Great God! from the height of thy heaven thou beholdest great children
and little children, and no others; and thy Son has long since declared
which afford thee greatest pleasure. But they believe in him, and hear
him not,--that, too, is an old story; and they train their children
after their own image, etc.

Adieu, Wilhelm: I will not further bewilder myself with this subject.

JULY 1.

The consolation Charlotte can bring to an invalid I experience from my
own heart, which suffers more from her absence than many a poor creature
lingering on a bed of sickness. She is gone to spend a few days in the
town with a very worthy woman, who is given over by the physicians, and
wishes to have Charlotte near her in her last moments. I accompanied
her last week on a visit to the Vicar of S--, a small village in
the mountains, about a league hence. We arrived about four o'clock:
Charlotte had taken her little sister with her. When we entered the
vicarage court, we found the good old man sitting on a bench before
the door, under the shade of two large walnut-trees. At the sight
of Charlotte he seemed to gain new life, rose, forgot his stick, and
ventured to walk toward her. She ran to him, and made him sit down
again; then, placing herself by his side, she gave him a number of
messages from her father, and then caught up his youngest child, a
dirty, ugly little thing, the joy of his old age, and kissed it. I wish
you could have witnessed her attention to this old man,--how she raised
her voice on account of his deafness; how she told him of healthy young
people, who had been carried off when it was least expected; praised
the virtues of Carlsbad, and commended his determination to spend the
ensuing summer there; and assured him that he looked better and stronger
than he did when she saw him last. I, in the meantime, paid attention to
his good lady. The old man seemed quite in spirits; and as I could
not help admiring the beauty of the walnut-trees, which formed such
an agreeable shade over our heads, he began, though with some little
difficulty, to tell us their history. "As to the oldest," said he, "we
do not know who planted it,--some say one clergyman, and some another:
but the younger one, there behind us, is exactly the age of my wife,
fifty years old next October; her father planted it in the morning,
and in the evening she came into the world. My wife's father was my
predecessor here, and I cannot tell you how fond he was