They are landmarks in my
past; and some of the landmarks are funeral crosses, stone pyramids,
withered stalks grown green again, white pebbles, coins--all of them
helpful toward finding one's way again through the Elysian fields of the
soul. The pilgrim has marked his stages in it; he is able to trace by it
his thoughts, his tears, his joys. This is my traveling diary: if some
passages from it may be useful to others, and if sometimes even I have
communicated such passages to the public, these thousand pages as a
whole are only of value to me and to those who, after me, may take some
interest in the itinerary of an obscurely conditioned soul, far from the
world's noise and fame. These sheets will be monotonous when my life is
so; they will repeat themselves when feelings repeat themselves; truth
at any rate will be always there, and truth is their only muse, their
only pretext, their only duty.
April 2, 1852.--What a lovely walk! Sky clear, sun rising, all the tints
bright, all the outlines sharp, save for the soft and misty infinite of
the lake. A pinch of white frost, powdered the fields, lending a
metallic relief to the hedges of green box, and to the whole landscape,
still without leaves, an air of health and vigor, of youth and
freshness. "Bathe, O disciple, thy thirsty soul in the dew of the dawn!"
says Faust, to us, and he is right.
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