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I have a secret to confide to you, my confidante. Who should I confide it to? To Echo? She would betray it. To the stars? They are cold. People? They do not understand. Only to you can I confide it, for you know how to safeguard it. There is a girl, more beautiful than my soul__ dream, purer than the light of the sun, deeper than the source of the ocean, more proud than the flight of the eagle__here is a girl__h! bend your head to my ear and my words, that my secret may steal into it__his girl I love more dearly than my life, for she is my life; more dearly than all my desires, for she is the only one; more dearly than all my thoughts, for she is the only one; more warmly than the sun loves the flower, more intensely than sorrow the privacy of the troubled mind; more longingly than the desert__ burning sand loves the rain__ cling to her more tenderly than the mother__ eye to the child, more confidingly than the pleading soul to God, more inseparably than the plant to its root.__our head grows heavy and thoughtful, it sinks down on your breast, your bosom rises to its aid__y Cordelia! You have understood me, you have understood me exactly, to the letter, not one jot have you ignored. Shall I stretch the membrane of my ear and let your voice assure me of this? Should I doubt? Will you safeguard this secret? Can I depend on you? One hears of people who, in terrible crimes, dedicate themselves to mutual silence. I have confided to you a secret which is my life and my life__ content. Have you nothing to confide to me, nothing so beautiful, so significant_?___ohannes de Silentio, from_Either/Or_