at I am
drawing a good deal, and that I know Greek (two wonderful things for
this part of the country), he came to see me, and displayed his whole
store of learning, from Batteaux to Wood, from De Piles to Winkelmann:
he assured me he had read through the first part of Sultzer's theory,
and also possessed a manuscript of Heyne's work on the study of the
antique. I allowed it all to pass.

I have become acquainted, also, with a very worthy person, the district
judge, a frank and open-hearted man. I am told it is a most delightful
thing to see him in the midst of his children, of whom he has nine. His
eldest daughter especially is highly spoken of. He has invited me to go
and see him, and I intend to do so on the first opportunity. He lives
at one of the royal hunting-lodges, which can be reached from here in an
hour and a half by walking, and which he obtained leave to inhabit after
the loss of his wife, as it is so painful to him to reside in town and
at the court.

There have also come in my way a few other originals of a questionable
sort, who are in all respects undesirable, and most intolerable in their
demonstration of friendship. Good-bye. This letter will please you: it
is quite historical.

MAY 22.

That the life of man is but a dream, many a man has surmised heretofore;
and I, too, am everywhere pursued by this feeling. When I consider
the narrow limits within which our active and inquiring faculties are
confined; when I see how all our energies are wasted in providing for
mere necessities, which again have no further end than to prolong
a wretched existence; and then that all our satisfaction concerning
certain subjects of investigation ends in nothing better than a passive
resignation, whilst we amuse ourselves painting our prison-walls with
bright figures and brilliant landscapes,--when I consider all this,
Wilhelm, I am silent. I examine my own being, and find there a world,
but a world rather of imagination and dim desires, than of distinctness
and living power. Then everything swims before my senses, and I smile
and dream while pursuing my way through the world.

All learned professors and doctors are agreed that children do not
comprehend the cause of their desires; but that the grown-up should
wander about this earth like children, without knowing whence they come,
or whither they go, influenced as little by fixed motives, but guided
like them by biscuits, sugar-plums, and the rod,--this is what n