The most delightful country, people who love me, a round of pleasures! Are not the dreams of thy childhood all fulfilled ?--I often ask myself when my eye feeds on this circumambient bliss.

Are not these the fairy gardens after which thy heart yearned?
They are! They are! I feel it, dear friend; and feel that we are not a whit the happier when our desires are realised.

The make-weight! the make-weight! with which Fate balances every bliss that we enjoy.

Dear friend, there needs much courage not to lose courage in this world of ours."[92] [Footnote 91: In the recently discovered manuscript of _Wilhelm Meisters Theatralische Sendung_ occurs this passage, evidently self-descriptive: "Als Knabe hatte er zu grossen praechtigen Worten und Spruechen eine ausserordentliche Liebe, er schmueckte seine Seele damit aus wie mit einem koestlichen Kleide, und freute sich darueber, als wenn sie zu ihm selbst gehoerten kindlisch ueber diesen aeussern Schmuck."] [Footnote 92: _Werke, Briefe_, Band i.p.258 _ff._] The day of parting came at the end of June; on August 6th he passed the tests necessary for the Licentiate of Laws, and at the end of that month he left Strassburg for home.

He left Friederike, he tells us, at a moment when their parting almost cost her her life[93]; did he do her a greater wrong than his own narrative would imply?
We cannot tell; but one thing is certain, from the first he never intended marriage.