FIFTH MEMORY. ·

T would be difficult to describe my thoughts

IT

and emotions as I went home. The soul cannot at once translate itself perfectly in words, and there are "thoughts without words," which in every man are the prelude of supreme joy and suffering. It was neither joy nor pain, only an indescribable bewilderment which I felt; thoughts flew through my innermost being like meteors, which shoot from heaven towards earth but are extinguished before they reach the goal. As we sometimes say in a dream, “I am dreaming," so I said to myself "thou livest "- "it is she." I tried again to reflect and calm myself, and said, "She is a lovely vision a very wonderful spirit.” At another time, I pictured the delightful evenings I should pass during the holidays. But no,

no, this cannot be. She is everything I sought,

thought, hoped and believed.

a human soul, as clear and

Here was at last fresh as a spring

morning. I had seen at the first glance what she was and how she felt, and we had greeted and recognized one another. And my good angel in me, she answered me no more. She was gone and I felt there was no place on earth where I should find her again.

Now began a beautiful life, for I was with her every evening. We soon realized that we were in truth old acquaintances and that we could only call each other Thou. It seemed also as if we had lived near and with one another always, for she manifested not an emotion that did not find its counterpart in my soul, and there was no thought which I uttered to which she did not nod friendly assent, as much as to say: "I thought so too." I had previously heard the greatest master of our time and his sister extemporize on the piano, and scarcely comprehended how two persons could understand and feel

themselves so perfectly and yet never, not even
in a single note, disturb the harmony of their
playing. Now it became intelligible to me. Yes,
now I understood for the first time that my soul
was not so poor and empty as it had seemed to
me, and that it had been only the sun that was
lacking to open all its germs and buds to the
light. And yet what a sad and brief spring-time
it was that our souls experienced! We forget in
May that roses so soon wither, but here every
evening reminded us that one leaf after another
was falling to the ground. She felt it before I
did, and alluded to it apparently without pain,
and our interviews grew more earnest and solemn
daily.

One evening, as I was about to leave, she
said: “I did not think I should grow so old.
When I gave you the ring on my confirmation
day I thought I should have to take my de-
And yet I
parture from you all, very soon.
have lived so many years, and enjoyed so much
beauty and suffered so very much!

But one