e, there was for him a real
happiness and a joyous animation.

When, however, he had done writing and felt lonely again, the gloomy
spirits came back: he had seated himself, wishing to raise his thoughts
for composing a sacred song; but he was ill at ease, and had no power to
express that inward, firm, and self-rejoicing might of faith which lived
in him. Again and again the scoffers and freethinkers rose up before his
thoughts: he must refute their objections, and not until that was done
did he become himself.

It is a hard position, when a creative spirit cannot forget the
adversaries which on all sides oppose him in the world: they come
unsummoned to the room and will not be expelled; they peer over the
shoulder, and tug at the hand which fain would write; they turn images
upside down, and distort the thoughts; and here and there, from ceiling
and wall, they grin, and scoff, and oppose: and what was just gushing as
an aspiration from the soul, is converted to a confused absurdity.

At such a time, the spirit, courageous and self-dependent, must take
refuge in itself and show a firm front to a world of foes.

A strong nature boldly hurls his inkstand at the Devil's head; goes to
battle with his opponents with words both written and spoken; and keeps
his own individuality free from the perplexities with which opponents
disturb all that has been previously done, and make the soul unsteadfast
and unnerved for what is to come.

Gellert's was no battling, defiant nature, which relies upon itself; he
did not hurl his opponents down and go his way; he would convince them,
and so they were always ready to encounter him. And as the applause of
his friends rejoiced him, so the opposition of his enemies could sink
him in deep dejection. Besides, he had always been weakly; he had, as
he himself complained, in addition to frequent coughs and a pain in
his loins, a continual gnawing and pressure in the centre of his chest,
which accompanied him from his first rising in the morning until he
slept at night.

Thus he sat for a while, in deep dejection: and, as often before, his
only wish was, that God would give him grace whereby when his hour was
come, he might die piously and tranquilly.

It was past midnight when he sought his bed and extinguished his light.

And the buckets at the well go up and go down.

About the same hour, in Duben Forest, the rustic Christopher was rising
from his bed. As with steel and flint he scat