Say rather, we know not, and must only resign ourselves to it.

Yet it is so beautiful, recalling the spring-time of life, to look back
and remember one's self. Yes, even in the sultry summer, in the
melancholy autumn and in the cold winter of life, there is here and
there a spring day, and the heart says: "I feel like spring." Such a
day is this--and so I lay me down upon the soft moss of the fragrant
woods, and stretch out my weary limbs, and look up, through the green
foliage, into the boundless blue, and think how it used to be in that
childhood.

Then, all seems forgotten. The first pages of memory are like the old
family Bible. The first leaves are wholly faded and somewhat soiled
with handling. But, when we turn further, and come to the chapters
where Adam and Eve were banished from Paradise, then, all begins to
grow clear and legible. Now if we could only find the title-page with
the imprint and date--but that is irrevocably lost, and, in their
place, we find only the clear transcript--our baptismal
certificate--bearing witness when we were born, the names of our
parents and godparents, and that we were not issued _sine loco et anno_.

But, oh this beginning! Would there were none, since, with the
beginning, all thought and memories alike cease. When we thus dream
back into childhood, and from childhood into infinity, this bad
beginning continually flies further away. The thoughts pursue it and
never overtake it; just as a child seeks the spot where the blue sky
touches the earth, and runs and runs, while the sky always runs before
it, yet still touches the earth--but the child grows weary and never
reaches the spot.