“Teufelsdroeckh’s whole duty and necessity was, like other men’s, to work in the right direction, and no work was to be had; whereby he became wretched enough";—­and, “Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.”  Then I ask her, if it is not the utmost wretchedness to have found that work and felt its blessedness, and then be condemned not to do it.  To all this she replies by singing that old hymn,—­I make no apology for writing it down entire,—­perhaps you do not know it,—­

    “Heart, heart, lie still! 
  Life is fleeting fast;
  Strife will soon be past.” 
    “I cannot lie still;
    Beat strong I will.”

    “Heart, heart, lie still! 
  Joy’s but joy, and pain’s but pain;
  Either, little loss or gain.” 
    “I cannot lie still;
    Beat strong I will.”

    “Heart, heart, lie still! 
  Heaven over all
  Rules this earthly ball.” 
    “I cannot lie still;
    Beat strong I will.”

    “Heart, heart, lie still! 
  Heaven’s sweet grace alone
  Can keep in peace its own.” 
    “Let that me fill,
    And I am still.”

“Heaven’s sweet grace” does not fill my heart; for I am exhausting myself in longings to walk again,—­to be independent.  I long to climb these mountains,—­perverse being that I am,—­principally to get out of the way of counsel, sympathy, and tender care.  Since I can never so liberate myself, I am devoured by desire to do so.  Kate divines this new feeling, and respects it; but as this is only another coal of fire heaped upon my head, of course it does not soothe me.

Sometimes in the visions of the night I am happy.  I dream that I am at the top of Mount Washington.  Cold, pure air rushes by me; clouds lie, like a gray ocean, beneath me.  I am alone upon the giant rock, with the morning star and the measureless heights of sky.  I tremble at the awful silence,—­exult fearfully in it.  The clouds roll away, and leave the world revealed, lying motionless and inanimate at my feet.  Yet I am as far from all sight of humanity as before!  Should the whole nation be swarming below the mountain, armies drawn up before armies, with my eyes resting upon them, I should not see them, but sit here in sublime peace.  Man’s puny form were from this height as undistinguishable as the blades of grass in the meadows below.  I know, that, if all the world stood beneath, and strained their vision to the utmost upon the very spot where I stand, I should still be in the strict privacy of invisibility.  This isolation I pine for.  But I can never, never feel it—­out of a dream.

You guess rightly.  I am in a repining mood, and must pour out all my grievances.  I feel my helplessness cruelly.

But I must forget myself a little while, and describe these Springs to you, with the company here assembled,—­only twenty or thirty people.  The house is a good enough one; the country yet very wild.  My couch is daily wheeled to a shady porch which looks down the avenue of trees leading to the spring, a white marble basin, bubbling over with bright water.