any, I received a friendly message
from the old poet, with a kind invitation to visit him. Late in November
I found him, apparently unchanged in body and spirit,--simple,
enthusiastic, and, in spite of his seclusion, awake to all the movements
of the world. One of his married sons was then visiting him, so that the
household was larger and livelier than usual; but, as he sat, during the
evening, in his favorite arm-chair, with pipe and beer, he fell into the
same brilliant, wise strain of talk, undisturbed by all the cheerful
young voices around him.

The conversation gradually wandered away from the Orient to the modern
languages of Europe. I remarked the special capacity of the German for
descriptions of forest scenery,--of the feeling and sentiment of deep,
dark woods, and woodland solitudes.

"May not that be," said he, "because the race lived for centuries in
forests? A language is always richest in its epithets for those things
with which the people who speak it are most familiar. Look at the many
terms for 'horse' and 'sword' in Arabic."

"But the old Britons lived also in forests," I suggested.

"I suspect," he answered, "while the English language was taking shape,
the people knew quite as much of the sea as of the woods. You ought,
therefore, to surpass us in describing coast and sea-scenery, winds and
storms, and the motion of waves."

The idea had not occurred to me before, but I found it to be correct.

Though not speaking English, Rueckert had a thorough critical knowledge
of the language, and a great admiration of its qualities. He admitted
that its chances for becoming the dominant tongue of the world were
greater than those of any other. Much that he said upon this subject
interested me greatly at the time, but the substance of it has escaped
me.

When I left, that evening, I looked upon his cheerful, faithful wife for
the last time. Five years elapsed before I visited Coburg again, and she
died in the interval. In the summer of 1861 I had an hour's conversation
with him, chiefly on American affairs, in which he expressed the keenest
interest. He had read much, and had a very correct understanding of the
nature of the struggle. He was buried in his studies, in a small house
outside of the village, where he spent half of every day alone, and
inaccessible to every one; but his youngest daughter ventured to summon
him away from his books.

Two years later (in June, 1863) I paid my last visit to Ne