considered it worth while and
was interested in the subject, could carry his listeners resistlessly
with him. Then his talk sparkled with clever, vivid, striking, peculiar
metaphors, and when one brilliant description of remarkable experiences
and scenes followed another he swiftly won the hearts of the women
who had overlooked him, and it seemed to the men as if some fiend were
aiding him.

During the first years of my convalescence I could enjoy nothing save
what came or was brought to me. But the cheerful patience with which I
appeared to bear my sufferings, perhaps also the gratitude and eagerness
with which I received everything, attracted most of the men and women
for whom I really cared.

If there was an entertaining conversation, arrangements were always made
that I should enjoy it, at least as a listener. The affection of these
kind people never wearied in lightening the burden which had been laid
upon me. So, during this whole sad period I was rarely utterly wretched,
often joyous and happy, though sometimes the victim to the keenest
spiritual anguish.

During the hours of rest which must follow labour, and when tortured at
night by the various painful feelings and conditions connected even
with convalescence from disease, my restrictions rose before me as
a specially heavy misfortune. My whole being rebelled against my
sufferings, and--why should I conceal it?--burning tears drenched my
pillows after many a happy day. At the time I was obliged to part from
Nenny this often happened. Goethe's "He who never mournful nights" I
learned to understand in the years when the beaker of life foams most
impetuously for others. But I had learned from my mother to bear my
sorest griefs alone, and my natural cheerfulness aided me to win the
victory in the strife against the powers of melancholy. I found it most
easy to master every painful emotion by recalling the many things for
which I had cause to be grateful, and sometimes an hour of the fiercest
struggle and deepest grief closed with the conviction that I was more
blessed than many thousands of my fellow-mortals, and still a "favourite
of Fortune." The same feeling steeled my patience and helped to keep
hope green and sustain my pleasure in existence when, long after, a
return of the same disease, accompanied with severe suffering, which I
had been spared in youth, snatched me from earnest, beloved, and, I may
assume, successful labour.

The younger generation m