I feel more tenderly towards the young beings committed to my care, more indulgence for the weaknesses and errors of my kind.

I did not mind, then, trampling on a flower, if it sprung up in my path; now I would stoop down and inhale its fragrance, and bless my Maker for shedding beauty and sweetness to gladden my way.

The perception of the beautiful grows and strengthens in me.

The love of nature, a new-born flower, blooms in my heart, and diffuses a sweet balminess unknown before.

Even poetry, my child--do not laugh at me--has begun to unfold its mystic beauties to my imagination.
I was reading the other evening that charming paraphrase of the nineteenth Psalm: 'The spacious firmament on high,' and I was exceedingly struck with its melodious rhythm; and when I looked up afterwards to the starry heavens, to the moon walking in her brightness, to the blue and boundless ether, they seemed to bend over me in love, to come nearer than they had ever done before.