The Sublime Hour before Midnight.--The Blissful
After-Midnight.--The Soft Evening.
To-day I present Emanuel's last day (which now lies cooled off and
extinguished among the days of eternity) with pale outlines to the
fantasies of men. My hand trembles and my eye burns before the scenes
which in funeral veils glide around me and lift their veils so near to
me.----I shut myself up to-night,--I hear nothing but my thoughts,--I
see nothing but the night-suns which move across the heavens,--I forget
the weaknesses and the stains of my heart, that I may get the courage
to lift up my head as if I were good, as if I dwelt on the height where
around the great man like constellations lie only God, Eternity, and
Virtue. But I say to them who are better,--to the silent great heart,
which _increases_ its obligations in _fulfilling_ them, and which
satisfies itself _as its conscience grows_ only with daily increasing
merits,--to the lofty men who have warmly pressed the hand of death,
who can calmly ask him, when he walks round on morning-meadows,
"Seekest thou me to-day?"--to the panting soul which cools itself
under the _cypress-tree_,--to the men with tears, with dreams, with
wings,--to all these I say, "Kinsmen of my Emanuel, your brother
stretches out his hand after you through the shortest night; grasp it,
he would fain bid you farewell!"