one's own authority, using between-times all sorts of household
remedies, or remedies prescribed for others, I consider very bad and
wrong. Choose one of the local doctors in whom you have the most
confidence, but keep to him, too; do what he prescribes and nothing
else, nothing arbitrary; and, if you have not confidence in any of the
local men, we will both try to carry through the plan of bringing you
here, so that you may have thorough treatment under the direction of
Breiers, or some one else. The conduct of your parents in regard to
medical assistance, the obstinate refusal of your father, and, allied
to that, your mother's arbitrary changing and fixed prejudices, in
matters which neither of them understand, seem to me, between
ourselves, indefensible. He to whom God has intrusted a child, and an
only child at that, must employ for her preservation all the means
that God has made available, and not become careless of them through
fatalism or self-sufficiency. If writing tires you, ask your mother to
send us news. Moreover, it would seem to me very desirable if one of
your friends could be prevailed upon to go to you until you are
better. Whether a doctor can help you or not--forgive me, but you
cannot judge of that by your feelings. God's help is certainly
decisive, but it is just He who has given us medicine and physician
that, through them, His aid may reach us; and to decline it in this
form is to tempt Him, as though the sailor at sea should deprive
himself of a helmsman, with the idea that God alone can and will give
aid. If He does _not_ help us through the means He has placed within
our reach, then there is nothing left to do but to bow in silence
under His hand. If you should be able to come to Zimmerhausen after
Whitsuntide, please write to that effect beforehand if possible. If
your illness should become more serious, I shall certainly leave the
Landtag, and even if you are confined to your bed I shall be with you.
At such a moment I shall not let myself be restrained by such