thou didst decide to come into the world, and thy mother was in great pain.  Angry that necessity had driven thee from thy nature-abode and because of the bungling of the nurse, thou didst arrive quite black and with no signs of life.  They laid thee in a so-called butcher’s tray and bathed thee in wine, quite despairing of thy life.  Thy grandmother stood behind the bed, and when thou didst open thine eyes she cried out, “Frau Rat, he lives!” “Then my maternal heart awoke and it has lived in unceasing enthusiasm to this very hour,” said thy mother to me in her seventy-fifth year.  Thy grandfather, one of the most honored citizens of Frankfurt and at that time syndic, always applied good as well as bad fortune to the welfare of the city, and so thy difficult birth resulted in an accoucher being appointed for the poor.  “Even in his cradle he was a blessing to mankind,” said thy mother.  She gave thee her breast but thou couldst not be induced to take nourishment, and so a nurse was procured for thee.  “Since he drank from her with such appetite and comfort and we discovered that I had no milk,” she said, “we soon noticed that he was wiser than all of us when he wouldn’t take nourishment from me.”

Now that thou art born at last I can pause a little; now that thou art in the world, each moment is dear enough to me to linger over it, and I have no desire to call up the second moment, since it will drive me away from the first.  “Where’er thou art are love and goodness, where’er thou art is nature too.”  Now I shall wait till thou writest me again, “Pray go on with thy story.”  Then I shall first ask, “Well, where did we leave off?” and then I shall tell thee of thy grandparents, thy dreams, thy beauty, pride, love, etc.  Amen.

“Frau Rat, he lives!” These words always thrilled me through and through whenever thy mother uttered them in exultant tones.  Of thy birth we may well say: 

  The sword that threatens danger
    Hangs often by a thread;
  But the blessing of eternity
    On us one gracious glance may shed.

Extract from a letter written in 1822, ten years after the breach in their relations.

To give perfect expression to thee would probably be the most powerful seal of my love, indeed, being a creation of divine nature, it would prove my affinity to thee.  It would be an enigma solved, like unto a long restrained mountain torrent which at last penetrates to the light, enduring the tremendous fall in voluptuous rapture, at a moment of life through which and after which a higher existence begins.

Thou destroyer, who hast taken my free will from me; thou creator, who hast produced within me the sensation of awakening, who hast convulsed me with a thousand electric sparks from the realm of sacred nature!  Through thee I learned to love the curling of the tender vine, and the tears of my longing have fallen on its frost-kissed fruits; for thy sake I have kissed the young grass, for thy sake offered my open bosom to the dew; for thy sake I have listened intently when the butterfly and the bee swarmed about me, for I wanted to feel thee in the sacred sphere of thy enjoyments.  Oh, thou; toy in disguise with thy beloved—­could I help, after I had divined thy secret, becoming intoxicated with love for thee?