You have pulled down a shelter that was inhabited, and founded a splendid
but lifeless palace on the spot.

Raphael, I claim my soul from you! I am unhappy. My courage is gone. I
despair of my own strength. Write to me soon!--your healing hand alone
can pour balm on my burning wounds.




LETTER III.


Raphael to Julius.

Julius, happiness such as ours, if unbroken, would be too much for human
lot. This thought often haunted me even in the full enjoyment of our
friendship. This thought, then darkening our happiness, was a salutary
foretaste, intended to mitigate the pain of my present position.
Hardened in the stern school of resignation, I am still more susceptible
of the comfort of seeing in our separation a slight sacrifice whose merit
may win from fate the reward of our future reunion. You did not yet know
what privation was. You suffer for the first time.

And yet it is perhaps an advantage for you that I have been torn from you
exactly at this time. You have to endure a malady, from which you can
only perfectly recover by your own energy, so as not to suffer a relapse.
The more deserted you feel, the more you will stir up all healing power
in yourself, and in proportion as you derive little or no benefit from