abusing the weather we start off to another wood, while Ihle with a confidence that he assumes in the most natural manner praises its wealth in game, and there we play over the game again dal segno. So it goes on for three or four hours; father's, Ihle's, and Fingal's passion does not seem to cool for a moment. Besides that, we look at the orange house twice a day and the sheep once a day, observe the four thermometers in the room once every hour, set the weather-glass, and, since the weather has been fine, have set all the clocks by the sun and adjusted them so closely that the clock in the dining-room is the only one which ever gives a sound after the others have struck. Charles V. was a stupid fellow. You will understand that with so multifarious an occupation I have little time left to call on the clergymen; as they have no vote for the election it was quite impossible.
"The Elbe is full of ice, the wind E.S. E., the latest thermometer from Berlin shows 8 degrees, the barometer is rising and at 8.28. I tell you this as an example how in your letters you might write to father more the small events of your life; they amuse him immensely; tell him who has been to see you, whom you have been calling on, what you had for dinner, how the horses are, how the servants behave, if the doors creak and the windows are firm—in short, facts and events. Besides this, he does not like to be called papa, he dislikes the expression, Avis au lecteur."
On another occasion he says:
"Only with difficulty can I resist the temptation of filling a whole letter with agricultural lamentations over frosts, sick cattle, bad rape, bad roads, dead lambs, hungry sheep, want of straw, fodder, money, potatoes, and manure; outside Johann is persistently whistling a wretched
