You will have to make new applications of your astronomical knowledge to new conditions in America.
[Lina to Manna.]
To-morrow I give my first large coffee-party; look upon me with respect. I spread fine damask table-cloths, and have my own gilt-edged cups. Ah, why can you not be here? People say that my voice is much stronger now that I am a mother. O Manna, the most beautiful song is that which one sings to her child. I hope it won't be long before you know it.
Pranken and his wife have come back, but they are not to remain with us. He is to be ambassador somewhere on the Lower Danube, near Turkey; I don't know the name of the country.
I have thought of a beautiful plan for you. When you come home, you must establish a special singing-club of all the matrons and maidens in the neighborhood, and we'll sing in your garden, and in the beautiful music-room, and in the pretty boats on the river, and on the flat-roofs, and everywhere. Ah, that will be life! If to-morrow were only here!
[Einsiedel to Eric.]
Elevating thoughts are in these papers which your father left behind him. It is much to be regretted that one of them has not been given to the world before this. He foresaw this war in America quite clearly. Connected and logical thought is a kind of prophecy. I shall publish the sheets with my positive assurance that they were written by a noble recluse many years before the events foretold.
[Weidmann to Eric.]
We are in the midst of all sorts of work. You wanderers took much of our peace away with you, but now all is in its habitual order again.
Thank you, dear Dournay, for your letter. My nephew always sends me the newspapers regularly. Do not allow yourself to be distracted by thoughts of Europe, and by too great a variety of interests; you are stationed at a post where you must keep only the next duty before your eyes. Forgive me for permitting myself to admonish you thus. It was high time that this disgrace should be wiped out from the consciousness of our age, for it had begun to appear that long habit was weakening the keen and bitter sense of its sin and shame.