torpor, the sky is bright and clear again. The snowy peaks, the green hills and the valleys are bathed in sunshine. I feel as if I must fly away and soar through space; but I remain here and work; for, as my work was faithful to me in dark days, so shall I remain faithful to it in bright ones. I shall only wander forth when evening comes and work is at an end. This is Goethe's birthday. I think Goethe would have been friendly toward me, if I had lived in his time and near him.
It is pleasant, after all, that we know the hour of his birth. It was at noon. I write these lines during the very hour, and my thoughts are of him.
What would he have counseled me to do with my lost life?
Is it a lost life?--It is not.
Franz has returned from the target-shooting and was the hero of the occasion. What shouts of joy and triumph! He gained the first prize, a fine rifle. The target, riddled with bullets, is displayed before our house.
A falling leaf in autumn--how many bright summer days and mild nights were required to perfect it? What was it while it hung on the tree? What is it now, when it falls to the ground?
And what is the result of a whole human life, when summed up in a few sentences?
How many feet is our farm above the level of the sea? I do not know, and Hansei would smile to think of one's asking such a question. We perform our duty on the little spot of earth on which we dwell. Its effect flows out into the great sea of humanity and of history, without any interference of ours. The brook goes on in its course, driving the mill-wheels, irrigating the meadows, and is at last swallowed up in the ocean, whence come the clouds and storms that again feed the brook.
In spite of all that I grew up to, all that, in a course of years, I have practiced, acted, or thought, I cannot help regarding myself as a block of wood--even now, I know not what will become of me, or who will hew me into shape.
I have a beautiful task on hand--a piece of work that will remain and be a constant pleasure to me--work for our own house.
When the additions were made to the dwelling, I succeeded, with the assistance of the carpenter, in giving greater symmetry to the dwelling itself. The piazza running round the house received a more open roof, and the balustrade a more pleasing form.
Hansei has often said that the forest clearing would make a beautiful meadow. Yesterday he came home and said:
"I have it! I'm having the trees on the hillside felled, and have left four fine trunks standing. They form a square and I'll have a hut built there, and then we'll have a mountain meadow of our own. The farm can't thrive without one. It's far up, to be sure--about two hours' walk; but we can see the clearing from here."
"And just think of it," said Hansei, who was delighted with his plan, "where the trees have been cut down in front, you can see ever so far, way off to the lake where we used to live. To be sure, it's nothing more than a little sparkling spot of blue, but it looks at one so kindly, just like a faithful eye from home, or like one who has known you from childhood. It was beautiful at our home, but it's more beautiful here; so don't let us sin by being ungrateful."
I have made the drawing for the shepherd's hut. My little pitchman is quite clever in cutting everything. We are working at our Noah's ark, and are as merry as apprentices.
I am also carving a horse's head in life size, for the gable of the roof.
Hansei and I have just returned from where the new shepherd's hut is being built.
After the invigorating mountain ascent of to-day, I feel as if I had been present at the dawning of creation; a new road, a new dwelling, and a spot where human being had never been before. I feel as if experience had nothing more in store for me; as if all earthly burdens had fallen from me.
When, after a day of great exertion and mountain climbing, one awakes on the following morning, the fatigue has passed away. One feels refreshed and invigorated, and satisfied with the test to which he has subjected himself; for it has proved his power of endurance and his ability to impose tasks upon himself. For a while, I had left my past and possessed nothing but myself. Now that I have returned to familiar scenes, they welcome me again. I can easily realize the calm peacefulness of those who thus picture to themselves the awakening to the eternal life.
The shepherd's hut is empty. The walls are bare, except where the picture of our Saviour hangs in the corner, waiting for the beings who are to come there. It is, and ever will remain, a blessing that men can thus bear with them, to desert wastes and lonely heights, the image of pure and perfect man. It is this which enables a more perfect civilization and a great history to take possession of the modern world.
If only the pure knowledge of the pure spirit always went with it.
(October.)--Now that winter approaches, my thoughts are always of the lonely shepherd's hut upon the mountain. I am always there in my dreams, alone and undergoing strange experiences. I think I must move up there next spring. I feel that life will be incomplete until I have spent a whole summer with plants and beasts, with mountain and brook, with the sun, the moon and the stars.
Art thou still dissatisfied, insatiate heart, always longing for something else? What can it be? I must and will have rest!
He who needs nothing but himself to be happy, is happy indeed.
Here, once again, I am like the first human being that walked the earth.
Man, of himself, is pure and unsullied, and out of him flows the world. There lies the secret which I shall not name.
It makes me happy to think that I am to go still higher; further up the mountain, where it is even quieter and more lonely than here. I feel as if something were calling me there. It is neither a voice nor a sound. I know not what it is, and yet it calls me, draws me, allures me, with its: "Come! come!"--Yes, I am coming!
I know that I am not dying. I would sooner doubt that I am living. The world is no longer an enigma to me.
