and, therefore,
continue writing. I feel as if mother were sitting beside me and
saying, "Tell my husband everything. The best remedy against fear is to
know the whole truth." But I must inform you about Martella.

"'_The next day_.--Last night, while I was writing the last sentence,
Wolfgang came. He informed me that he had told you all. I may then
speak of ourselves again.'

"Richard has written me: 'Remember that you once told me you would go
through the wide world with me. That may now come to pass. Through
varied labors which have given entire satisfaction, I have received an
offer of employment in the foreign service, and it may happen that we
shall have to begin our married life in the new world. I leave my quiet
study, or rather I shall not return to it. I may be able to influence
the living present, and you, my good and lovely wife, shall win
admiration and respect in the highest circles. I am proud to place you
in life's highest stations, and for this reason I joyfully surrender my
solitary, peaceful studies and long-cherished plans of scientific
investigation.'

"How I replied to Richard you will see by these lines, which I copy for
you without conventional modesty; they are from a second letter, in
answer to mine:

"'A thousand times, I kiss your hands and press you to my heart. You
are my good genius. Pardon every unpleasant thought which, in the
erring past, I may have harbored against you. Even then, despite
myself, my mother knew you better than I did; her blessing rests upon
your head. You have liberated me and brought me back to myself; I
receive all willingly from your hands.

"'How clever and how pointed are your accounts of the nothings of
diplomatic life which you noticed in Paris at the house of your
sister-in-law, the wife of our ambassador.

"'Pardon me that I was just a little jealous of the title of nobility,
and that I thought you might regret having to change it for a plain
civilian name. I thank you for scolding me so merrily about it; but I
reproach myself very seriously that I could entertain such a thought
for a single instant.

"'How much you are in the right! I dare not abandon my innermost
convictions. Your Christian admonition has gone right to my heart: yes,
I would have been doing violence to my soul.

"'Now all is bright and free within and around me. It is settled. I
shall keep on the straight line marked out for me; I am born and bred a
man of letters. _You_ see cl