z, Frankfurt, and Rudolstadt to Berlin.

Thus I had lived through the whole campaign according to my strength,
greater or less, in a steady inner struggle towards unity and harmony
of life, but what of outward significance and worth recollection had
I received from the soldier's life? I left the army and the warlike
career with a total feeling of discontent. My inner yearning for unity
and harmony, for inward peace, was so powerful that it shaped itself
unconsciously into symbolical form and figure. In a ceaseless,
inexplicable, anxious state of longing and unrest, I had passed through
many pretty places and many gardens on my homeward way, without any of
them pleasing me. In this mood I reached F----, and entered a fairly
large and handsomely-stocked flower garden. I gazed at all the vigorous
plants and fresh gay flowers it offered me, but no flower took my fancy.
As I passed all the many varied beauties of the garden in review before
my mind, it fell upon me suddenly that I missed the lily. I asked the
owner of the garden if he had no lilies there, and he quietly replied,
_No_! When I expressed my surprise, I was answered as quietly as before
that hitherto no one had missed the lily. It was thus that I came to
know what I missed and longed for. How could my inner nature have
expressed itself more beautifully in words? "Thou art seeking silent
peacefulness of heart, harmony of life, clear purity of soul, by the
symbol of this silent, pure, simple lily." That garden, in its beautiful
variety, but without a lily, appeared to me as a gay life passed through
and squandered without unity and harmony. Another day I saw many lovely
lilies blooming in the garden of a house in the country. Great was my
joy; but, alas! they were separated from me by a hedge. Later on I
solved this symbol also; and until its solution image and longing
remained stored in my memory. One thing I ought to notice--namely, that
in the place where I was vainly seeking for lilies in the garden a
little boy of three years old came up trustfully and stood by my side.

I hastened to the scene of my new duties. How variously the different
outward circumstances of my life henceforth affected me as to the life
within, now that this had won for itself once more an assured individual
form, and how my life again resumed its true and highest aspect, I must
pass over here, since to develop these considerations with all their
connections would take me too long.

I