You know how that brilliant, witty, true poet Heine, who was an atheist (as much as a man can pretend to be), has made a public profession of a change of opinion which was pathetic to my eyes and heart the other day as I read it.

He has joined no church, but simply (to use his own words) has 'returned home to God like the prodigal son after a long tending of the swine.' It is delightful to go home to God, even after a tending of the sheep.

Poor Heine has lived a sort of living death for years, quite deprived of his limbs, and suffering tortures to boot, I understand.

It is not because we are brought low that we must die, my dearest friend.

I hope--I do not say 'hope' for _you_ so much as for _me_ and for the many who hang their hearts on your life--I hope that you may survive all these terrible sufferings and weaknesses, and I take my comfort from your letter, from the firmness and beauty of the manuscript; I who know how weak hands will shudder and reel along the paper.