take pleasure in nature without having recourse to art?

If you expect anything grand or magnificent from this introduction,
you will be sadly mistaken. It relates merely to a peasant-lad,
who has excited in me the warmest interest. As usual, I shall
tell my story badly; and you, as usual, will think me extravagant.
It is Walheim once more -- always Walheim -- which produces these
wonderful phenomena.

A party had assembled outside the house under the linden-trees,
to drink coffee. The company did not exactly please me; and, under
one pretext or another, I lingered behind.

A peasant came from an adjoining house, and set to work arranging
some part of the same plough which I had lately sketched. His
appearance pleased me; and I spoke to him, inquired about his
circumstances, made his acquaintance, and, as is my wont with
persons of that class, was soon admitted into his confidence. He
said he was in the service of a young widow, who set great store
by him. He spoke so much of his mistress, and praised her so
extravagantly, that I could soon see he was desperately in love
with her. "She is no longer young," he said: "and she was treated
so badly by her former husband that she does not mean to marry
again." From his account it was so evident what incomparable
charms she possessed for him, and how ardently he wished she would
select him to extinguish the recollection of her first husband's
misconduct, that I should have to repeat his own words in order
to describe the depth of the poor fellow's attachment, truth, and
devotion. It would, in fact, require the gifts of a great poet
to convey the expression of his features, the harmony of his voice,