s to save ourselves, or reestablish our peace again. I
who have been the innocent cause of it all, how am I ever to console
myself? By my own importunity I prevailed on Charlotte to write to you
to stay with us; and Ottilie followed in consequence. We have had no
more control over what ensued out of this, but we have the power to
make it innocuous; to guide the new circumstances to our own happiness.
Can you turn away your eyes from the fair and beautiful prospects which
I open to us? Can you insist to me, can you insist to us all, on a
wretched renunciation of them? Do you think it possible? Is it possible?
Will there be no vexations, no bitterness, no inconvenience to overcome,
if we resolve to fall back into our old state? and will any good, any
happiness whatever, arise out of it? Will your own rank, will the high
position which you have earned, be any pleasure to you, if you are to be
prevented from visiting me, or from living with me? And after what has
passed, it would not be anything but painful. Charlotte and I, with all
our property, would only find ourselves in a melancholy state. And if,
like other men of the world, you can persuade yourself that years and
separation will eradicate our feelings, will obliterate impressions so
deeply engraved; why, then the question is of these very years, which it
would be better to spend in happiness and comfort than in pain and
misery. But the last and most important point of all which I have to
urge is this: supposing that we, our outward and inward condition being
what it is, could nevertheless make up our minds to wait at all hazards,
and bear what is laid upon us, what is to become of Ottilie? She must
leave our family; she must go into society where we shall not be to care
for her, and she will be driven wretchedly to and fro in a hard, cold
world. Describe to me any situation in which Ottilie, without me,
without us, could be happy, and you will then have employed an argument
which will be stronger than every other; and if I will not promise to
yield to it, if I will not undertake at once to give up all my own
hopes, I will at least reconsider the question, and see how what you
have said will affect it."

This problem was not so easy to solve; at least, no satisfactory answer
to it suggested itself to his friend, and nothing was left to him except
to insist again and again, how grave and serious, and in many senses how
dangerous, the whole undertaking was; and at leas