How strong was the smell of the wormwood in the hedges! I looked at the dark-blue mass ... there was a vague uneasiness at my heart. ‘Come then, quickly, quickly!’ was my thought, ‘flash, golden snake, and roll thunder! move, hasten, break into floods, evil storm-cloud; cut short this agony of suspense!’ But the storm-cloud did not move. It lay as before, a stifling weight upon the hushed earth ... and only seemed to swell and darken. And lo, over its dead dusky-blue, something darted in smooth, even flight, like a white handkerchief or a handful of snow. It was a white dove flying from the direction of the village. It flew, flew on straight ... and plunged into the forest. Some instants passed by--still the same cruel hush.... But, look! Two handkerchiefs gleam in the air, two handfuls of snow are floating back, two white doves are winging their way homewards with even flight. And now at last the storm has broken, and the tumult has begun! I could hardly get home. The wind howled, tossing hither and thither in frenzy; before it scudded low red clouds, torn, it seemed, into shreds; everything was whirled round in confusion; the lashing rain streamed in furious torrents down the upright trunks, flashes of lightning were blinding with greenish light, sudden peals of thunder boomed like cannon-shots, the air was full of the smell of sulphur.... But under the overhanging roof, on the sill of the dormer window, side by side sat two white doves, the one who flew after his mate, and the mate he brought back, saved, perhaps, from destruction. They sit ruffling up their feathers, and each feels his mate’s wing against his wing.... They are happy! And I am happy, seeing them.... Though I am alone ... alone, as always. _May 1879._ TO-MORROW! TO-MORROW! How empty, dull, and useless is almost every day when it is spent! How few the traces it leaves behind it! How meaningless, how foolish those hours as they coursed by one after another! And yet it is man’s wish to exist; he prizes life, he rests hopes on it, on himself, on the future.... Oh, what blessings he looks for from the future! But why does he imagine that other coming days will not be like this day he has just lived through? Nay, he does not even imagine it. He likes not to think at all, and he does well. ‘Ah, to-morrow, to-morrow!’ he comforts himself, till ‘to-morrow’ pitches him into the grave. Well, and once in the grave, thou hast no choice, thou doest no more thinking. _May 1879._ NATURE I dreamed I had come into an immense underground temple with lofty arched roof. It was filled with a sort of underground uniform light. In the very middle of the temple sat a majestic woman in a flowing robe of green colour. Her head propped on her hand, she seemed buried in deep thought. At once I was aware that this woman was Nature herself; and a thrill of reverent awe sent an instantaneous shiver through my inmost soul.