I beg you not to consider this as the roof of my life-building; it is to be only a merry green bough which I would set up.
[Eric to Weidmann.]
This letter goes only three days before us to Europe, to the Rhine.
I am coming home.
Deliver the enclosed legal document to the proper authorities.
I herein declare that only a life interest is retained in Villa Eden for myself and Manna, my wife. I herein declare the house, the garden, the park, as described in the Registry office, and a sufficient sum, hereafter to be determined, irrevocably assigned for the maintenance of deserving scientific men and artists.
My friend and teacher, Professor Einsiedel, is commissioned to draw up the rules regulating the admission and the mode of life of those who are to be inmates of Villa Eden.
My wish is, that there should be a peaceful refuge for deserving intellectual labor, a home for voluntary work, in VILLA EDEN, THE COUNTRY HOUSE ON THE RHINE.
(P.S.) I have promised Roland, if I live until the year 1887, to come back here to celebrate the hundredth birthday of the American Republic. Then will we see and compare what each of us has accomplished in his father-land and for his fellow-men.