From my mountain height I look down on those I have wronged. They are my father, my queen, and, worst of all, myself!
Of all things in this world, untruth is the surest to avenge itself. When I wrote to the king, from the convent, I vaunted my truthfulness and yet, at the same time, I was thoroughly untruthful. I aimed at bringing about an act of freedom and yet, at heart, my only desire was to write to him and impress him by my love of liberty. I felt proud of my opposition to popular opinion, and hoped thus to show him that I was his strong friend. He declined my proffered advice, and yet it was I who again opened the convents.
Falsehood avenges itself.
Purity and freedom can only exist where there is perfect truthfulness.
If I could only find words to express the delight with which to-day's sunset filled me. It is night, and as surely as the sun shone on my face, so surely does a ray of sunlight shine within me. I am a ray of eternity. Compared with it, what are days or years? What is a whole human life?
I never rightly knew why I was always dissatisfied, and yearning for the next hour, the next day, the next year, hoping that it would bring me that which I could not find in the present. It was not love, for love does not satisfy. I desired to live in the passing moment, but could not. It always seemed as if something were waiting for me without the door, and calling me. What could it have been?
I know now; it was a desire to be at one with myself, to understand myself. Myself in the world, and the world in me.
The vain man is the loneliest of human beings. He is constantly longing to be seen, understood, acknowledged, admired and loved.
I could say much on the subject, for I, too, was once vain. It was only in actual solitude that I conquered the loneliness of vanity. It is enough for me that I exist.
How far removed this is from all that is mere show.
Now I understand my father's last act. He did not mean to punish me. His only desire was to arouse me, to lead me to self-consciousness, to the knowledge that, teaching us to become different from what we are, saves us.
I understand the inscription in my father's library: "When I am alone, then am I least alone."
Yes; when alone, one can more perfectly lose himself in the life universal. I have lived and have come to know the truth. I can now die.
He who is at one with himself, possesses all.
What will people say?--These few words represent the world's tyranny, the power that perverts our nature and temperaments, and account for our mental obliquity of vision. These four words rule everywhere. Walpurga is swayed by them, while Hansei has quite a different standard, the only true one. Without knowing it, he acts just as Gunther would have done.
Man's first and only duty is to preserve his peace of mind. He should be utterly indifferent as to "what the people will say." That question makes the mind homeless. Do right and fear naught! Rest assured that with all your consideration for the world, you can never satisfy it. But if you will go on in your own way, indifferent to the praise or blame of others, you have conquered the world, and it cheerfully subjects itself to you. As long as you care for "what the people will say," so long are you the slave of others.
I believe that I know what I have done. I have no compassion for myself. This is my full confession.
I have sinned--not against nature, but against the world's rules. Is that sin? Look at the tall pines in yonder forest. The higher the tree grows, the more do the lower branches die away, and thus the tree in the thick forest is protected and sheltered by its fellows, but can, nevertheless, not perfect itself in all directions.
I desired to lead a full and complete life and yet to be in the forest, to be in the world and yet in society. But he who means to live thus, must remain in solitude. As soon as we become members of society, we cease to be mere creatures, of nature. Nature and morality have equal rights and must form a compact with each other, and where there are two powers with equal rights, there must be mutual concessions.
Herein lies my sin.
He who desires to live a life of nature alone, must withdraw himself from the protection of morality, I did not fully desire either the one or the other; hence I was crushed and shattered.
My father's last action was right. He avenged the moral law, which is just as human as the law of nature. The animal world knows neither father nor mother, so soon as the young is able to take care of itself. The human world does know them and must hold them sacred.
I see it all quite clearly. My sufferings and my expiation are deserved. I was a thief! I stole the highest treasures of all: confidence, love, honor, respect, splendor.
How noble and exalted the tender souls appear to themselves when a poor rogue is sent to jail for having committed a theft! But what are all possessions which can be carried away, when compared with those that are intangible!
Those who are summoned to the bar of justice are not always the basest of mankind.
I acknowledge my sin, and my repentance is sincere.
My fatal sin, the sin for which I now atone, was that I dissembled, that I denied and extenuated that which I represented to myself as a natural right. Against the queen, I have sinned worst of all. To me, she represents that moral order which I violated and yet wished to enjoy.
To you, O queen, to you--lovely, good, and deeply injured one--do I confess all this!
If I die before you--and I hope that I may--these pages are to be given to you.
We cannot take nature for our only guide. He who follows its law has no share, no inheritance in the world of history. He knows nothing of the beings who lived before him, and who helped to make the world what it is. With him, the world is barren; with him, it dies. He who follows naught but nature's law and persuades himself that he is thus doing right, denies humanity and, at the same time, denies that the human race has a history which is not represented by himself alone, but has existed before him and now exists without him. In spite of gloss and varnish, he who denies humanity is but a savage. He stands without the pale of civilization. All that he does, or wears, or enjoys, of the fruits of culture, is but a theft. He should sing no song but that which is natural to him, like the bird which brings its plumage and its song into the world with it, and has no special garb or tones; for there all is species, all is the law of nature.
