"
As to Irving's "state of mind" in Dresden, it is pertinent to quote a
passage from what we gather to be a journal kept by Miss Flora Foster:
"He has written. He has confessed to my mother, as to a true and
dear friend, his love for E----, and his conviction of its utter
hopelessness. He feels himself unable to combat it. He thinks he
must try, by absence, to bring more peace to his mind. Yet he
cannot bear to give up our friendship,--an intercourse become so
dear to him, and so necessary to his daily happiness. Poor Irving!"
It is well for our peace of mind that we do not know what is going down
concerning us in "journals." On his way to the Herrnhuthers, Mr. Irving
wrote to Mrs. Foster:
"When I consider how I have trifled with my time, suffered painful
vicissitudes of feeling, which for a time damaged both mind and
body,--when I consider all this, I reproach myself that I did not
listen to the first impulse of my mind, and abandon Dresden long
since. And yet I think of returning! Why should I come back to
Dresden? The very inclination that dooms me thither should furnish
reasons for my staying away."
In this mood, the Herrnhuthers, in their right-angled, whitewashed world,
were little attractive.
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