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APRIL 19.
Thanks for both your letters. I delayed my reply, and withheld this letter, till I
should obtain an answer from the court. I feared my mother might apply to the
minister to defeat my purpose. But my request is granted, my resignation is
accepted. I shall not recount with what reluctance it was accorded, nor relate
what the minister has written: you would only renew your lamentations. The
crown prince has sent me a present of five and twenty ducats; and, indeed, such
goodness has affected me to tears. For this reason I shall not require from my
mother the money for which I lately applied.
MAY 5.
I leave this place tomorrow; and, as my native place is only six miles from the
high road, I intend to visit it once more, and recall the happy dreams of my
childhood. I shall enter at the same gate through which I came with my mother,
when, after my father’s death, she left that delightful retreat to immure herself in
your melancholy town. Adieu, my dear friend: you shall hear of my future
career.
MAY 9.
I have paid my visit to my native place with all the devotion of a pilgrim, and
have experienced many unexpected emotions. Near the great elm tree, which is a
quarter of a league from the village, I got out of the carriage, and sent it on
before, that alone, and on foot, I might enjoy vividly and heartily all the pleasure
of my recollections. I stood there under that same elm which was formerly the
term and object of my walks. How things have since changed! Then, in happy
ignorance, I sighed for a world I did not know, where I hoped to find every
pleasure and enjoyment which my heart could desire; and now, on my return
from that wide world, O my friend, how many disappointed hopes and
unsuccessful plans have I brought back!
As I contemplated the mountains which lay stretched out before me, I thought
how often they had been the object of my dearest desires. Here used I to sit for
hours together with my eyes bent upon them, ardently longing to wander in the
shade of those woods, to lose myself in those valleys, which form so delightful
an object in the distance. With what reluctance did I leave this charming spot;
when my hour of recreation was over, and my leave of absence expired! I drew
near to the village: all the well-known old summerhouses and gardens were
recognised again; I disliked the new ones, and all other alterations which had
taken place. I entered the village, and all my former feelings returned. I cannot,
my dear friend, enter into details, charming as were my sensations: they would
be dull in the narration. I had intended to lodge in the market-place, near our old
house. As soon as I entered, I perceived that the schoolroom, where our
childhood had been taught by that good old woman, was converted into a shop. I
called to mind the sorrow, the heaviness, the tears, and oppression of heart,
which I experienced in that confinement. Every step produced some particular
impression. A pilgrim in the Holy Land does not meet so many spots pregnant
with tender recollections, and his soul is hardly moved with greater devotion.
One incident will serve for illustration. I followed the course of a stream to a
farm, formerly a delightful walk of mine, and paused at the spot, where, when
boys, we used to amuse ourselves making ducks and drakes upon the water. I
recollected so well how I used formerly to watch the course of that same stream,
following it with inquiring eagerness, forming romantic ideas of the countries it
was to pass through; but my imagination was soon exhausted: while the water
continued flowing farther and farther on, till my fancy became bewildered by the
contemplation of an invisible distance. Exactly such, my dear friend, so happy
and so confined, were the thoughts of our good ancestors. Their feelings and
their poetry were fresh as childhood. And, when Ulysses talks of the
immeasurable sea and boundless earth, his epithets are true, natural, deeply felt,
and mysterious. Of what importance is it that I have learned, with every
schoolboy, that the world is round? Man needs but little earth for enjoyment, and
still less for his final repose.
I am at present with the prince at his hunting lodge. He is a man with whom
one can live happily. He is honest and unaffected. There are, however, some
strange characters about him, whom I cannot at all understand. They do not seem
vicious, and yet they do not carry the appearance of thoroughly honest men.
Sometimes I am disposed to believe them honest, and yet I cannot persuade
myself to confide in them. It grieves me to hear the prince occasionally talk of
things which he has only read or heard of, and always with the same view in
which they have been represented by others.
He values my understanding and talents more highly than my heart, but I am
proud of the latter only. It is the sole source of everything of our strength,
happiness, and misery. All the knowledge I possess every one else can acquire,
but my heart is exclusively my own.
MAY 25.
I have had a plan in my head of which I did not intend to speak to you until it
was accomplished: now that it has failed, I may as well mention it. I wished to
enter the army, and had long been desirous of taking the step. This, indeed, was
the chief reason for my coming here with the prince, as he is a general in the
service. I communicated my design to him during one of our walks together. He
disapproved of it, and it would have been actual madness not to have listened to
his reasons.
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: | 
