saw nothing themselves."

"You see, my dear friend, I am modest enough not to wish to look behind
this curtain, and the wisest course will doubtless be to abstain from
all curiosity. But while I draw this impassable circle around me, and
confine myself within the bounds of present existence, this small point
of time, which I was in danger of neglecting in useless researches,
becomes the more important to me. What you call the chief end and aim
of my existence concerns me no longer. I cannot escape my destiny; I
cannot promote its consummation; but I know, and firmly believe, that I
am here to accomplish some end, and that I do accomplish it. But the
means which nature has chosen to fulfil my destiny are so much the more
sacred to me; to me it is everything; my morality, my happiness. All
the rest I shall never learn. I am like a messenger who carries a
sealed letter to its place of destination. What the letter contains is
indifferent to him; his business is only to earn his fee for carrying
it."

"Alas!" said I, "how poor a thing you would leave me!"

"But in what a labyrinth have we lost ourselves!" exclaimed the prince,
looking with a smile at the table on which the rouleaus lay. "After all
perhaps not far from the mark," continued he; "you will now no doubt
understand my reasons for this new mode of life. I could not so
suddenly tear myself away from my fancied wealth, could not so readily
separate the props of my morality and happiness from the pleasing dream
with which everything within me was so closely bound up. I longed for
the frivolity which seems to render the existence of most of those about
me endurable to themselves. Everything which precluded reflection was
welcome to me. Shall I confess it to you? I wished to lower myself, in
order to destroy this source of my griefs, by deadening the power of
reflection."

Here we were interrupted by a visit. In my next I shall have to
communicate to you a piece of news, which, from the tenor of a
conversation like the one of to-day, you would scarcely have
anticipated.

LETTER V.

BARON VON F------ TO COUNT VON O------.

As the time of our departure from Venice is now approaching with rapid
steps, this week was to be devoted to seeing everything worthy of notice
in pictures and public edifices; a task which, when one intends making a
long stay in a place, is always delayed till the last moment.

The "Marriage at Cana," by Paul Veronese, which is to be