rom under me, and that I am sinking
into it.

You counsel me to reflect upon death--not on the death of this woman,
but on my own. You counsel me to reflect on the instability, on the
insecurity of our existence, and on what there is beyond it. But these
considerations, these reflections neither terrify nor daunt me. Why
should I, who desire to die, fear death? Love and death are brothers. A
sentiment of self-abnegation springs to life within me, and tells me
that my whole being should be consecrated to and annihilated in the
beloved object. I long to merge myself in one of her glances; to diffuse
and exhale my whole being in the ray of light shot forth from her eyes;
to die while gazing on her, even though I should be eternally lost.

What is still to some extent efficacious with me against this love is
not fear, but love itself. Superior to this deep-rooted love with which
I now have the evidence that Pepita inspires me, Divine love exalts
itself in my spirit in mighty uprising. Then everything is changed
within me, and I feel that I may yet obtain the victory. The object of
my higher love presents itself to my mental vision, as the sun that
kindles and illuminates all things, and fills all space with light; and
the object of my inferior love appears but as an atom of dust floating
in the sunbeam. All its beauty, all its splendor, all its attraction are
nothing but the reflection of this uncreated sun, the brilliant,
transitory, fleeting spark that is cast off from that infinite and
inexhaustible fire.

My soul, burning with love, would fain take to herself wings and rise to
that flame, in order that all that is impure within her might be
consumed therein.

My life, for some days past, is a constant struggle. I know not how it
is that the malady from which I suffer does not betray itself in my
countenance. I scarcely eat; I scarcely sleep. And if by chance sleep
closes my eyelids, I awake in terror as from a dream in which rebel
angels are arrayed against good angels, and in which I am one of the
combatants. In this conflict of light against darkness, I do battle for
the right, but I sometimes imagine that I have gone over to the enemy,
that I am a vile deserter; and I hear a voice from Patmos saying, "And
men preferred darkness rather than light"; and then I am filled with
terror and I look upon myself as lost. No resource is left me but
flight. If, before the end of the month, my father does not go with me,
or