On the Heights Part 145

When the additions were made to the dwelling, I succeeded, with the a.s.sistance of the carpenter, in giving greater symmetry to the dwelling itself. The piazza running round the house received a more open roof, and the bal.u.s.trade a more pleasing form.

Hansei has often said that the forest clearing would make a beautiful meadow. Yesterday he came home and said:

"I have it! I'm having the trees on the hillside felled, and have left four fine trunks standing. They form a square and I'll have a hut built there, and then we'll have a mountain meadow of our own. The farm can't thrive without one. It's far up, to be sure--about two hours' walk; but we can see the clearing from here."

"And just think of it," said Hansei, who was delighted with his plan, "where the trees have been cut down in front, you can see ever so far, way off to the lake where we used to live. To be sure, it's nothing more than a little sparkling spot of blue, but it looks at one so kindly, just like a faithful eye from home, or like one who has known you from childhood. It was beautiful at our home, but it's more beautiful here; so don't let us sin by being ungrateful."

I have made the drawing for the shepherd's hut. My little pitchman is quite clever in cutting everything. We are working at our Noah's ark, and are as merry as apprentices.

I am also carving a horse's head in life size, for the gable of the roof.

Hansei and I have just returned from where the new shepherd's hut is being built.

After the invigorating mountain ascent of to-day, I feel as if I had been present at the dawning of creation; a new road, a new dwelling, and a spot where human being had never been before. I feel as if experience had nothing more in store for me; as if all earthly burdens had fallen from me.

When, after a day of great exertion and mountain climbing, one awakes on the following morning, the fatigue has pa.s.sed away. One feels refreshed and invigorated, and satisfied with the test to which he has subjected himself; for it has proved his power of endurance and his ability to impose tasks upon himself. For a while, I had left my past and possessed nothing but myself. Now that I have returned to familiar scenes, they welcome me again. I can easily realize the calm peacefulness of those who thus picture to themselves the awakening to the eternal life.

The shepherd's hut is empty. The walls are bare, except where the picture of our Saviour hangs in the corner, waiting for the beings who are to come there. It is, and ever will remain, a blessing that men can thus bear with them, to desert wastes and lonely heights, the image of pure and perfect man. It is this which enables a more perfect civilization and a great history to take possession of the modern world.

If only the pure knowledge of the pure spirit always went with it.

(October.)--Now that winter approaches, my thoughts are always of the lonely shepherd's hut upon the mountain. I am always there in my dreams, alone and undergoing strange experiences. I think I must move up there next spring. I feel that life will be incomplete until I have spent a whole summer with plants and beasts, with mountain and brook, with the sun, the moon and the stars.

Art thou still dissatisfied, insatiate heart, always longing for something else? What can it be? I must and will have rest!

He who needs nothing but himself to be happy, is happy indeed.

Here, once again, I am like the first human being that walked the earth.

Man, of himself, is pure and unsullied, and out of him flows the world.

There lies the secret which I shall not name.

It makes me happy to think that I am to go still higher; further up the mountain, where it is even quieter and more lonely than here. I feel as if something were calling me there. It is neither a voice nor a sound.

I know not what it is, and yet it calls me, draws me, allures me, with its: "Come! come!"--Yes, I am coming!

I know that I am not dying. I would sooner doubt that I am living. The world is no longer an enigma to me.

From my mountain height I look down on those I have wronged. They are my father, my queen, and, worst of all, myself!

Of all things in this world, untruth is the surest to avenge itself.

When I wrote to the king, from the convent, I vaunted my truthfulness and yet, at the same time, I was thoroughly untruthful. I aimed at bringing about an act of freedom and yet, at heart, my only desire was to write to him and impress him by my love of liberty. I felt proud of my opposition to popular opinion, and hoped thus to show him that I was his strong friend. He declined my proffered advice, and yet it was I who again opened the convents.

Falsehood avenges itself.

Purity and freedom can only exist where there is perfect truthfulness.

If I could only find words to express the delight with which to-day's sunset filled me. It is night, and as surely as the sun shone on my face, so surely does a ray of sunlight s.h.i.+ne within me. I am a ray of eternity. Compared with it, what are days or years? What is a whole human life?

I never rightly knew why I was always dissatisfied, and yearning for the next hour, the next day, the next year, hoping that it would bring me that which I could not find in the present. It was not love, for love does not satisfy. I desired to live in the pa.s.sing moment, but could not. It always seemed as if something were waiting for me without the door, and calling me. What could it have been?

I know now; it was a desire to be at one with myself, to understand myself. Myself in the world, and the world in me.

The vain man is the loneliest of human beings. He is constantly longing to be seen, understood, acknowledged, admired and loved.

I could say much on the subject, for I, too, was once vain. It was only in actual solitude that I conquered the loneliness of vanity. It is enough for me that I exist.

How far removed this is from all that is mere show.

Now I understand my father's last act. He did not mean to punish me.

His only desire was to arouse me, to lead me to self-consciousness, to the knowledge that, teaching us to become different from what we are, saves us.

I understand the inscription in my father's library: "When I am alone, then am I least alone."

Yes; when alone, one can more perfectly lose himself in the life universal. I have lived and have come to know the truth. I can now die.

He who is at one with himself, possesses all.