Many want to lose themselves before they have rightly found themselves, and to sacrifice a beauty and holiness they never yet possessed.

The Sixty-Ninth Letter.

Many want to lose themselves before they have rightly found themselves, and to sacrifice a beauty and holiness they never yet possessed.

Dear Brother!

Your spring-songs I have listened to. It has gladdened me that the little birds still harmonize so well, and have not quite perished through the winter-cold; I should indeed be a churlish night-owl were I to disturb them on their branches. Yet childlike open-heartedness and simplicity require that one say one's things just as they lie about one's heart, though it were, or seemed, a folly; as I perceive it, so I say it.

Your way, dear brother, now goes in its measure just as you express it in the first song, upon crossing the stream: namely, not through scrupling, holding, examining, but through believing, letting-go, and losing; and you would greatly distress yourself were you to do it otherwise, for more than one reason. But I still think, as ever, dear brother, whether one or another might not set himself, and mis-form himself, too early into such a leading? For I have seen not a few of them who would lose themselves before they had rightly found themselves, and would sacrifice a beauty and holiness they did not yet possess; and there it goes, as it were, with jesting and playing, whereas otherwise the true losing hurts, and costs a real death — as may be seen, among other things, in the life of Mad. G[uyon].

Nature loves the marshes far too much — so that incapable minds lose themselves in them with delight, but never reach the sea, because they have no fall. Therefore I speak sparingly, and as it were only under four eyes, of such ways, for the sake of self-love, which would gladly read before it has learned to spell. Madame Guyon, in her Book of the Justifications, gave many such warnings. Otherwise I esteem such leadings highly — of which she speaks in her Torrents — and wish to experience them ever more fully; but the fewest attain it in essence. Some want to leap over; others have no fall, or do not give themselves over to it, from moment to moment, with all letting-go.

I know that you take my writing in love, as does Br. K.; be it then wisdom or folly, I would yet belong to the children's band. I set myself down, then, with you upon my little branch, and sing along: In dulci jubilo; now sing and be glad! Our heart's delight lies in praesepio [in the manger].

German

Der neunundsechzigste Brief.

Viele wollen sich verlieren, ehe sie sich noch recht gefunden, und eine Schönheit und Heiligkeit aufopfern, die sie noch nie besessen.

Lieber Bruder!

Eure Frühlingsgesänge habe mit zugehöret. Es hat mich erfreuet, daß die Vögelein noch so wohl harmoniren, und durch die Winterkälte nicht gar verkommen sind; ich müßte auch wohl eine unartige Nachteule seyn, wann ich sie auf ihren Zweigen stören wollte: Doch erfordert's die kindliche Offenherzigkeit und Einfalt …

— Opening lines of the original German. The complete transcription of all 605 letters appears in the forthcoming Encounter Press critical edition; Brief 1 is shown in full as a sample.

German text: public domain (1773–75 first edition / 1845 Gesammelte Schriften).