'Stuttgard, 15th July 1782.
'My long silence must have almost drawn upon me the reproach of folly from your Excellency, especially as I have not only delayed answering your last kind letter, but also retained the two books by me. All this was occasioned by a harassing affair which I have had to do with here. Your Excellency will doubtless be surprised when you learn that, for my last journey to you, I have been confined a fortnight under arrest. Everything was punctually communicated to the Duke. On this matter I have had an interview with him.
'If your Excellency think my prospects of coming to you anywise attainable, my only prayer is to accelerate the fulfilment of them. The reason why I now wish this with double earnestness, is one which I dare trust no whisper of to paper. This alone I can declare for certain, that within a month or two, if I have not the happiness of being with you, there will remain no further hope of my ever being there. Ere that time, I shall be forced to take a step, which will render it impossible for me to stay at Mannheim.' * * *
The next two extracts are from letters to another correspondent. Doering quotes them without name or date: their purport sufficiently points out their place.
'I must haste to get away from this: in the end they might find me an apartment in the Hohenasperg, as they have found the honest and ill-fated Schubart. They talk of better culture that I need. It is possible enough, they might cultivate me differently in Hohenasperg: but I had rather try to make shift with what culture I have got, or may still get, by my unassisted efforts. This at least I owe to no one but my own free choice, and volition that disdains constraint.'
'In regard to those affairs, concerning which they wish to put my spirit under wardship, I have long reckoned my minority to be concluded. The best of it is, that one can cast away such clumsy manacles: me at least they shall not fetter.'
[No date.]