any means. F. must lie just where the sun went down, over the
Mannhartsberg yonder; and, while it was sinking here, it still continued
shining with you for over half an hour. It is terribly far. How
different it was with you here my heart, and with Salzburg and Meran in
prospect; I have grown terribly old since then. * * * It is very cruel
that we must spend such a long period of our brief life apart; that time
is lost, then, and cannot be brought back. God alone knows why He allows
others to remain together who are quite at their ease when apart; like
an aged friend of mine, who travelled with me as far as Dresden had to
sit in the same compartment with his wife all the time, and could not
smoke; and we must always correspond at a great distance. We shall make
up for it all, and love each other a great deal more when we are again
together; if only we keep well! Then I shall not murmur. Today I had the
great pleasure of receiving, _via_ Berlin, your letter of last Thursday;
that is the second one since I left Frankfort; surely none is lost? I
was very happy and thankful that all of you are well. * * * As soon as I
find myself once more on the old, tiresome Thuringian railroad I shall
be out of myself, and still more so when I catch a glimpse of our light
from Bockenheim; I must travel about nine hundred miles thither, not
including two hundred and fifty miles from Pesth back to this place. How
gladly I shall undertake them, once I am seated in the train! I shall
probably abandon my trip by way of Munich; from this place to M. is a
post-trip of fifty hours; by water still longer; and I shall have to
render a verbal report in Berlin, anyway. About politics I can,
fortunately, write nothing; for, even if the English courier who takes
this to Berlin is a safeguard against our post-office, the Taxis
scoundrels will, nevertheless, get hold of it.

Be sure to write me detailed information as to your personal
condition. Greet mother, our relations, if they are still there,