ou would be obliged to account for
it to your guardian at your present years. Let us not refer to the past; it
would be easy to do so, but only cause me pain; at last it would come to
this, "You are indeed a first-rate guardian," &c. If you had any depth of
feeling you would have acted very differently in most things.

Now as to my domestic rabble; yesterday the kitchenmaid was off again and
got a fresh place; the cause is difficult to discover from my old witch,
who is now once more all smiles, and no longer persists in declaring that
she has incurred any _loss_ from the weekly bills; what do you think of
that?

[The last page of this letter is an illegible fragment.]

428.

TO HIS NEPHEW.

Baden.

MY DEAR GOOD CARL,--

I have just got your letter this evening, and could not help laughing at
it. It was not right in the people at Mayence to have acted thus, but since
the thing has occurred, it does not signify. Our epoch requires strong
minds to scourge those frivolous, contemptible, malicious beings, repulsive
as it is to my feelings to cause pain to any man. Besides, I intended a
mere jest, and it was far from my intention to let such a thing be
printed.[1]

You must ascertain instantly from a magistrate the proper mode of
converting the Bank obligations into Rothschild's Austrian Loan, that you
may get the authority from a magistrate (not from the _Court_ of those
_pseudo_-guardians!)

Be good and honest; you have here an instance how people rejoice when such
men are properly estimated. Be my own dear precious son, and imitate my
virtues, but not my faults; still, though man is frail, do not at least
have worse defects than those of

Your sincere and fondly attached

FATHER.

Write to me about the conversation on Sunday--it is of the _Court,
courtly_, so you must be on your guard. Holz did not come to-day; whether
he is trustworthy I cannot say.

[Footnote 1: There is no doubt that he alludes to the severe castigation of
Haslinger in No. 405 and the _canonization_ of the two others. See also No.
440, which shows that there was something amiss with Haslinger.]

429.

TO HIS NEPHEW.

To-day is Friday, to-morrow Saturday.

Here comes _Satanas_. To-day her raging fury and madness have somewhat
subsided, but if she applies to you, refer her to me the day after
to-morrow. During the whole week I was forced to submit and to suffer like
a saint. Avaunt! such dregs of the people! What a reproach to