reverberated through all the recesses of my soul like an echo, and I was
terrified at myself. "Her love," and how had I deserved it? She hardly
knows me, and even if she could love me, must I not confess to her I do
not deserve the love of an angel? Every thought, every hope which arose
in my soul, fell back like a bird which essays to soar into the blue sky
and does not see the wires which restrain it. And yet, why all this
blissfulness, so near and so unattainable? Cannot God work wonders?
Does He not work wonders every morning? Has He not often heard my prayer
when it importuned him, and would not cease, until consolation and help
came to the weary one? These are not earthly blessings for which we
pray. It is only that two souls, which have found and recognized each
other, may be allowed to finish their brief life-journey, arm in arm, and
face to face; that I may be a support to her in suffering, and that she
may be a consolation and precious burden to me until we reach the end.
And if a still later spring were promised to her life, if her burdens
were taken from her--Oh, what blissful scenes crowded upon my vision!
The castle of her deceased mother, in the Tyrol, belonged to her. There,
on the green mountains, in the fresh mountain air, among a sturdy and
uncorrupted people, far away from the hurly-burly of the world, its cares
and its struggles, its opinion and its censure, how blissfully we could
await the close of life, and silently fade away like the evening-red!
Then I pictured the dark lake, with the dancing shimmer of waves, and the
clear shadows of distant glaciers reflected in it; I heard the lowing of
cattle and the songs of the herdsmen; I saw the hunters with their rifles
crossing the mountains, and the old and young gathering together at
twilight in the village; and, to crown all, I saw her passing along like
an angel of peace in benediction, and I was her guide and friend. "Poor
fool!" I cried out, "poor fool! Is thy heart always to be so wild and so
weak? Be a man. Think who thou art, and how far thou art from her. She
is a friend. She gladly reflects herself in another's soul, but her