more secret, less natural; and all that is in me of feebleness, abasement, poverty of spirit,—the ewig Weibliches—I most carefully locked up and kept to myself alone, in order to provide our love with a longer existence, which surely concerns you as much as myself. If now I told you not to press your cheek against my dress, nor humble yourself before me, because I cannot love where I do not honour—you would begin to sulk and to tell me, with the air of a cross sullen child, that you are the one of us two who loves most, and that I have shown myself a selfish girl.—In my opinion, the preservation of our mutual love is the affair of us both, and like an altar on which we should both of us sacrifice absolute sincerity, especially as concerns passing dispositions, and more especially such as imply self-abasement; we must play a part, wear a mask, and keep strictly to ourselves all such grievances as might lower one in the eyes of the other. So I ask you, who know this well by the experience of your own life: am I right or not? If I am, then: Do you intend to make me love you as much as you love me, or would you lower the level of your love to that of mine? That is: will you bear the burden of
