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The Story of My Life — Volume 06 by Georg Ebers
page 61 of 76 (80%)
made them into beautiful bouquets, which Louis Gallait called "bewitching
flower madrigals."

Moritz Hartmann had not fully recovered from the severe illness which
nearly caused his death while he was a reporter in the Crimean War. His
father-in-law, Herr Rodiger, accompanied him and watched him with the
most touching solicitude. My mother soon became sincerely attached to
the author, who possessed every quality to win a woman's heart. He had
been considered the handsomest member of the Frankfort Parliament, and no
one could have helped gazing with pleasure at the faultless symmetry of
his features. He also possessed an unusually musical voice. Gallait
said that he first thought German a language pleasing to the ear when he
heard it from Hartmann's lips.

These qualities soon won the heart of Frau Puricelli, who had at first
been very averse to making his acquaintance. The devout, conservative
lady had heard enough of his religious and political views to consider
him detestable. But after Hartmann had talked and read aloud to her and
her daughter in his charming way, she said to me, "What vexes me is that
in my old age I can't help liking such a red Democrat."

During that summer was formed the bond of friendship which, to his life's
premature end, united me to Moritz Hartmann, and led to a correspondence
which afforded me the greater pleasure the more certain I became that he
understood me. We met again in Wildbad the second and third summers, and
with what pleasure I remember our conversations in the stillness of the
shady woods! But we also shared a noisy amusement, that of pistol
practice, to which we daily devoted an hour. I was obliged to fire from
a wheel-chair, yet, like Hartmann, I could boast of many a good shot;
but the skill of Herr Rodiger, the author's father-in-law, was really
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