Yet well-nigh he
sank beneath the sickness of the wounded heart; and solitude,
"country of the unhappy," was all he craved at last.
'Goethe, too, says he has known, in all his active, wise, and
honored life, no four weeks of happiness. This teaches me on
the other side; for, like Goethe, I have never given way to
my feelings, but have lived active, thoughtful, seeking to
be wise. Yet I have long days and weeks of heartache; and
at those times, though I am busy every moment, and cultivate
every pleasant feeling, and look always upwards to the pure
ideal region, yet this ache is like a bodily wound, whose
pain haunts even when it is not attended to, and disturbs the
dreams of the patient who has fallen asleep from exhaustion.
'There is a German in Boston, who has a wound in his breast,
received in battle long ago. It never troubles him, except
when he sings, and then, if he gives out his voice with much
expression, it opens, and cannot, for a long time, be stanched
again. So with me: when I rise into one of those rapturous
moods of thought, such as I had a day or two since, my wound
opens again, and all I can do is to be patient, and let it
take its own time to skin over.
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