as happy as those reserved by God for his elect; and,
whatever be my fate hereafter, I can never say that I have not tasted
joy,--the purest joy of life. You know Walheim. I am now completely
settled there. In that spot I am only half a league from Charlotte; and
there I enjoy myself, and taste all the pleasure which can fall to the
lot of man.

Little did I imagine, when I selected Walheim for my pedestrian
excursions, that all heaven lay so near it. How often in my wanderings
from the hillside or from the meadows across the river, have I beheld
this hunting-lodge, which now contains within it all the joy of my
heart!

I have often, my dear Wilhelm, reflected on the eagerness men feel to
wander and make new discoveries, and upon that secret impulse which
afterward inclines them to return to their narrow circle, conform to
the laws of custom, and embarrass themselves no longer with what passes
around them.

It is so strange how, when I came here first, and gazed upon that
lovely valley from the hillside, I felt charmed with the entire scene
surrounding me. The little wood opposite--how delightful to sit under
its shade! How fine the view from that point of rock! Then, that
delightful chain of hills, and the exquisite valleys at their feet!
Could I but wander and lose myself amongst them! I went, and returned
without finding what I wished. Distance, my friend, is like futurity. A
dim vastness is spread before our souls: the perceptions of our mind are
as obscure as those of our vision; and we desire earnestly to surrender
up our whole being, that it may be filled with the complete and perfect
bliss of one glorious emotion. But alas! when we have attained our
object, when the distant there becomes the present here, all is changed:
we are as poor and circumscribed as ever, and our souls still languish
for unattainable happiness.

So does the restless traveller pant for his native soil, and find in his
own cottage, in the arms of his wife, in the affections of his children,
and in the labour necessary for their support, that happiness which he
had sought in vain through the wide world.

When, in the morning at sunrise, I go out to Walheim, and with my own
hands gather in the garden the pease which are to serve for my dinner,
when I sit down to shell them, and read my Homer during the intervals,
and then, selecting a saucepan from the kitchen, fetch my own butter,
put my mess on the fire, cover it up, and sit down to