"Summoning my whole strength, I endeavoured to break the spells with which the detestable dream had fettered my senses; and, for the present moment, I succeeded in this; but I could not prevent the same phantom from recurring to my imagination, and persecuting me with tenfold power. I perceived only too well, that for me the mysteries of a first love were revealed,--that, with a passionate fervour, of which only the youthful heart is capable, I was attached to the nameless and visionary unknown! My indisposition seemed, however, to have attained its crisis, and I became perceptibly better. My nervous irritability decreased, and I was able again to mix in society; only the constant presence of that image, my fantastic love of a being who existed only in my own brain, rendered me so _distraite_, that I frequently gave absurd answers when questioned; and being wholly wrapt up in my own reveries, must have appeared to others either an affected prude, or an unidea'd simpleton. "About this time, I had found, among other romances, in my brother's room, one containing the history of a monk, who, being overcome by temptations of the devil, renounced his vows, and fell in love with a young lady, who in consequence perished miserably. This I read with avidity, and though the lessons that it contained might have been expected to open my eyes to the dangers which I was drawing on myself, yet it had an effect directly the reverse, by fixing my attention more and more on those visions which I ought to have banished for ever from my mind. Frequently I thought of Hermogen's words--'Thy mother speaks with the devil;' and began to think, that the unknown was, in truth, an agent of the Arch-fiend, employed to entice me to destruction. Yet I could not cease to love him; and when Reinhold came back, on one occasion, from a journey, and talked much of a certain Brother Medardus, whom he had heard preach in the town of Königswald, there arose within me an obscure dim apprehension, that the original of the beloved and yet dreaded vision might be that very Medardus; and this belief Reinhold's description of the preacher's features and person seemed amply to sanction. Thereafter, the wild dreams and internal conflicts by which I was persecuted, were increased tenfold. It happened that a monk (as was often the case) came to visit at my father's house; and this person chose, in a very diffuse lecture, to describe the manifold temptations of the devil, and the wretched delusions to which especially youthful minds were subjected, if they did not sufficiently resist his influence. My father seemed to approve of this discourse, and I believed it was aimed particularly at me.--'Only unbounded trust and confidence,' said the clergyman,