In a friend’s letter of April, 1855, I find the following passage:--“Otto is really touching; all day yesterday, after the doctor had gone, he kept repeating--‘the good doctor says that if I ate no bread, I should have less pain; how kind of him, to think of what would be good for me!’--This is what he finds to say, instead of a word of complaint at being deprived of the food he likes best.” He very soon began to take the greatest pleasure in his lessons--history and botany above all. His tiny fingers were very skilful in arranging and pasting in an album the specimens of plants he collected. In this as in everything else his keen sense of order was shown; everything belonging to him had its right place, and was kept in perfect order. He was very fond of flowers, and they flourished under his care; the fuchsias that stood in his window were literally covered with blossoms. He began Greek when he was seven years old, and Latin the next year. Greek, however, always remained his favourite study, and he loved to recite verses in that language. One day a lady asked him to let her hear him say a Greek fable. “Why?” he asked rather drily. “You would not understand it if I did!” “That is quite true, but I like to hear the sound.” “Ah! that is another matter!” and he began reciting without more ado. In the autumn of the year 1858, we went for a little tour in Switzerland and Northern Italy. Otto’s delight at all the wonders he saw was unbounded, and his manner of expressing it caused general amazement. “That cannot be a child!” people said, when they heard him reciting verses of the “Diver” by the Falls of the Rhine, and again quoting appropriate lines of Gœthe and Bürger in the valley of the Rhine, at that moment still ravaged by recent floods. Everywhere guides and cicerones turned to him with their chief explanations, his eager questions and intelligent little face with the big bright eyes showing the deep interest he felt. In Milan his enthusiasm was aroused by the life of S. Charles Borromeo. Noticing this, the priest who was guiding us round the cathedral, and who could speak a little English, took Otto by the hand, and addressed all his remarks to him. Such examples of human grandeur always excited his passionate admiration, and it was his constant dream, one day to leave his mark in the world. On our return to Germany that same year, we spent a month at Freiburg, and it is from here that are dated some of my brother’s most characteristic letters, to a little friend of his own age--simple, childlike letters, by no means free from mistakes, but showing a most remarkable depth of thought and precocious intelligence on the part of a child who had not yet quite accomplished his eighth year.