noble heart inflames when
sympathy and humanity appeal to it; I know how strong your
courage is to undertake a noble action, and how warm your
zeal to finish it. My new friends in Mannheim, whose respect
for you is boundless, told me this: but their assurance was
not necessary; I myself in that hour of your time, which I
had the happiness exclusively to enjoy, read in your
countenance far more than they had told me. It is this which
makes me bold to _give_ myself without reserve to you, to
put my whole fate into your hands, and look to you for the
happiness of my life. As yet I am little or nothing. In this
Arctic Zone of taste, I shall never grow to anything, unless
happier stars and a _Grecian climate_ warm me into genuine
poetry. Need I say more, to expect from Dalberg all support?

'Your Excellency gave me every hope to this effect; the
squeeze of the hand that sealed your promise, I shall
forever feel. If your Excellency will adopt the two or three
hints I have subjoined, and use them in a letter to the
Duke, I have no very great misgivings as to the result.

'And now with a burning heart, I repeat the request, the
soul of all this letter. Could you look into the interior of
my soul, could you see what feelings agitate it, could I
paint to you in proper colours how my spirit strains against
the grievances of my condition, you would not, I know you
would not, delay one hour the aid which an application from
you to the Duke might procure me.

'Again I throw myself into your arms, and wish nothing more
than soon, very soon, to have it in my power to show by
personal exertions in your service, the reverence with which
I could devote to you myself and all that I am.'

The 'hints' above alluded to, are given in a separate enclosure, the
main part of which is this:

'I earnestly desire that you could secure my union with the
Mannheim Theatre for a specified period (which at your
request might be lengthened), at the end of which I might
again belong to the Duke. It will thus have the air rather
of an excursion than a final abdication of my country, and
will not strike them so ungraciously. In this case, however,
it would be useful to suggest that means of practising and
studying medicine might be afforded me at Mannheim. This