d frivolous, even
you won't wholly understand life for a long time as I've understood it.
I have always been best able to enjoy life by retrospection; and
whenever I wished to thoroughly enjoy existence, I have only needed to
awake in myself a vivid remembrance of the various periods of my life;
of my laughing frolicsome childhood, when I was in the glow of perfect
health; then the first dawn of thought and feeling, the first sorrows
of youth, when they came to me, the perception of what a full,
healthful existence must be, and yet at the same time the resignation
to my fate which is usually easy only to men advanced in years. Don't
you believe that one, who can experience whenever he wishes such a
fullness of life in himself, to whom for this purpose everything lends
its aid, sorrow and joy, loss and gain, each showing him a new side of
his own nature--don't you believe, my dear fellow, that such a
fortunate man must consider it a mistaken conclusion, even if a
philosopher gave it utterance, it would be better not to be born. To be
sure, no one can deny that there are times when sorrow stifles the
desire for existence and excites an overwhelming longing for mere
unconsciousness? But oftentimes the greatest sorrow brings an increase
of our life experience; how could we otherwise understand the
triumphant delight which martyrs have felt under torture by fire and
rack. They felt that their torment only confirmed their confidence in
the strength of their own souls, pervaded as they were by an illusion
or a truth that their tormentors sought to tear out or kill. The worst
that could be inflicted upon them served to develope the highest
enjoyment of their personality. And so all the tragedy of life which a
shallow philosophy pronounces to be the misery of the world, is merely
another, higher form of enjoying life peculiar to lofty souls. When
death steps in at last, it's like the sleep that comes after a holiday,
when people have been so long in an ecstacy of delight that they are
weary at last and have no strength for future enjoyments." He was
silent a moment and wore a rapt expression. Then he suddenly said:

"If the festival is over for me, Franzel, you must hold fast to Edwin."

"What nonsense you are talking!" exclaimed the other. "You've never
been on a fairer way toward recovery than now. Your sickness was a
crisis, Marquard said so himself."

"Yes it was a crisis," replied the invalid smiling. "It will decide,
in