I loved Helene, who could hear
so well the terrene voices, yet keep her eye fixed on the stars. That
would be my wish also,--to know all, and then choose. I even revered
her, for I was not sure that I could have resisted the call of the
_now_; could have left the spirit and gone to God; and at a more
ambitious age I could not have refused the philosopher. But I hoped
much from her steadfastness, and I thought I heard the last tones of a
purified life. Gretchen, in the golden cloud, is raised above all past
delusions, worthy to redeem and upbear the wise man who stumbled into
the pit of error while searching for truth.
Still, in "Andre" and "Jacques," I trace the same high morality of one
who had tried the liberty of circumstance only to learn to appreciate
the liberty of law;--to know that license is the foe of freedom; and,
though the sophistry of Passion in these books disgusted me, flowers
of purest hue seemed to grow upon the dark and dirty ground. I thought
she had cast aside the slough of her past life, and begun a new
existence beneath the sun of a new ideal.
But here, in the _"Lettres d'un Voyageur,"_ what do I see? An
unfortunate, wailing her loneliness, wailing her mistakes, _writing
for money!_ She has genius, and a manly grasp of mind, but not a
manly heart.
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