you the causes of this a thousand times. That desire is founded in the character of the king and queen, and the relations in which they have always lived. All your complaints are based on the passion which possesses me at times when at the card table. In other respects, however, I am not aware that I have ever offended against the rules of good behaviour. Your caprice alone has detected such failings in me. If I have insulted you, it occurred through carelessness, and I beg your pardon for it. I will, in future, be more attentive to myself, for it would grieve me were I to offend on this head, though I must confess that I am not happy in the matter of small attentions. As a compensation for this, I may be allowed to boast that I have never neglected any opportunity to please my friends that presented itself to me. Up to the present I was not aware either that persons had found your intercourse with me blamable, and that you ran a risk of injuring your character by it. Such an expression ought never to have passed the lips of a man who boasts of his susceptibility and fine feeling. It is hard to hear such things from a friend, although it has not insulted me; for I do not regulate my respect for others on the opinion of strangers; and I do not remember a single moment when you had cause to be ashamed of my acquaintance. And then, too, what would have become of you if I had followed the advice of my friends? You accuse me of despotism? Well, if I am a despot in business, your despotism goes much further, for you wish to rule the taste at the theatres, and that of dress, balls, and parties. Loo is the only game that amuses the king; the queen, too, is fond of it, and neither cares for any other game, for I have often proposed it to no effect. That you and the Holstein lose at it, and that they refuse at once to begin another game, is sufficient to set you in a fury. In order to gain access to Frau von Moltke, I lost from 20 to 30 dollars nearly every evening, at a time when I had only a salary of 1,000 dollars. But I did not grumble at it, for I thought a man must regulate himself by the company he associates with. How many persons utterly ruin themselves at other places, in order to be able to live at court, and belong to the circles of the king and queen! The easy manner in which you obtained everything you desired, has led you to consider even those exalted personages as nobodies. My "delicate feeling" is not affected because you lose at play; for, in the first place, I do not always win; and, secondly, you are not without resources by which to recover your losses. However, these are but trifles when the point is to amuse the king and queen; but it is always a dangerous thing to undertake changes in their mode of life. After your return to court, you raised the stakes and bet heavily on the cards. I remember one evening when you won and I lost, but I did not, on that account, recommend more moderate stakes.