for which we pray.  It is only that two souls, which have found and recognized each other, may be allowed to finish their brief life-journey, arm in arm, and face to face; that I may be a support to her in suffering, and that she may be a consolation and precious burden to me until we reach the end.  And if a still later spring were promised to her life, if her burdens were taken from her—­Oh, what blissful scenes crowded upon my vision!  The castle of her deceased mother, in the Tyrol, belonged to her.  There, on the green mountains, in the fresh mountain air, among a sturdy and uncorrupted people, far away from the hurly-burly of the world, its cares and its struggles, its opinion and its censure, how blissfully we could await the close of life, and silently fade away like the evening-red!  Then I pictured the dark lake, with the dancing shimmer of waves, and the clear shadows of distant glaciers reflected in it; I heard the lowing of cattle and the songs of the herdsmen; I saw the hunters with their rifles crossing the mountains, and the old and young gathering together at twilight in the village; and, to crown all, I saw her passing along like an angel of peace in benediction, and I was her guide and friend.  “Poor fool!” I cried out, “poor fool!  Is thy heart always to be so wild and so weak?  Be a man.  Think who thou art, and how far thou art from her.  She is a friend.  She gladly reflects herself in another’s soul, but her childlike trust and candor at best only show that no deeper feeling lives in her breast for thee.  Hast thou not, on many a clear summer’s night, wandering alone, through the beech groves, seen how the moon sheds its light upon all the branches and leaves, how it brightens the dark, dull water of the pool and reflects itself clearly in the smallest drops?  In like manner she shines upon this dark life, and thou may’st feel her gentle radiance reflected in thy heart—­but hope not for a warmer glow!”

Suddenly an image approached me as it were from life; she stood before me, not like a memory but as a vision, and I realized for the first time how beautiful she was.  It was not that beauty of form and face which dazzles us at the first sight of a lovely maiden, and then fades away as suddenly as a blossom in spring.  It was much more the harmony of her whole being, the reality of every emotion, the spirituality of expression, the perfect union of body and soul which blesses him so who looks upon it.  The beauty which nature lavishes so prodigally does not bring any satisfaction, if the person is not adapted to it and as it were deserves and overcomes it.  On the other hand, it is offensive, as when we look upon an actress striding along the stage in queenly costume, and notice at every step how poorly the attire fits her, how little it becomes her.  True beauty is sweetness, and sweetness is the spiritualizing of the gross, the corporeal and the earthly.  It is the spiritual presence which transforms ugliness