ncertain, I
have other needs, which the catechism does not still, and which--even
if they are unnecessary or wrong--no dogmatic words can soothe.

"My dear father who was just going out, met us and interrupted Aunt
Valentin's reply. No theological subjects are ever discussed before
him, he has positively forbidden it. His relations toward God and all
'that is not of this world,' fill his whole nature so completely, that
he himself says it is like a second health. If we speak of it, we must
already be half sick, as we usually do not feel it at all. I envy him
the happy certainty of constant intercourse with his God, who is as
living a presence to him, as if he could see him with his eyes and
touch him with his hands. I, on the contrary, always feel alone with
myself, my human heart, my human thoughts; Aunt Valentin calls it
godless, I call it god-forsaken. But is it my fault, that it is so?
Have I not honestly sought him in tears and despair, the nearer the
time came when I was to confess him in public? And he has not suffered
me to find him!

"_Evening_.--I have been obliged to finish a piece of work, a vase
designed for a wedding gift, roses and sprays of myrtle with the
interlaced initials of both names in the centre. I can understand how
my father is so 'satisfied in his God.' He has a much less exacting
heart, and is also content with his art, while my half-way talent
shames me. This too is a matter of temperament. It is an impossible
thought that we must wish (that is pray) to close our eyes to our own
deficiencies, to be satisfied with trivial things. It is well not to
murmur, to submit to what cannot be altered, but to falsify our own
judgment for the sake of so-called contentment--I shrink from it as
from a heinous sin.

"Perhaps if I had great talent, or any high, difficult life-work taxing
my energies, I might sooner cease to brood over inscrutable things. He
who creates something in which he can himself believe, will perhaps in
time lose his curiosity or the anxious desire to understand what has
been created around him. He knows or imagines he knows why he lives.
Each day seems to show him. I, on the contrary--if I were not necessary
to my father--

"_Two days later_.--I stopped writing day before yesterday, because
some impulse suddenly urged me to read the New Testament again. I had
not opened it since so many incomprehensible, threatening and
condemnatory sentences perplexed my heart and then threw it