Alas, that the friend of my youth is gone!  Alas, that I ever knew her!  I might say to myself, “You are a dreamer to seek what is not to be found here below.”  But she has been mine.  I have possessed that heart, that noble soul, in whose presence I seemed to be more than I really was, because I was all that I could be.  Good heavens! did then a single power of my soul remain unexercised?  In her presence could I not display, to its full extent, that mysterious feeling with which my heart embraces nature?  Was not our intercourse a perpetual web of the finest emotions, of the keenest wit, the varieties of which, even in their very eccentricity, bore the stamp of genius?  Alas! the few years by which she was my senior brought her to the grave before me.  Never can I forget her firm mind or her heavenly patience.

A few days ago I met a certain young V—­, a frank, open fellow, with a most pleasing countenance.  He has just left the university, does not deem himself overwise, but believes he knows more than other people.  He has worked hard, as I can perceive from many circumstances, and, in short, possesses a large stock of information.  When he heard that I am drawing a good deal, and that I know Greek (two wonderful things for this part of the country), he came to see me, and displayed his whole store of learning, from Batteaux to Wood, from De Piles to Winkelmann:  he assured me he had read through the first part of Sultzer’s theory, and also possessed a manuscript of Heyne’s work on the study of the antique.  I allowed it all to pass.

I have become acquainted, also, with a very worthy person, the district judge, a frank and open-hearted man.  I am told it is a most delightful thing to see him in the midst of his children, of whom he has nine.  His eldest daughter especially is highly spoken of.  He has invited me to go and see him, and I intend to do so on the first opportunity.  He lives at one of the royal hunting-lodges, which can be reached from here in an hour and a half by walking, and which he obtained leave to inhabit after the loss of his wife, as it is so painful to him to reside in town and at the court.

There have also come in my way a few other originals of a questionable sort, who are in all respects undesirable, and most intolerable in their demonstration of friendship.  Good-bye.  This letter will please you:  it is quite historical.

May 22.

That the life of man is but a dream, many a man has surmised heretofore; and I, too, am everywhere pursued by this feeling.  When I consider the narrow limits within which our active and inquiring faculties are confined; when I see how all our energies are wasted in providing for mere necessities, which again have no further end than to prolong a wretched existence; and then that all our satisfaction concerning certain subjects of investigation ends in nothing better than a passive resignation, whilst we amuse ourselves painting our prison-walls with bright figures and brilliant landscapes, —­ when I consider all this, Wilhelm, I am silent.  I examine my own being, and find there a world, but a world rather of imagination and dim desires, than of distinctness and living power.  Then everything swims before my senses, and I smile and dream while pursuing my way through the world.