"Dearest Friend,--Laugh if you like. On reading your letter a second time--your letters are not, like most others, consigned to the waste-paper basket--I have even more strongly the same impression which the first perusal had given me; namely, that, possibly unknown to yourself, there is to be read between the lines of your letter a question, which can be answered only by omniscient Fate and by 'Yours Truly;' and which, seeing Fate is not altogether to be relied upon in this respect, Yours Truly has the honour and likewise the great pleasure of answering herewith. Reduced to its simplest formula, then, the question comes to this: May I marry? Seeing that you do not laugh, but, on the contrary, look extremely grave, I will not keep you needlessly on the tenter-hooks of expectation, but will reduce my reply, too, to the simplest form, viz.:--Yes, best of friends, you may marry, in spite of your late serious attack; nay, oddly enough, all the more because of it. For although even before your illness I had no doubt that your curiously powerful nature would for years continue to hold its own against the severe damage done (to deny or reason away the existence of which was unfortunately impossible), I now have hardly any misgiving in that respect. For your last illness was simply and solely a remarkably energetic attempt at self-help on the part of nature, and the attempt has all but succeeded. What remains to be done to complete the cure is but little, and that this little be done as swiftly and thoroughly as possible, you can yourself greatly help. How so? Well, by marrying! You, having always been over-conscientious and abnormally scrupulous, having ever lived but for ideal aims and for the benefit of other folk, should now at length begin to live for yourself, should now at length find that quiet happiness which you so richly deserve, and be happy in that happiness; though, to be sure, for the last condition more good sense is required than what the majority of mankind have been ready to employ. You, my good friend, have that amount of sense. _Ergo_--marry for goodness' sake, marry for your own good, marry for the good of those whom you love, and, lastly, marry with my full consent, without which I know you would not do it at all.