“_January, 1862._--Yesterday he thought he was dying, and took leave of us all, but when he saw mamma’s tears, he again found strength to comfort her. The night that followed was a dreadful one; the sensation of suffocation so intense that, exhausted as he was, he sometimes stood upright in bed in the effort to breathe.... And through it all his patience and resignation are inexhaustible, and his affection for mamma and each one of us seems only to grow stronger.... The fits of pain are now so frequent, even mamma no longer keeps count of them. Last night she had to give him twenty-one drops of laudanum.... We pray that the end may be near. To-day his eyes are quite dim, and he can only bear that we speak in whispers.... But his first thought is still for mamma, and he says she is much more to be pitied than he.... It was her birthday yesterday, and Otto was in a great state of excitement. He gave her a flower-stand and a little casket, which he had himself designed. One could see the efforts he made to appear cheerful, whilst hardly for one moment free from pain. (He gave orders at the time for another present, for a surprise to his mother on her next birthday. She received it eleven months after his death!).... “_February._--His strength seems to be ebbing.... His one prayer is that he may die in full consciousness. Another respite.... Then a new and worse pain. The poor child is being slowly tortured to death.... Sometimes, in his agony, cries of despair are forced from him, and then again he can talk with the utmost composure of the blessedness awaiting him when the last struggle is over.... We had a visit from Professor Perthes, who sat for some hours in Otto’s room, talking to him and Uncle Nicholas. The Professor was so much struck by the invalid’s keen interest in the subject being discussed, and his clear-headed practical suggestions, that he exclaimed on coming away from him:--“That boy is not going to die yet;--he thinks and feels like a grown-up man!” But a little later, after witnessing one of the cruel paroxysms of pain, our friend also was convinced that this matured intelligence he had just been admiring, only betokened that the soul, purified and ennobled by suffering, was already ripe for a better world.... The weakness increased. All day yesterday and all night long, he lay with his hands clasped in prayer, murmuring feebly:--“When will the hour of release come? when will the Angel of Peace appear, to bear me away?” His piety and resignation never fail him for one moment.... His hands are cold as ice, his brow like marble, his eyes sunken, but still bright with intelligence.... One evening he complained that he could no longer rightly distinguish our faces. Over his poor little wasted face the shadow of death is already creeping, but he is strangely beautiful with it.... Yesterday, Monday, as we sat as usual round him, he slowly stretched out his poor feeble arms, exclaiming joyfully:--“Well, then,