"Condemn not thy poor sister; she is now more miserable than I, for she was happier; but her soul remains innocent. Her innocence lay treasured up in her heart as a kernel in the stony peach; the kernel itself burst its mail-coat in the warm, nourishing earth, and forced a way for its green leaves to the light. "I visited her afterward. All her soul's pangs passed over into me; for all actions and sacrifices on her account, I felt myself ready; but for no feelings. Do what you will, thou and my father, I will positively, in this stupid stubble-field of life, where one reaps so little in freedom, not banish myself into the narrow thirty-years' hedge of marriage. By Heaven! for the miserable, forced intoxication of the senses, and under it, I have already endured more than it is worth. "Not that which I yesterday read in thy presence gives me this resolution,--as to that, ask Rabette about it,--and my frankness toward thee is a voluntary offering, since the mystery between two might, but for me, have remained a mystery still: but I will not be misapprehended by thee,--by thee, the very one who, with so little reflection upon thy inner being, so easily makest unfavorable comparisons, and dost not perceive that thou didst sacrifice my sister in Lilar precisely so, only with more spiritual arms, and didst cast her eyes and joys into Orcus. I blame thee not; fate makes man a sub-fate to woman. The passions are poetic liberties, which the moral liberty takes to itself. Thou didst not, I assure thee, have too good an opinion of me; I am all for which thou tookest me, only, however, still _more too_; and the _more too_ is still wanting to thyself. "O, how much swifter my life flies since I know that _she_[32] is coming! Fate, which so oft plays weight and wheels, and swings the pendulum of life with its own hand, heaves off mine, and all wheels roll unrestrainedly to meet the blissful hour. _She_ is my first love; before _her_ I tore up all my blooming years, and flung them to her on her path as flowers; for _her_ I sacrifice, I dare, I do all, when she comes. O, whoso fears nothing in the empty froth-and-sham-love, what should he dread or decline in the real, living sun-love? Thou angel, thou destroying angel, thou camest flying down into my stale, flat life, thou fleest and appearest, now here, now there, on all my paths and pastures: O tarry only long enough for me to dig my grave at thy feet, while thou lookest down upon me!