In the midst of these tortures an arrow struck me, in the shape of an anonymous letter, containing one brief line:  ’The princess is in need of help.’

I threw my books aside, and repaired to Count Fretzel’s chateau, from which, happily, my father was absent; but the countenance of the princess gave me no encouragement to dream I could be of help to her; yet a second unsigned note worded in a quaint blunt manner, insisted that it was to me she looked.  I chanced to hear the margravine, addressing Baroness Turckems, say:  ‘The princess’s betrothal,’ what further, escaped me.  Soon after, I heard that Prince Otto was a visitor at the lake-palace.  My unknown correspondent plied me a third time.

I pasted the scrap in my neglected book of notes and reflections, where it had ample space and about equal lucidity.  It drew me to the book, nearly driving me desperate; I was now credulous of anything, except that the princess cared for help from me.  I resolved to go home; I had no longer any zeal for study.  The desolation of the picture of England in my mind grew congenial.  It became imperative that I should go somewhere, for news arrived of my father’s approach with a French company of actors, and deafening entertainments were at hand.  On the whole, I thought it decent to finish my course at the University, if I had not quite lost the power of getting into the heart of books.  One who studies is not being a fool:  that is an established truth.  I thanked Dr. Julius for planting it among my recollections.  The bone and marrow of study form the surest antidote to the madness of that light gambler, the heart, and distasteful as books were, I had gained the habit of sitting down to them, which was as good as an instinct toward the right medicine, if it would but work.

On an afternoon of great heat I rode out for a gaze at the lake-palace, that I chose to fancy might be the last, foreseeing the possibility of one of my fits of movement coming on me before sunset.  My very pulses throbbed ‘away!’ Transferring the sense of overwhelming heat to my moral condition, I thought it the despair of silliness to stay baking in that stagnant place, where the sky did nothing but shine, gave nothing forth.  The sky was bronze, a vast furnace dome.  The folds of light and shadow everywhere were satin-rich; shadows perforce of blackness had light in them, and the light a sword-like sharpness over their edges.  It was inanimate radiance.  The laurels sparkled as with frost-points; the denser foliage dropped burning brown:  a sickly saint’s-ring was round the heads of the pines.  That afternoon the bee hummed of thunder, and refreshed the ear.

I pitied the horse I rode, and the dog at his heels, but for me the intensity was inspiriting.  Nothing lay in the light, I had the land to myself.  ‘What hurts me?’ I thought.  My physical pride was up, and I looked on the cattle in black corners of the fields, and here and there a man tumbled anyhow, a wreck of limbs, out of the insupportable glare, with an even glance.  Not an eye was lifted on me.