“This small poem made a profound impression upon me. I could not, of course, find immediately a sufficiently clear and direct explanation for it. However, a few days later when I once more read a certain philosophical work, which I had read in Berlin the previous winter, and which I had enjoyed very much, (I was reading it aloud to a friend), I came across the following words: ‘La même aspiration passionnée de la mite vers l’étoile, de l’homme vers Dieu.’ (The same passionate longing of the moth for the star, of man for God.) I had forgotten this sentence entirely, but it seemed very clear to me that precisely these words had reappeared in my hypnagogic poem. In addition to that it occurred to me that a play seen some years previously, ‘La Mite et La Flamme,’ was a further possible cause of the poem. It is easy to see how often the word ‘moth’ had been impressed upon me.” The deep impression made by the poem upon the author shows that she put into it a large amount of love. In the expression “aspiration passionnée” we meet the passionate longing of the moth for the star, of man for God, and indeed, the moth is Miss Miller herself. Her last observation that the word “moth” was often impressed upon her shows how often she had noticed the word “moth” as applicable to herself. _Her longing for God resembles the longing of the moth for the “star.”_ The reader will recall that this expression has already had a place in the earlier material, “when the morning stars sang together,” that is to say, the ship’s officer who sings on deck in the night watch. The passionate longing for God is the same as that longing for the singing morning stars. It was pointed out at great length in the foregoing chapter that this analogy is to be expected: “Sic parvis componere magna solebam.” It is shameful or exalted just as one chooses, that the divine longing of humanity, which is really the first thing to make it human, should be brought into connection with an erotic phantasy. Such a comparison jars upon the finer feelings. Therefore, one is inclined in spite of the undeniable facts to dispute the connection. An Italian steersman with brown hair and black moustache, and the loftiest, dearest conception of humanity! These two things cannot be brought together; against this not only our religious feelings revolt, but our taste also rebels.