'_Die Sterne, die begehrt man nicht--Man freut sich ihrer Pracht._'
One desires not the stars, but rejoices in their splendour--and for the
first time in his life the young man really recognised the poetic
harmony of summer skies at night.
These were the last nights of August, and there was no moon. Innumerable
in the deep starry vault, the constellations throbbed and palpitated
with ardent life. The two Bears, Hercules, Cassiopeia, glittered with so
rapid a palpitation that they seemed almost to approach the earth, to
penetrate the terrestrial atmosphere. The Milky Way flowed wide like a
regal aerian river, a confluence of the waters of Paradise, over a bed
of crystal between starry banks. Brilliant meteors cleft the motionless
air from time to time, gliding lightly and silently as a drop of water
over a sheet of glass. The slow and solemn respiration of the sea
sufficed to measure the peace of the night without disturbing it, and
the pauses were almost sweeter than the music.
In every aspect of the things around him he beheld some analogy to his
own inner life. The landscape became to him a symbol, an emblem, a sign
to guide him through the labyrinthine passes of his own soul. He
discovered secret affinities between the visible life around him and the
intimate life of his desires and memories. 'To me, high mountains are a
_feeling_'--and as the mountains were to Byron, so the sea was to him a
_sentiment_.
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