we likewise, very luckily for us, many a good meal gratis.

Feb. 21.--We went from Goblin to Pugnitz, three miles and a half.

Feb. 22.--Through Storchnest to Schmiegel, four miles.

Here happened a singular adventure. The peasants at this place were
dancing to a vile scraper on the violin: I took the instrument
myself, and played while they continued their hilarity. They were
much pleased with my playing: but when I was tired, and desired to
have done, they obliged me, first by importunities, and afterwards
by threats, to play on all night. I was so fatigued, I thought I
should have fainted; at length they quarrelled among themselves.
Schell was sleeping on a bench, and some of them fell upon his
wounded hand: he rose furious: I seized our arms, began to lay
about me, and while all was in confusion, we escaped, without
further ill-treatment.

What ample subject of meditation on the various turns of fate did
this night afford! But two years before I danced at Berlin with the
daughters and sisters of kings: and here was I, in a Polish hut, a
ragged, almost naked musician, playing for the sport of ignorant
rustics, whom I was at last obliged to fight.

I was myself the cause of the trifling misfortune that befell me on
this occasion. Had not my vanity led me to show these poor peasants
I was a musician, I might have slept in peace and safety. The same
vain desire of proving I knew more than other men, made me through
life the continued victim of envy and slander. Had nature, too,
bestowed on me a weaker or a deformed body, I had been less