into beauty.  The more I looked upon the vision which stood before me, the more I perceived, above all else, the majestic beauty of her person and the soulful depths of her whole being.  Oh, what happiness was near me!  And was this all—­to be shown the summit of earthly bliss and then be thrust out into the flat, sandy wastes of existence?  Oh, that I had never known what treasures the earth conceals!  Once to love, and then to be forever alone!  Once to believe, and then forever to doubt!  Once to see the light, and then forever to be blinded!  In comparison with this rack, all the torture-chambers of man are insignificant.

Thus rushed the wild chase of my thoughts farther and farther away until at last all was silent.  The confused sensations gradually collected and settled.  This repose and exhaustion they call meditation, but it is rather an inspection—­one allows time for the mixture of thoughts to crystallize themselves according to eternal laws, and regards the process like an observing chemist; and the elements having assumed a form, we often wonder that they, as well as ourselves, are so entirely different from what we expected.

When I awoke from my abstraction, my first words were, “I must away.”  I immediately sat down and wrote the Hofrath that I should travel for fourteen days and submit entirely to him.  I easily made an excuse to my parents, and at night I was on my way to the Tyrol.

SEVENTH MEMORY.

Wandering, arm in arm with a friend, through the valleys and over the mountains of the Tyrol, one sips life’s fresh air and enjoyment; but to travel the same road solitary and alone with your thoughts is time and trouble lost.  Of what interest to me are the green mountains, the dark ravines, the blue lake, and the mighty cataracts?  Instead of contemplating them they look at me and wonder among themselves at this solitary being.  It smote me to the heart that I had found no one in all the world who loved me more than all others.  With such thoughts I awoke every morning, and they haunted me all the day like a song which one cannot drive away.  When I entered the inn at night and sat down wearied, and the people in the room watched me, and wondered at the solitary wanderer, it often urged me out into the night again, where no one could see I was alone.  At a late hour I would steal back, go quietly up to my room and throw myself upon my hot bed, and the song of Schubert’s would ring through my soul until I went to sleep:  “Where thou art not, is happiness.”  At last the sight of men, whom I continually met laughing, rejoicing and exulting in this glorious nature, became so intolerable that I slept by day, and pursued my journey from place to place in the clear moonlight nights.  There was at least one emotion which dispelled and dissipated my thoughts:  it was fear.  Let any one attempt to scale mountains alone all night long in ignorance