ed laboriously
to their goal, one after the other--a goal that seemed as little mine
as the deeds and works seemed to be what they are called. To me they
were merely holy symbols, and everything brought me back to my one
Beloved, who was the mediatrix between my dismembered ego and the one
eternal and indivisible humanity; all existence was an uninterrupted
divine service of solitary love.

Finally I became conscious that it was now nearly over. The brow was
no longer smooth and the locks were becoming gray. My career was
ended, but not completed. The best strength of life was gone, and
still Art and Virtue stood ever unattainable before me. I should have
despaired, had I not perceived and idolized both in you, gracious
Madonna, and you and your gentle godliness in myself.

Then you appeared to me, beckoning with the summons of Death. An
earnest longing for you and for freedom seized me; I yearned for my
dear old fatherland, and was about to shake off the dust of travel,
when I was suddenly called back to life by the promise and reassurance
of your recovery.

Then I became conscious that I had been dreaming; I shuddered at all
the significant suggestions and similarities, and stood anxiously by
the boundless deep of this inward truth.

Do you know what has become most obvious to me as a result of it
all? First, that I idolize you, and that it is a good thing that I do
so. We two are one, and only in that way does a human being become one
and a complete entity, that is, by regarding and poetically conceiving
himself as the centre of everything and the spirit of the world. But
why poetically conceive, since we find the germ of everything in
ourselves, and yet remain forever only a fragment of ourselves?

And then I now know that death can also be felt as beautiful and
sweet. I understand how the free creature can quietly long in the
bloom of all its strength for dissolution and freedom, and can
joyfully entertain the thought of return as a morning sun of hope.

A REFLECTION

It has often struck my mind how extraordinary it is that sensible and
dignified people can keep on, with such great seriousness and such
never-tiring industry, forever playing the little game in perpetual
rotation--a game which is of no use whatever and has no definite
object, although it is perhaps the earliest of all games. Then my
spirit inquired what Nature, who everywhere thinks so profoundly and
employs her cunning in such a large way,