probity is well known, I thought of the death of Haman; and as soon as I laid eyes on Wadzeck, I was at once reminded of Cleopatra.  Ah, heaven! the poor creature is dead now; our tears are dry, and we may say of her with Hamlet, “Taken all in all, she was an old woman; we oft shall look upon her like again!” But, as I said, dates are necessary.  I know men who had nothing in their heads but a few dates, and with their aid knew where to find the right houses in Berlin, and are now already regular professors.  But oh, the trouble I had at school with the multitude of numbers; and as to actual arithmetic, that was even worse!  I understood best of all subtraction, and for this there is a very practical rule:  “Four can’t be taken from three, therefore I must borrow one”; but I advise all in such a case to borrow a few extra groschen, for no one can tell what may happen.

But oh, the Latin!  Madame, you can really have no idea of how complicated it is.  The Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin.  Lucky dogs! they already knew in their cradles which nouns have their accusative in im.  I, on the contrary, had to learn them by heart, in the sweat of my brow, but still it is well that I know them.  For if I, for example, when I publicly disputed in Latin in the College Hall of Goettingen, on the 20th of July, 1825—­Madame, it was well worth while to hear it—­if I on that occasion had said sinapem instead of sinapim, the blunder would have been evident to the Freshmen, and an endless shame for me. Vis, buris, sitis, tussis, cucumis, amussis, cannabis, sinapis—­these words, which have attracted so much attention in the world, effected this, inasmuch as they belonged to a distinct class, and yet withal remained an exception; therefore I highly respect them, and the fact that I have them ready at my fingers’ ends when I perhaps need them in a hurry, often affords me in life’s darkened hours much internal tranquillity and consolation.  But, Madame, the verba irregularia—­they are distinguished from the verbis regularibus by the fact that the boys in learning them got more whippings—­are terribly difficult.  In the musty archways of the Franciscan cloister near our schoolroom there hung a large Christ—­crucified of grey wood, a dismal image, that even yet at times rises in my dreams and gazes sorrowfully on me with fixed bleeding eyes.  Before this image I often stood and prayed, “Oh, Thou poor and also tormented God, I pray Thee, if it be possible, that I may get by heart the irregular verbs!”