To you, O Queen, to you--lovely, good, and deeply injured one--do I confess all this! If I die before you,--and I hope that I may,--these pages are to be given to you. * * * * * I can now accurately tell the season of the year, and often the hour of the day, by the way in which the first sunbeams fall into my room and on my work-bench in the morning. My chisel hangs before me on the wall, and is my index. The drizzling spring showers now fall on the trees; and thus it is with me. It seems as if there were a new delight in store for me. What can it be? I shall patiently wait! * * * * * A strange feeling comes over me, as if I were lifted up from the chair on which I am sitting, and were flying, I know not whither! What is it? I feel as if dwelling in eternity. Everything seems flying toward me: the sunlight and the sunshine, the rustling of the forests and the forest breezes, beings of all ages and of all kinds--all seem beautiful and rendered transparent by the sun's glow. I am! I am in God! If I could only die now and be wafted through this joy to dissolution and redemption! But I will live on until my hour comes. Come, thou dark hour, whenever thou wilt! To me thou art light! I feel that there is light within me. O Eternal Spirit of the universe, I am one with thee! I was dead, and I live--I shall die and yet live. Everything has been forgiven and blotted out.--There was dust on my wings.--I soar aloft into the sun and into infinite space. I shall die singing from the fullness of my soul. Shall I sing! Enough. * * * * * I know that I shall again be gloomy and depressed and drag along a weary existence; but I have once soared into infinity and have felt a ray of eternity within me. That I shall never lose again. I should like to go to a convent, to some quiet, cloistered cell, where I might know nothing of the world, and could live on within myself until death shall call me. But it is not to be. I am destined to live on in freedom and to labor; to live with my fellow-beings and to work for them. The results of my handiwork and of my powers of imagination belong to you; but what I am within myself is mine alone. * * * * * I have taken leave of everything here; of my quiet room, of my summer bench; for I know not whether I shall ever return. And if I do, who knows but what everything may have become strange to me? * * * * * (Last page written in pencil.)--It is my wish that when I am dead, I may be wrapped in a simple linen cloth, placed in a rough unplaned coffin, and buried under the apple-tree, on the road that leads to my paternal mansion. I desire that my brother and other relatives may be apprised of my death at once, and that they shall not disturb my grave by the wayside. No stone, no name, is to mark my grave. ÉMILE AUGIER (1820-1889)