occurred to you that I have neither been past remedy nor unhappy on
that account? Yes, my dear Hofrath, I will tell you still more--I
believe you have an unfortunate love for me, and are jealous of our
young friend. Do you not come every morning and inquire how I am, even
when you know I am very well? Do you not bring me the finest flowers
from your garden? Did you not oblige me to send you my portrait,
and--perhaps I ought not to disclose it--did you not come to my room
last Sunday and think I was asleep? I was really sleeping--at least I
could not stir myself. I saw you sitting at my bedside for a long
time, your eyes steadfastly fixed upon me, and I felt your glances
playing upon my face like sunbeams. At last your eyes grew weary, and
I perceived the great tears falling from them. You held your face in
your hands, and loudly sobbed: Marie, Marie! Ah, my dear Hofrath, our
young friend has never done that, and yet you have sent him away.' As
I thus talked with him, half in jest and half in earnest, as I always
speak, I perceived that I had hurt the old man's feelings. He became
perfectly silent, and blushed like a child. Then I took the volume of
Wordsworth's poems which I had been reading, and said: 'Here is another
old man whom I love, and love with my whole heart, who understands me,
and whom I understand, and yet I have never seen him, and shall never
see him on earth, since it is so to be. Now I will read you one of his
poems, that you may see how one can love, and that love is a silent
benediction which the lover lays upon the head of the beloved, and then
goes on his way in rapturous sorrow.' Then I read to him Wordsworth's
'Highland Girl;' and now, my friend, place the lamp nearer, and read
the poem to me, for it refreshes me every time I hear it. A spirit
breathes through it like the silent, everlasting evening-red, which
stretches its arms in love and blessing over the pure breast of the
snow-covered mountains."