st lady
I met in a fashionable bonnet and veil. These people seemed to belong
to me. I felt as if returning from the lower regions into sunlight.

I stopped to read the placards that were posted up at the corners of
the streets. Am I still living in the same world?

There is music, singing, etc. One amuses the other. No one finds life's
joys within himself.

All things in this world are related to each other. Thou hast lost the
connecting link.

I was sitting in a small inn, while I looked on at the bustling life of
the city.

I saw the houses here and there--and it seemed as if I beheld the ghost
of a part of my life. If the people knew-- There are streets here with
which I am not acquainted. Men pass without a thought for each other.
City folk all look ill-humored; I have not met one sunny, happy face.

*

I went to the picture-gallery. What delights the eye there feeds upon!
And besides these, there is the intoxicating wealth of color and the
solemn stillness of the place itself. I saw my old teacher and heard
him saying to a stranger: "A work of art does not derive its great
historical character from the importance of the subject, or the size of
the picture. What is required of the artist is that he should be filled
with, and, at the same time, transport the beholder to, the scene that
he attempts to depict. The same subject can be conceived in various
ways, and may be executed either as a light, _genre_ piece, or in the
grand and more enduring historical style."

While I passed through the rooms, I felt like one intoxicated. All my
old friends greeted me. They are clothed in undying colors, and have
remained faithful and unchanged. The power of nature and of art
lie in their truthfulness. But they do not speak; they merely exist.
No--nature alone is mute; art lends its voice. It is not by the lips
alone that the human mind expresses itself. I felt as if the Maria
AEgyptica must suddenly turn toward me and ask: "Do you know me now?"

I grew dizzy and fearful.

While in the Raphael gallery, environed by the highest beauty earth has
ever known, conceived as only the clearest eye could conceive it, I
felt as if in another world.

A happy thought occurred to me: Art is the first liberator of humanity,
evoking a second, joy-creating life, and--what is even a greater
boon--revealing the highest realm, where every one who is called may
enter. The poor son of the people says: