lready scantier than I had
imagined. Who can tell how short my winter in the South may be? I shall
not frequent the walk under the poplars. To-day I felt uneasy among
those poor, coughing, dressed up people, who tottered about with their
baskets full of grapes, and seemed eagerly to imbibe new hope with each
berry. By those whose faces expressed hopelessness, I felt still less
attracted. It may sometimes be soothing to frequent the society of
fellow-sufferers; but when the same fate creates totally different
feelings, then that which could otherwise unite only separates, and one
feels all the more forcibly the difference of character. Not to one of
them, would I have ventured to speak of the peaceful and grateful mood
I enjoyed. They would either have looked upon me as an eccentric
enthusiast, or thought me a hypocrite.

Can they be blamed for it? Possibly I too might have feared death had I
loved life more. And why was my life so little loveable?

Only a few can understand the deep feeling of immensity, and peace with
which nature fills my soul. For two and twenty years I never set foot
beyond the walls of a small uninteresting commonplace town. In these
days people travel much. But for the long illness of my mother, and
after her death, the care of my little brother, I too would probably
have wandered forth from that desolate little place. This beautiful
valley already seems to me like the world to come, like a true Garden
of God. The first time I inhaled this air, I felt as if I already
glided over the earth, borne on the wings of my soul. It was certainly
a pity that they did not support me better as I toiled up the steep
narrow stairs, but what business had I to descend them, when every
glance through my windows is an excursion into Paradise.

The people with whom I lodge are very poor. The man works till late at
night, and his wife has enough to do, attending to the wants of her
large family. The inside of the house looks dusky and gloomy. When the
porter of the hotel who from the simplicity of my dress inferred great
meagreness of purse, first took me through the long dark passages, and
the gloomy courts, and we scrambled up the delapidated staircase, over
the landing where dusty furniture, old spinning-wheels, beds, earthen
ware and provisions of maize lay in confused heaps, and the spiders,
undisturbed for many years, spun their webs, I felt oppressed and my
heart beat so that I had to rest at every third ste