let no dangers beset our love after this
beautiful night when, betwixt fear and joy, in counsel with the stars, I
thought of thy future!

* * * No one knows where I was--and, even if they did, could they
imagine why I was there? Thou tamest toward me through the whispering
forest, enveloped in a soft haze, and when thou wert quite near me my
tired senses could not endure it, so strong was the fragrance of the
wild thyme. Then I fell asleep--it was so beautiful--all blossoms and
fragrance! And the great boundless host of stars and the flickering
silver moon that danced near and far upon the stream, the intense
stillness of nature in which one hears all that stirs--ah, I feel my
soul implanted here in this nocturnal trembling! Future thoughts are
blossoming here; these cold dew-pearls that weigh down grass and herbs,
from these the spirit grows! Oh, it hastens to blossom for _thee_,
Goethe! It will unfold its gayest colors before thee! It is for love of
thee that I wish to think, that I struggle with the inexpressible. Thou
lookest upon me in spirit and thy gaze draws thoughts from me, and then
I am often compelled to say things I do not understand but only see.

The spirit also has senses. Just as there is much that we only hear, or
only see, or only feel, so there are thoughts which the spirit also
perceives with only one of these senses. Often I only see what I am
thinking; often I only feel it, and when I hear it I experience a shock.
I do not know how I come by this knowledge which is not the fruit of my
own meditation. I look about me for the author of this opinion and then
conclude that it is all created from the fire of love. There is warmth
in the spirit; we feel it; the cheeks glow from our thoughts and cold
chills come over us, which fan our inspiration into new flame. Yes, dear
friend, this morning when I awoke it seemed to me as though I had
experienced great things, as though the pledges of my heart had wings
and soared over hill and dale into the pure, serene, radiant ether. No
vow, no conditions--nothing but appropriate motion, pure striving for
the divine. This is my pledge: Freedom from all ties, and that I will
have faith only in that spirit which reveals the beautiful and
prophesies eternal bliss. * * *

We were on the road five days, and since then it has rained incessantly.
The whole house full of guests, and not even a little corner where I
could enjoy solitude and write thee!

As long as I hav