This phenomenology of myself serves both as the magic lantern of my own destiny, and as a window opened upon the mystery of the world. I am, or rather, my sensible consciousness is concentrated upon this ideal standing-point, this invisible threshold, as it were, whence one hears the impetuous passage of time, rushing and foaming as it flows out into the changeless ocean of eternity. After all the bewildering distractions of life, after having drowned myself in a multiplicity of trifles and in the caprices of this fugitive existence, yet without ever attaining to self-intoxication or self-delusion, I come again upon the fathomless abyss, the silent and melancholy cavern where dwell “_Die Mütter_,” [Footnote: “_Die Mütter_”--an allusion to a strange and enigmatical, but very effective conception in “Faust” (Part II. Act I. Scene v.) _Die Mütter_ are the prototypes, the abstract forms, the generative ideas, of things. “Sie sehn dich nicht, denn Schemen sehn sie nur.” Goethe borrowed the term from a passage of Plutarch’s, but he has made the idea half Platonic, half legendary. Amiel, however, seems rather to have in his mind Faust’s speech in Scene vii. than the speech of Mephistopheles in Scene v: “In eurem Namen, Mütter, die ihr thront Im Gränzenlosen, ewig einsam wohnt, Und doch gesellig! Euer haupt umschweben Des Lebens Bilder, regsam, ohne Leben.”] where sleeps that which neither lives nor dies, that which has neither movement, nor change, nor extension, nor form, and which lasts when all else passes away. “Dans l’éternel azur de l’insondable espace S’enveloppe de paix notre globe agitée: Homme, enveloppe ainsi tes jours, rêve qui passe, Du calme firmament de ton éternité.” (H. P. AMIEL, _Penseroso_.) Geneva, January 11, 1867. “Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume, Labuntar anni....” I hear the drops of my life falling distinctly one by one into the devouring abyss of eternity. I feel my days flying before the pursuit of death. All that remains to me of weeks, or months, or years, in which I may drink in the light of the sun, seems to me no more than a single night, a summer night, which scarcely counts, because it will so soon be at an end. Death! Silence! Eternity! What mysteries, what names of terror to the being who longs for happiness, immortality, perfection! Where shall I be to-morrow--in a little while--when the breath of life has forsaken me? Where will those be whom I love? Whither are we all going? The eternal problems rise before us in their implacable solemnity. Mystery on all sides! And faith the only star in this darkness and uncertainty! No matter!--so long as the world is the work of eternal goodness, and so long as conscience has not deceived us. To give happiness and to do good, there is our only law, our anchor of salvation, our beacon light, our reason for existing. All religions may crumble away; so long as this survives we have still an ideal, and life is worth living.