t, I found one of the pink ribbons which Charlotte
wore in her dress the first time I saw her, and which I had several
times asked her to give me. With it were two volumes in duodecimo
of Wetstein's "Homer," a book I had often wished for, to save me the
inconvenience of carrying the large Ernestine edition with me upon my
walks. You see how they anticipate my wishes, how well they understand
all those little attentions of friendship, so superior to the costly
presents of the great, which are humiliating. I kissed the ribbon a
thousand times, and in every breath inhaled the remembrance of those
happy and irrevocable days which filled me with the keenest joy. Such,
Wilhelm, is our fate. I do not murmur at it: the flowers of life are but
visionary. How many pass away, and leave no trace behind--how few yield
any fruit--and the fruit itself, how rarely does it ripen! And yet there
are flowers enough! and is it not strange, my friend, that we should
suffer the little that does really ripen, to rot, decay, and perish
unenjoyed? Farewell! This is a glorious summer. I often climb into the
trees in Charlotte's orchard, and shake down the pears that hang on the
highest branches. She stands below, and catches them as they fall.

AUGUST 30.

Unhappy being that I am! Why do I thus deceive myself? What is to come
of all this wild, aimless, endless passion? I cannot pray except to her.
My imagination sees nothing but her: all surrounding objects are of no
account, except as they relate to her. In this dreamy state I enjoy many
happy hours, till at length I feel compelled to tear myself away from
her. Ah, Wilhelm, to what does not my heart often compel me! When I have
spent several hours in her company, till I feel completely absorbed by
her figure, her grace, the divine expression of her thoughts, my mind
becomes gradually excited to the highest excess, my sight grows dim,
my hearing confused, my breathing oppressed as if by the hand of a
murderer, and my beating heart seeks to obtain relief for my aching
senses. I am sometimes unconscious whether I really exist. If in such
moments I find no sympathy, and Charlotte does not allow me to enjoy
the melancholy consolation of bathing her hand with my tears, I feel
compelled to tear myself from her, when I either wander through the
country, climb some precipitous cliff, or force a path through the
trackless thicket, where I am lacerated and torn by thorns and briers;
and thence I find reli