In this alone lies the truth.
Above all right and all duty, is love, leading lover and beloved to the pure unfolding of their natures.
Woe to those who desecrate its divine mission!
My father's fate is also clear to me, now. He wished to live for and perfect himself; and yet he had children whose love and affection he claimed. His death was one of the terrible consequences of the life he had led. That, however, does not make me innocent, and he dealt justly toward me.
I have no desire to offer excuses for anything I have done. I mean to be perfectly truthful. That is my only happiness, my only pride.
Your worth depends upon what you are; not upon what you have.
I have found the center about which my mind revolves.
During the last few days, it has seemed to me as if my father's terrible punishment had never been executed, as if it were only the guilty presentiment of my own imagination.
What has induced this sudden thought that will not leave me?
I know! I know! Whatever may have happened is now atoned for! There can be a renewed life, a deliverance achieved by ourselves, and I feel that this has been vouchsafed me. I am once more free! I can return to the world and remove the bandage from my brow!
To the world! What is the world? I have it within me. I am in the world, and the world is in me. I am!
I have sung again for the first time. Oh, how much good it did me! No one heard me but myself.
No bird sings for itself; it sings for its mate. Man alone can sing and think for himself. He alone possesses self-consciousness.
The calm of morn, which is always so dear to me, now seems to last during the whole day.
Yonder brook often seems to roar much more loudly than at other times. It is because a sudden wind catches it and bears the sound-waves toward me.
(At work.)--When the material on which we work is hard and unyielding, we learn to make a virtue of necessity. I often chance upon changes in the fiber or grain which necessitate new beauties or deformities. I often bring out touches which I did not intend, and those that I did intend become quite different from what I had expected, just because the wood is master, as well as my hand. Varnish, blessed friend in need, covers both beauties and defects.
We create nothing. We merely shape and discover that which already exists and which, without our assistance, cannot release itself from chaos.
Oh, I feel as if I at last understand the whole world and all of art and work. I feel that my longings for the infinite are satisfied.
I now know the cause of the clashing between our lofty thoughts and our lives of petty detail.
Hansei, Walpurga, the king, the queen, Gunther, Emma--what are they all? Mere drops in the ocean of humanity. When I think of myself as a part of the whole, I forget them all. That destroys love for individuals; desire and enjoyment cease, and, with them, passion and heartache.
And what am I? What still remains to me? We can conceive the great and complete whole, while our love can only be for the individual, for that which is nearest to us. And the nearest of all is God, the great idea of universal law.
Walpurga is quite anxious about me. She often comes to me, and it seems as if she wished to say something. She looks at me so strangely, and yet says nothing. She tells me, again and again, how lovely it will be at the shepherd's hut, and how quiet and happy I will be up there. She wishes the mountains were already cleared of snow. She would like me to be away from here, and says that I would soon become strong. And yet I do not feel ill, but she always says: "You shine so!"
I feel as if I had settled my accounts with the world. I am perfectly calm, and it may be that this feeling casts its radiance about me. I could no longer fear the world. I could again live among human beings, for I feel myself free. Nothing more can wound me.
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.
Everything seems flying toward me; the sunlight and the sunshine, the rustling of the forests and the forest breezes, beings of all ages and of all kinds--all seem beautiful and rendered transparent by the sun's glow.
I am!
I am in God!
If I could only die now and be wafted through this joy to dissolution and redemption!
But I will live on until my hour comes.
Come, thou dark hour, whenever thou wilt! To me, thou art light!
I feel that there is light within me. O Eternal Spirit of the universe, I am one with thee!
I was dead, and I live--I shall die and yet live.
Everything has been forgiven and blotted out.--There was dust on my wings.--I soar aloft into the sun and into infinite space. I shall die singing from the fullness of my soul. Shall I sing!
Enough.
I know that I shall again be gloomy and depressed and drag along a weary existence, but I have once soared into infinity and have felt a ray of eternity within me. That I shall never lose again. I should like to go to a convent, to some quiet, cloistered cell, where I might know nothing of the world, and could live on within myself until death shall call me. But it is not to be. I am destined to live on in freedom and to labor; to live with my fellow-beings and to work for them.
The results of my handiwork and of my powers of imagination, belong to you; but what I am within myself, is mine alone.
I have taken leave of everything here; of my quiet room, of my summer bench; for I know not whether I shall ever return. And if I do, who knows but what everything may have become strange to me?
(Last page written in pencil.)--It is my wish that when I am dead, I may be wrapped in a simple, linen cloth, placed in a rough, unplaned coffin, and buried under the apple-tree, on the road that leads to my paternal mansion. I desire that my brother and other relatives may be apprised of my death at once, and that they shall not disturb my grave by the wayside.
No stone, no name, is to mark my grave.