inner being.  There is in every person a something that is inseparable—­we call it fate, the suggestive power or character—­and he knows neither himself nor mankind, who believes that he can analyze the deeds and actions of men without taking into account this ever-recurring principle.  Thus I consoled myself on all those points which had troubled me in the evening; and at last no streak of cloud obscured the heaven of the future.

In this frame of mind I stepped out of the close house into the open air, when a messenger brought a letter for me.  It was from the Countess, as I saw by the beautiful, delicate handwriting.  I breathlessly opened it—­I looked for the most blissful tidings man can expect.  But all my hopes were immediately shattered.  The letter contained only a request not to visit her to-day, as she expected a visit at the castle from the Court Residence.  No friendly word—­no news of her health—­only at the close, a postscript:  “The Hofrath will be here to-morrow and the next day.”

Here were two days torn out at once from the book of life.  If they could only be completely obliterated—­but no, they hang over me like the leaden roof of a prison.  They must be lived.  I could not give them away as a charity to king or beggar, who would gladly have sat two days longer upon his throne, or on his stone at the church door.  I remained in this abstraction for a long time; but then I thought of my morning prayer, and how I said to myself there was no greater unbelief than despondency—­how the smallest and greatest in life are part of one great divine plan, to which we must submit, however hard it may be.  Like a rider who sees a precipice before him, I drew in the reins.  “Be it so, since it must be!” I cried out; “but God’s earth is not the place for complaints and lamentations.  Is it not a happiness to hold in my hand these lines which she has written? and is not the hope of seeing her again in a short time a greater bliss than I have ever deserved?  ’Always keep the head above water,’ say all good life-swimmers.  As well sink at once as allow the water to run into your eyes and throat.”  If it is hard for us, amid these little ills of life, to keep God’s providence continually in view, and if we hesitate, perhaps rightly, in every struggle, to step out of the common-places of life into the presence of the divine, then life ought to appear, to us at least, an art, if not a duty.  What is more disagreeable than the child who behaves ungovernably and grows dejected and angry at every little loss and pain?  On the other hand, nothing is more beautiful than the child in whose tearful eyes the sunshine of joy and innocence soon beams again, like the flower, which quivers and trembles in the spring shower, and soon after blossoms and exhales its fragrance, as the sun dries the tears upon its cheeks.