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MAGDALEN

where into the distance, the tree that leans over it. A soft breeze gently ripples it, but the raging storm destroys that pure mirror, and you see the dark waves towering and driving each other, you hear their despairing disconsolate melody,—even thus we know our soul to be.

Below, somewhere in the depth, a strange world is hidden from your view. There may be there an abyss, sand, rocks, a coral reef, nacre, whirlpools, strange creatures,—there is something within you that you know not of. . . . Only rarely, during quiet sleep, do you for a moment look into its mysterious depth. Sometimes a mighty storm throws up upon the shore some tiny shells, or some monstrons thing.

Our thoughts are nothing more than silvery fishes, daughters of the deep, which we see for a moment leisurely swimming in masses near the sunlit surface. Here and there one will flash like a silver coin in the air, will flash and disappear. . . . Where