a corps of Prussian soldiers I had received, through the influence
of some good friends, the promise of a post under the Prussian
Government--namely, that of assistant at the mineralogical museum of
Berlin, under Weiss. Thither then, as the next place of my destined
work, I turned my steps. I desired also to see the Rhine and the Main,
and my birthplace as well; so I went by Dusseldorf back to Lünen, and
thence by Mainz, Frankfurt, and Rudolstadt to Berlin.

Thus I had lived through the whole campaign according to my strength,
greater or less, in a steady inner struggle towards unity and harmony
of life, but what of outward significance and worth recollection had
I received from the soldier's life? I left the army and the warlike
career with a total feeling of discontent. My inner yearning for unity
and harmony, for inward peace, was so powerful that it shaped itself
unconsciously into symbolical form and figure. In a ceaseless,
inexplicable, anxious state of longing and unrest, I had passed through
many pretty places and many gardens on my homeward way, without any of
them pleasing me. In this mood I reached F----, and entered a fairly
large and handsomely-stocked flower garden. I gazed at all the vigorous
plants and fresh gay flowers it offered me, but no flower took my fancy.
As I passed all the many varied beauties of the garden in review before
my mind, it fell upon me suddenly that I missed the lily. I asked the
owner of the garden if he had no lilies there, and he quietly replied,
_No_! When I expressed my surprise, I was answered as quietly as before
that hitherto no one had missed the lily. It was thus that I came to
know what I missed and longed for. How could my inner nature have
expressed itself more beautifully in words? "Thou art seeking silent
peacefulness of heart, harmony of life, clear purity of soul, by the
symbol of this silent, pure, simple lily." That garden, in its beautiful
variety, but without a lily, appeared to me as a gay life passed through