which is at the same time a voluptuous pleasure. Novalis himself is perfectly aware of this correspondence. He says: "The Christian religion is the most voluptuous of religions. Sin is the greatest stimulant to love of the Divine Being; the more sinful a man feels himself to be, the more Christian he is. Direct union with the Deity is the aim of sin and of love." And again: "It is curious that the evident association between sensuality, religion, and cruelty did not long ago draw men's attention to their close kinship and common tendencies." And just as Novalis now prefers sickness to health, so he prefers night to day, with its "impudent light." Aversion for day and daylight was general among the Romanticists. I drew attention to it in _William Lovell_. Novalis simply gives expression to a heightened degree of the general feeling in his famous _Hymns to Night_. That he should love the night is easy to understand. By hiding the surrounding world from it, night drives the Ego in upon itself; hence the feeling of night, and self-consciousness, are one and the same thing. The rapture of the feeling of night lies in its terror; first comes the fear of the individual, when everything round him disappears in the darkness, that he will himself disappear from himself; then comes the pleasant shudder when, out of this fear, self-consciousness emerges stronger than before. In one of his fragments Novalis calls death a bridal night, a sweet mystery, and adds:-- "Ist es nicht klug, für die Nacht ein geselliges Lager zu suchen? Darum ist klüglich gesinnt, wer auch Entschlummerte liebt."[2] So completely is this idea incorporated in the Romantic philosophy of life, that in Werner's drama, _Die Kreuzesbrüder_, the hero, immediately before he is led to the stake, says:-- "Den Neid verzeih' ich, Die Trauer nicht.--O unaussprechlich schwelg' ich In der Verwandlung Wonn', in dem Gefühl Des schönen Opfertodes!--O mein Bruder! Nicht wahr? es kommt die Zeit, we alle Menschen Den Tod erkennen--freudig ihn umarmen, Und fühlen werden, dass dies Leben nur Der Liebe Ahnung ist, der Tod ihr Brautkuss, Und sie, die mit der Inbrunst eines Gatten, Im Brautgemach, uns vom Gewand entkleidet-- Verwesung, Gluterguss der Liebe ist!"[3]