people drew near to
me--people I did not know at all--and assured me that I had said
nothing but the truth, and that was the very thing that had so
incensed the people. But I must take the field now; it is ten o'clock.
Please ask your father to write immediately about your health. I
should so much like to hear the opinion of another person besides your
mother. I am all right--only much excited. Farewell, and God guard
you.

Yours altogether and forever, B.

Berlin, May 26, '47.

_Dearest_,-- * * * If I were only through with the Landtag and the
delivery of Kniephof, could embrace you in health, and retire with you
to a hunting-lodge in the heart of green forest and the mountains,
where I should see no human face but yours! That is my hourly dream;
the rattling wheel-work of political life is more obnoxious to my ears
every day.--Whether it is your absence, sickness, or my laziness, I
want to be alone with you in contemplative enthusiasm for nature. It
may be the spirit of contradiction, which always makes me long for
what I have not. And yet, I have you, you know, though not quite at
hand; and still I long for you. I proposed to your father that I
should go with him; we would immediately have our banns published and
be married, and both come here. An apartment for married people is
empty in this house, and here you could have had sensible physicians
and every mortal help. It seemed to him too unbecoming. To you, too?
It seems to me still the most sensible thing of all, if you are only
strong enough for the trip. If the Landtag should continue longer than
to the 6th of June--which I still hope it will not--let us look at the
plan more carefully. * * *

Your faithful B.

Schoenhausen, Friday, May 28, '47.

_My Poor Sick Kitten_,-- * * * In regard to your illness, your father's
letter has calmed my anxiety somewhat as to the danger, but yours was
so gloomy and depressed that it affected me decidedly. My dear heart,
such sadness as finds expression there is almost more than submission
to God's will: the latter cannot, in my opinion, be the cause of your
giving up the hope, I might say the wish, that you may be better,
physically, and experience God's blessing here on earth as long as may
be in accordance with His dispensation. You do not really mean it,
either--do you, now?--when, in a fit of melancholy, you say that
nothing whatever interests you genuinely, and you neither grieve nor
rejoice. That smacks of B