t break off. Our most mysterious, our deepest thoughts, are like
the bird on the bough. He sings, but as soon as he sees an eye watching
him, he flies away.

*

I can now accurately tell the season of the year and, often, the hour
of the day by the way in which the first sunbeams fall into my room and
on my workbench in the morning. My chisel hangs before me on the wall,
and is my index.

*

The drizzling, spring showers now fall on the trees--and thus it is
with me. It seems as if there were a new delight in store for me. What
can it be? I shall patiently wait!

*

A strange feeling comes over me, as if I were lifted up from the chair
on which I am sitting, and were flying, I know not whither!

What is it? I feel as if dwelling in eternity.

Everything seems flying toward me; the sunlight and the sunshine, the
rustling of the forests and the forest breezes, beings of all ages and
of all kinds--all seem beautiful and rendered transparent by the sun's
glow.

I am!

I am in God!

If I could only die now and be wafted through this joy to dissolution
and redemption!

But I will live on until my hour comes.

Come, thou dark hour, whenever thou wilt! To me, thou art light!

I feel that there is light within me. O Eternal Spirit of the universe,
I am one with thee!

I was dead, and I live--I shall die and yet live.

Everything has been forgiven and blotted out.--There was dust on my
wings.--I soar aloft into the sun and into infinite space. I shall die
singing from the fullness of my soul. Shall I sing!

Enough.

*

I know that I shall again be gloomy and depressed and drag along a
weary existence, but I have once soared into infinity and have felt a
ray of eternity within me. That I shall never lose again. I should like
to go to a convent, to some quiet, cloistered cell, where I might know
nothing of the world, and could live on within myself until death shall
call me. But it is not to be. I am destined to live on in freedom and
to labor; to live with my fellow-beings and to work for them.

The results of my handiwork and of my powers of imagination, belong to
you; but what I am within myself, is mine alone.

*

I have taken leave of everything here; of my quiet room, of my summer
bench; for I know not whether I shall ever r