I longed for beauty; I did not know what I asked for.--It is like trying to look at the sun without eyelids, it is like trying to handle flames.--I suffer horribly.--To be unable to assimilate this perfection, to be unable to pass into it and to cause it to pass into me, to have no means of reproducing it and of making it feel!--When I see anything beautiful, I want to touch it with my whole self, everywhere and at the same time. I want to sing of it and paint it, to carve it and write of it, to be loved by it as I love it; I want what cannot be and never can be. Your letter made me ill--very ill--forgive me for saying it.--All the pure, tranquil happiness that you enjoy, the walks in the reddening woods,--the long conversations, so affectionate and tender, that end with a chaste kiss on the forehead; the serene, isolated life; the days that pass so quickly that night seems to come before its time, make the constant internal agitation in which I live seem even more tempestuous.--So you are to be married in two months; all the obstacles are removed, you are sure now of belonging to each other forever. Your present felicity is augmented by all the happiness in store for you. You are happy and you are certain of being happier soon.--What a destiny is yours!--Your beloved is beautiful, but what you have loved in her is not the mortal, palpable beauty, material beauty, but the invisible, immortal beauty, the beauty that does not grow old, the beauty of the soul.--She is full of charm and innocence; she loves you as such souls know how to love.--You never looked to see if the golden shade of her hair resembled the golden hair painted by Rubens or Giorgione; but it pleased you because it was her hair. I will wager, happy lover that you are, that you have no idea whether your mistress is of the Grecian or Asiatic type, English or Italian.--O Silvio! how rare are the hearts that are content with pure and simple love and desire neither a hermitage in the forest nor a garden on an island in Lago Maggiore. If I had the courage to tear myself away from here, I would go and pass a month with you; perhaps I should become purified in the air that you breathe, perhaps the shade of your avenues would bring a little coolness to my burning brow; but no, it is a paradise in which I must not set foot.--Hardly ought I to be allowed to gaze from afar, over the wall, at the two fair angels who are walking there, hand in hand, eyes fixed upon eyes. The devil can enter Eden only in the shape of a serpent, and, dear Adam, for all the happiness on earth, I would not be the serpent of your Eve.