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318 PHANTASTES: |
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XXV.
Unser Leben ist kein Traum, aber es soil trad wird vielleicht einer werden. Novalis.
Our life is no dream; but it ougbt to become one, and perhaps * I'l.
And on the ground, which is my modres gate, I knocke with my staf, erlich and late, And say to hire, Leve mother, ]et me in.
Chaucer.—The Pardoneres Tale.
Sinking from such a state of ideal bliss, into the world or shadows which again closed around and infolded me, my first dread was, not unnaturally, that my own shadow had found me again, and that my torture had commenced anew. It was a sad revulsion of feeling. This, indeed, seemed to correspond to what we think death is, before we die. Yet I felt within me a power of calm endurance to which I had hitherto been a stranger. For, in truth, that I should be able if only to think such things as I had been thinking, was an unspeakable delight. An hour of such peace made the turmoil of a life-time worth striving through. |
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