Now everything is clear!  Hence the omnipresence of the nameless, unknown divinity.  Nature herself wills the everlasting succession of constantly repeated efforts; and she wills, too, that every individual shall be complete, unique and new in himself—­a true image of the supreme, indivisible Individuality.  Sinking deeper into this Individuality, my Reflection took such an individual turn that it presently began to cease and to forget itself.

“What point have all these allusions, which with senseless sense on the outward boundaries of sensuality, or rather in the middle of it, I will not say play, but contend with, each other?”

So you will surely ask, and so the good Juliana would ask, though no doubt in different language.

Dear Beloved!  Shall the nosegay contain only demure roses, quiet forget-me-nots, modest violets and other maidenlike and childlike flowers?  May it not contain anything and everything that shines strangely in wonderful glory?

Masculine awkwardness is a manifold thing, and rich in blossoms and fruits of all kinds.  Let the wonderful plant, which I will not name, have its place.  It will serve at least as a foil to the bright-gleaming pomegranate and the yellow oranges.  Or should there be, perhaps, instead of this motley abundance, only one perfect flower, which combines all the beauties of the rest and renders their existence superfluous?

I do not apologize for doing what I should rather like to do again, with full confidence in your objective sense for the artistic productions of the awkwardness which, often and not unwillingly, borrows the material for its creations from masculine inspiration.

It is a soft Furioso and a clever Adagio of friendship.  You will be able to learn various things from it; that men can hate with as uncommon delicacy as you can love; that they then remold a wrangle, after it is over, into a distinction; and that you may make as many observations about it as pleases you.

JULIUS To ANTONIO

You have changed a great deal of late.  Beware, my friend, that you do not lose your sense for the great before you realize it.  What will that mean?  You will finally acquire so much modesty and delicacy that heart and feeling will be lost.  Where then will be your manhood and your power of action?  I shall yet come to the point of treating you as you treat me, since we have not been living with each other, but near each other.  I shall have to set limits for you and say:  Even if he has a sense for everything else that is beautiful, still he lacks all sense for friendship.  Still I shall never set myself up as a moral critic of my friend and his conduct; he who can do that does not deserve the rare good fortune to have a friend.

That you wrong yourself first of all only makes the matter worse.  Tell me seriously, do you think there is virtue in these cool subtleties of feeling, in these cunning mental gymnastics, which consume the marrow of a man’s life and leave him hollow inside?