second day of March in the second twelve month after Herdegen's departing
that the treasures of the realm, and among them a nail from the Cross and
the point of the spear wherewith they pierced the Lord's side, were to be
brought into the town in a solemn procession, and I, with many others,
rode forth to meet it. They were brought hither from Blindenberg on the
Danube, and the Emperor sent them in token of his grace, that we might
hold them in safe keeping within our strong walls. They had been brought
thus far right privily, under the feint that the waggon wherein they were
carried bore wine vats, and a great throng gathered with shouts of joy to
hail these precious things. Prisoners were set free in honor of their
coming; and for my own part I mind the day full well, by reason that I
put off my black mourning weed and went forth in a colored holiday garb
for the first time in a long while.

If I had, in truth, been able by good courage to shake off in due time
the oppressing weight of my grief, I owed it in no small measure to the
forest-whither we went forth, now as heretofore, to sojourn in the spring
and autumn seasons--and to its magic healing. How many a time have I
rested under its well-known trees and silently looked back on the past.
And, when I mind me of those days, I often ask myself whether the real
glad times themselves or those hours of calmer joy in remembrance were
indeed the better.

As I sat in the woods, thinking and dreaming, there was plenty for the
eye to see and the ear to hear. The clouds flew across in silence, and
the soft green at my feet, with all that grew on tree and bush, in the
grass, and by the brink of the pool, made up a peaceful world, innocently
fair and full of precious charm. Here there was nought to remind me of
the stir of mankind, with its haste and noise and fighting and craving,
and that was a delight; nor did the woodland sounds.--The song of birds,