In the holidays, fearing to burden his parents with any additional
expense, he will not go home, and prefers to make a walking tour with his
friends. No doubt this tour, in addition to its recreative side, had a
political aim. Be that as it may, Sand's diary, during the period of his
journey, shows nothing but the names of the towns through which he
passed. That we may have a notion of Sand's dutifulness to his parents,
it should be said that he did not set out until he had obtained his
mother's permission. On their return, Sand, Dittmar, and their friends
the Burschen, found their Ruttli sacked by their enemies of the
Landmannschaft; the house that they had built was demolished and its
fragments dispersed. Sand took this event for an omen, and was greatly
depressed by it.

"It seems to me, O my God!" he says in his journal, "that everything
swims and turns around me. My soul grows darker and darker; my moral
strength grows less instead of greater; I work and cannot achieve; walk
towards my aim and do not reach it; exhaust myself, and do nothing great.
The days of life flee one after another; cares and uneasiness increase; I
see no haven anywhere for our sacred German cause. The end will be that
we shall fall, for I myself waver. O Lord and Father! protect me, save
me, and lead me to that land from which we are for ever driven back by
the indifference of wavering spirits."

About this time a terrible event struck Sand to the heart; his friend
Dittmar was drowned. This is what he wrote in his diary on the very
morning of the occurrence:

"Oh, almighty God! What is going to become of me? For the last
fortnight I have been drawn into disorder, and have not been able to