e, often wretchedness.
I am his most intimate friend, and he calculates on my knowledge of
mankind for drawing him a lot which will suit him."

The Baron replied, that he still thought such an undertaking a critical
one, and that the stranger was certainly placing the happiness of his
life at stake.

"Happiness?" the Count repeated the word: "certainly, if he had
conceived that idea of something unqualified, infinite, and
inexpressible, which young people usually associate with the word.
Where do you find this? Whoever does not know how to confine himself
will attain nothing, least of all what lies beyond all bounds.
Resignation may seem bitter at first, but without it no state of life
is endurable; for, if we would but deal ingenuously with ourselves, all
raptures must, in the first instance, make way for melancholy, nay they
are identical with it; and Beauty, Art, Enthusiasm, every thing, exists
for us earthly perishable men, only so far as it is perishable, though
the root of every thing that is divine rests in eternity."

"Singular!" said the Baron: "according to this even devotion and piety,
the perception of heavenly things, would be subject to this change?"

"I believe," said the Count, "whoever will not stoop to earth, cannot
soar to heaven; night and day, sleep and waking, elevation and
indifference, must take their turns. We complain with reason that it is
and must be so; it cannot however be helped; but one who should make
the influxes of devotion, the raptures of celestial love, a standing
article in his heart, is probably in one of the most dangerous
positions on which a man can venture."

"You are notorious as a freethinker," answered the mother, "and you
will not succeed in clouding our clear conviction."

Kunigunde said with a melting accent, "You think then that it is
dangerous to love the Lord?"

Brandenstein could not help smiling: "Dangerous like all love, fair
lady," replied he playfully, "especially if one does not know the
object one undertakes to love, or conceives an incorrect notion of it;
still worse, if we form out of it a phantom, that is to strengthen all
our prejudices, justify us in our weaknesses and sanction our faults
and errors. In that case we might perhaps be giving away our foolish
hearts to a spectre, such as some of the old legends tell of, and be
struck with horror, when, in a moment of illumination, the real form of
divinity appeared to us."

Dorothea listened with at