he had taught and written, all that he had ever been to men in word and
deed, faded, vanished, and died away, and he appeared to himself but a
useless servant of the world. His friends he answered immediately; and
as his inward melancholy vanished, and the philanthropy, nay, the
sprightliness of his soul beamed forth, when he was among men and looked
in a living face, so was it also with his letters. When he bethought him
of the friends to whom he was writing, he not only acquired
tranquillity, that virtue for which his whole life long he strove; but
his loving nature received new life, and only by slight intimations did
he betray the heaviness and dejection which weighed upon his soul. He
was, in the full sense of the word, "philanthropic," in the sight of
good men; and in thoughts for their welfare, there was for him a real
happiness and a joyous animation.

When, however, he had done writing and felt lonely again, the gloomy
spirits came back: he had seated himself, wishing to raise his thoughts
for composing a sacred song; but he was ill at ease, and had no power
to express that inward, firm, and self-rejoicing might of faith which
lived in him. Again and again the scoffers and free-thinkers rose up
before his thoughts: he must refute their objections, and not until that
was done did he become himself.

It is a hard position, when a creative spirit cannot forget the
adversaries which on all sides oppose him in the world: they come
unsummoned to the room and will not be expelled; they peer over the
shoulder, and tug at the hand which fain would write; they turn images
upside down, and distort the thoughts; and here and there, from ceiling
and wall, they grin, and scoff, and oppose: and what was just gushing
as an aspiration from the soul, is converted to a confused absurdity.