Everything which had formerly withheld me from the pursuits of learning
now seemed worthless. It was as if I stood in a new relation to all
things. Even the one to my mother had undergone a transformation. I
realized for the first time what I possessed in her, how wrong I had
been, and what I owed to her. One day during this period I remembered my
Poem of the World, and instantly had the box brought in which I kept it
among German favours, little pink notes, and similar trophies.

For the first time I perceived, in examining the fruits of the labour of
so many days and nights, the vast disproportion between the magnitude of
the subject and my untrained powers. One passage seemed faulty, another
so overstrained and inadequate, that I flung it angrily back among the
rest. At the same time I thought that the verses I had addressed to
various beauties and the answers which I had received ought not to be
seen by other eyes. I was alone with the servant, a bright fire was
blazing in the stove, and, obedient to a hasty impulse, I told him to
throw the whole contents of the box into the fire.

When the last fragment was consumed to ashes I uttered a sigh of relief.

Unfortunately, the flames also destroyed the greater part of my youthful
poems. Even the completed acts of my tragedy had been overtaken by
destruction, like the heroes of Panthea and Abradatus.

If I had formerly obeyed the physician's order to lie motionless, I
followed it after the first signs of convalescence so rigidly that even
the experienced Dr. Romberg admitted that he had not given me credit for
so much self-control. Toward the end of the winter my former
cheerfulness returned, and with it I also learned to use the arcanum
I have formerly mentioned, which makes even the most bitter things