"Other thoughts, too, assail me, and sometimes make me uneasy. 'Do I fully feel....' No, 'Shall I continue fully to feel the immense importance to me of the three or four years now before me? feel that they will be the corner-stone of my career, for good or for evil? Shall I have the energy to carry out all my resolutions? Shall I fulfil what I have promised?'... Then I think of Steinle, and I feel reassured.
Pebble II.
"Let me come to the point, to the description of my journey; but before I begin, let me remember that, whilst of all my friends and companions only three were present at my departure,—one of them was there in order to give me a commission, and another to acknowledge a service,—old General Bentinck did not think it too great an exertion to see off, at eight in the morning, one, three times younger than himself.
Middelburgh, August 11.
"My first day's journey took me to Middelburgh, along the Bergstrasse, which we all know, and of which I therefore say nothing, and yet I enjoyed it more than I ever had done before; it was one of those cool, clear, opalescent mornings, in which all nature looks as if it was teeming with health and freshness; there was something exhilarating, too, in the atmosphere, which very much increased my enjoyment; I looked upon familiar scenes, but I saw them in a new light; it seemed to me as if I was reading nature in a new book.
Stift Neuburg.
"On arriving at Heidelberg, I hurried at once, by appointment with Steinle, to a place in the neighbourhood called 'Stift Neuburg,' the property and residence of Frau Rath Schlosser, the widow of his old and intimate friend, Rath Schlosser.
I enjoy myself.
Heilbronn, August 12.