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AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 111
wholé life, but found, during the holy act and after it, my
feelings to be less warm than I had wished. However,
every thing now became better than it had been previously.
I imagined that I had closed my accounts with the world;
the desire for its life and enjoyments was extinguished
within me. My soul became pure and at the same time
true. My incessant activity gave me a delightful con-
sciousness of being here in this world a consoling atom.
In consequence of frequent and fatiguing exercise in the
open air, my body became invigorated, my blood flowed
more freely, my health improved.
One day, about the end of March, I walked across snow-
covered fields just as the sun was setting; the tear of grati-
tude and joy of one, to whom I had just then given comfort,
had fallen like balm upon my heart. I had been walking
very fast to avoid coming home in the twilight, and I had
stopped a moment to recover breath and to inhale the
mild, pure air. I stood still, with my eyes turned to where
the sun was sinking in a flood of purple and golden glory
beneath the western sky. Then came thence towards me,
sweeping across the wide expanse of snow, a breath of air
delicious and full of a foretaste of spring. I drank in its
life-giving freshness with body and soul. I collected my
excited feelings to more calmness, looked round, and
turned, with full corisciousness of the state of my being, my
thoughts upon myself, with this question: Would I now
wish to die? For the first time during many years, I felt
that I could answer, No! Oh, moment of immeasurable
delight! Now awoke within me the hope of a resurrection
to happiness even on earth, — a hope, which has not been
deceived, but which has been beautifully realized.
During this period of my life, a rather unusual circum-
stance contributed to give my mind a new direction. A
noble-hearted and estimable lady, who then learnt to know
me in my outward, and partly also in my inward, life, con-
ceived for me a friendship which amounted almost to a
real passion.
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