fragrant blossom, the wheat waves with broad leaves between the enamels of the almond and the narcissus, and far off stands the cypress, and the palm towers proudly;[93] all is flower and fruit, spring and harvest. 'Shall I go this way? shall I go that way?' asks the heart in its bliss. "Thus did I see the sun go down under the waves,--the reddening coasts fled away under their misty veils,--the world went out, land after land, from one island to another,--the last gold-dust was wafted away from the heights,--and the prayer-bells of the convents led up the heart above the stars. O how happy and how wistful was my heart, at once a wish and a flame, and in my innermost being a prayer of gratitude went forth for this, that I was and am upon this earth. "Never shall I forget that! If we throw away life as too small for our wishes, still do they not belong to life itself, and did they not come from it? If the crowned earth rears around us such blossoming shores, such sunny mountains, would she fain enclose therewith unhappy beings? Why is our heart narrower than our eye? why does a cloud hardly a mile long oppress us, when that very cloud stands itself under the stars of immensity? Is not every morning and every hope a beginning of spring? What are the thickest prison-walls of life but vine-trellises built up for the ripening of the wine-glow? And as life always cuts itself up into quarters, why must it be merely the last, and not quite as often the first, upon which a full-beaming moon follows? 'O God,' said I, as I went back through the green world which next morning becomes a glowing one, 'never let me ascribe thy eternity to any one time, except the most blissful; joy is eternal, but not pain, for this last thou hast not created.' "'Friend,' said Dian to me, on the way, when I could not well conceal from him my inner commotion, 'what may not your feelings be, then, when you look back upon Naples on the passage over to Ischia! For it is plain to perceive that you were born in a northern land.' 'Dear friend,' said I, 'every one is born _with_ his north or south; whether in an outer one beside, that is of little consequence.'"