“Dear Busch,--I need not tell you how heartily I sympathise with you. I now write to put your mind at rest on one point, to tell you that you have missed nothing here, and will not miss anything during the next few weeks. I have had five or six thousand letters, extending from the fifties to the present day, to arrange in chronological order. They were all mixed up anyhow, both as regards dates and matter. They contain little on politics, and of that little again but a small portion refers to foreign affairs. He was not prepared to accept my suggestion that it would be well to put the begging letters, medical counsels, schemes for the improvement of the world at large, thundering hurrahs and fiery ‘salamanders’ into the fire. Therefore, when the preliminary work begins you will have to wander through a desert from which I have only removed tradesmen’s bills, &c. It is as yet impossible to say when that will be. He complains, with that humorous self-mocking air of desperation which you know, that he has now no time to set about anything. His excuse for the present is that of course the whole material must first be chronologically arranged, which will doubtless take a fortnight longer, although I am keeping hard at it. And then he will certainly be obliged to make some change in his way of living and in the apportionment of his time. The projected journeys will hardly come to anything; but even if he remains here he will not begin work before you are recovered--according to what F. H. (Frau Hämmerling) writes me. There is no idea of calling in Poschinger. He knows that the man is incapable of giving shape or form to anything of the kind. “He himself and Herbert desire me to express their sympathy to you. With good wishes for your improvement, “Truly yours (in English), “Bucher.”