Here in the room of the girl who is the cause of
my misery--without her fault, with the soul of an angel, over whose
cheerful days I cast a gloom, I.... In vain that for three months I
have wandered under the open sky and drunk in a thousand new objects
at every pore."[230] To Lavater on the following day he writes that he
has been riding with Lili, and adds these words with an N.B.: "For
some time I have been pious again; my desire is for the Lord, and I
sing psalms to him, a vibration of which shall soon reach you. Adieu.
I am in a sore state of strain; I might say over-strain. Yet I wish
you were with me, for then it goes well in my surroundings."[231] A
letter addressed to Merck later in the same month would seem to show
that he had at least no intention of seeking an immediate union with
Lili. By the end of the year at the latest, he says, he must be off to
Italy, and he prays Merck to prevail with his father to grant his
consent.
[Footnote 229: _Werke, Briefe_, ii. 272.]
[Footnote 230: _Ib._ p. 273.]
[Footnote 231: _Ib._ pp. 277-8.]
A crisis in the relations between the lovers came on the occasion of
the Frankfort fair in the second week of September.
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