Oh! if one were only a bird, a sunbeam, or a shooting-star, one might, if only for the twinkling of an eye, learn how matters go at home and fill the soul with fresh gratitude, or, if it must be--but I will not think of that.

In the valley of the Saale, the trees are blossoming and a thousand flowers deck all the meadows, just as they do here, and did there two years ago, when I left home for the second time.
"After my father's death I was the heir, but neither hunting nor riding to court, neither singing nor the clinking of beakers could please me.
I went about like a sleep-walker, and it seemed as if I had no right to live without my father.

Then--it is now just two years ago--a messenger brought from Weimar a letter which had come from Italy with several others, addressed to our most gracious sovereign; it contained the news that our lost brother was still alive, lying sick and wretched in the hospital at Bergamo.

A kind nun had written for him, and we now learned that on the journey from Valencia to Livorno Louis had been captured by corsairs and dragged to Tunis.

How much suffering he endured there, with what danger he at last succeeded in obtaining his liberty, you shall learn later.