A wonderful serenity has taken over my whole soul, like the sweet spring mornings that I enjoy with all my heart. I am alone and rejoice in my life in this place created for such souls as mine. I am so happy, my best, so completely absorbed in the feeling of quiet existence that my art suffers. I could not draw now, not a stroke, and have never been a greater painter than at these moments.
When the dear valley steams around me, and the high sun rests on the surface of the impenetrable darkness of my forest, and only single rays steal into the inner sanctuary, I then lie in the high grass by the falling brook, and closer to the earth a thousand manifold grasses become strange to me; when I feel the swarming of the small world between stalks, the innumerable, unfathomable shapes of the little worms, the little mosquitoes closer to my heart, and feel the presence of the Almighty, who created us in his image, the blowing of the All-loving One, who carries and sustains us floating in eternal bliss; my friend!
When it then dawns around my eyes, and the world around me and the sky rest completely in my soul like the form of a beloved – then I often long and think: oh, could you express that again, could you breathe into the paper that which lives so fully, so warmly in you, that it would become the mirror of your soul, as your soul is the mirror of the infinite God! – my friend – but I perish over it, I succumb under the power of the glory of these appearances.
A wonderful serenity has taken over my whole soul, like the sweet spring mornings that I enjoy with all my heart. I am alone and rejoice in my life in this place created for such souls as mine. I am so happy, my best, so completely absorbed in the feeling of quiet existence that my art suffers. I could not draw now, not a stroke, and have never been a greater painter than at these moments.