pen, and then rather devoured than read
it. I stayed a long time in my room, for I could not read over your
letter often enough, or kiss it often enough.

"Darling wife, I have a number of requests to make of you:

"1st. I beg you not to be melancholy. 2d. That you will take care of
yourself, and not expose yourself to the spring breezes. 3d. That you
will not go out to walk alone,--indeed, it would be better not to walk
at all. 4th. That you feel entirely assured of my love. I have not
written you a single letter without placing your dear portrait before
me. 5th. I beg you not only to be careful of your honour and mine in
your conduct, but to be equally guarded as to appearances. Do not be
angry at this request; indeed, it ought to make you love me still
better, from seeing the regard I have for my honour. 6th. Lastly, I wish
you would enter more into details in your letters. Now farewell, my best
beloved! Remember that every night before going to bed I converse with
your portrait for a good half-hour, and the same when I awake. O _stru!
stru!_ I kiss and embrace you 1,095,060,437,082 times (this will give
you a fine opportunity to exercise yourself in counting), and am ever
your most faithful husband and friend."

Some of his letters are apparently lost, for one dated May 23d gives a
list of the letters he had written to his wife--eleven in all (one of
them in French)--between April 8th and May 23d. He complains bitterly
that in this same time he had only six from her. There is worse news yet
to add, seeing how poor they were:

"My darling little wife, when I return, you must rejoice more in me than
in the money I bring. 100 Friedrichs-d'or don't make 900, but 700,
florins,--at least so I am told here. 2d. Lichnowsky being in haste left
me here, so I am obliged to pay my own board (in that expensive place,
Potsdam). 3d.----borrowed 100 florins from me, his purse being at so
low an ebb. I really could not refuse his request--you know why. 4th. My
concert at Leipzig turned out badly, as I always predicted it would; so
I went out of my way nearly a hundred miles almost for nothing. You must
be satisfied with me, and with hearing that I am so fortunate as to be
in favour with the king. What I have written to you must rest between
ourselves."

His disappointment at the meagre financial returns from his tour was
embittered by the serious illness of his Constanze and the drain upon
his sympathy, his time, and his money.