ell
otherwise, physically, and of good courage? Give me a bulletin of your
condition, your appetite, your sleep. I am surprised also that Hedwig
Dewitz has written to you--such a heterogeneous nature, that can have
so little in common with you. She was educated with my sister for
several years in Kniephof, although she was four or five years the
elder of the two. Either she loves you--which I should find quite easy
to explain--or has other prosaic intentions. I fancy that she, as is
quite natural, does not feel at home in her father's house; she has,
therefore, always made her home with others for long periods and with
satisfaction.

In your letter which lies before me I come upon "self-control" again.
That is a fine acquisition for one who may profit by it, but surely to
be distinguished from compulsion. It is praiseworthy and amiable to
wean one's self from tasteless or provoking outbursts of feeling, or
to give to them a more ingratiating form; but I call it
self-constraint--which makes one sick at heart--when one stifles his
own feelings in himself. In social intercourse one may practise it,
but not we two between ourselves. If there be tares in the field of
our heart, we will mutually exert ourselves so to dispose of them that
their seed cannot spring up; but, if it does, we will openly pull it
up, but not cover it artificially with straw and hide it--that harms
the wheat and does not injure the tares. Your thought was, I take it,
to pull them up unaided, without paining me by the sight of them; but
let us be in this also one heart and one flesh, even if your little
thistles sometimes prick my fingers. Do not turn your back on them nor
conceal them from me. You will not always take pleasure in my big
thorns, either--so big that I cannot hide them; and we must pull at
them both together, even though our hands bleed. Moreover, thorns
sometimes bear very lovely flowers, and if yours bear roses we may
perhaps let them alone sometimes. "The best is foe to the good"--in
general, a very true saying; so do not have too many misgivings about
all your tares, which I have not yet discovered, and leave at least a
sample of them for me. With this exhortation, so full of unction, I
will go to sleep, although it has just struck ten, for last night
there was little of it; the unaccustomed physical exercise has used me
up a bit, and tomorrow I am to be in the saddle again before daylight.
Very, very tired am I, like a child.