I have not lately told you that I know and prize your husband’s works also—especially the fresh, thrilling tales in _Die Kinder des Kaukasus_. Those wonderfully beautiful descriptions of nature have constantly brought before my eyes your own idyllic life there. It must be splendid to live in such a lovely land when you have the genuine, inspired feeling for such beauty. In fact, I think often of your life, your habits, your environment; just because you are both such talented people you must get double the enjoyment out of everything. Only I had always imagined that you lived in beautiful, gay Vienna; so I was greatly astonished that you were in the country. I was obliged to overturn your whole surroundings,—that is, as they existed in my imagination,—and conjure up a quite different frame for the picture of your life. In doing this I was helped by your _Einsam und arm_; that must have been written at Castle Harmannsdorf. I should so like to know whether you took for Karl Binsemann a model out of real life. This interested me so very much because generally in real life it is just the opposite: As a rule a man who is in unfortunate circumstances is a reformer in his youth; it is then he has the genuine sacred fire for righteousness. By the time he reaches old age he becomes weary, indifferent, and selfish, by reason of cares or the eternal monotony of his days. Then he says to himself, “What is the use of puzzling one’s brains over insoluble enigmas, what is the good of becoming indignant over injustice—it does not prevent it!” Of course I am speaking of men of the same rank in life and the same grade of culture as a Binsemann. If this figure were taken from life, or at least suggested by a prototype, it would make the book much dearer to me, because I have always believed that it is not in accordance with life for any one to be thoughtless of such things in his youth, and in old age to begin, for the first time, to think rightly. The descriptions are so true to reality, and everything is so vivid, that one cannot help feeling, just as in reading _Die Waffen nieder_, that they must be taken directly from life. My father-in-law was greatly delighted to hear from you again. All the cordial greetings from yourself and your husband are most cordially reciprocated. In the hope of being able to carry out your commission successfully, I am Yours with deepest respect Marie Büchner