“He didn’t give himself the title, and he is poor enough withal! and how hard it has fared with him! Even from childhood he has been well acquainted with poverty: his father was a poor minister in Haynichen, with thirteen children; Gellert, when quite a little fellow, was obliged to be a copying office-clerk: who can tell whether he didn’t then contract that physical weakness of his? And now that he’s an old man, things will never go better with him; he has often no wood, and must be pinched with cold. It is with him, perhaps, as with that student of whom your brother has told us, who is as poor as a rat, and yet must read; and so in winter he lies in bed with an empty stomach, until day is far advanced; and he has his book before him, and first he takes out one hand to hold his book, and then, when that is numb with cold, the other. Ah! tongue cannot tell how poorly the man must live; and yet your brother has told me, if he has but a few pounds, he doesn’t think at all of himself; he always looks out for one still poorer than he is, and then gives all away: and he’s always engaged in aiding and assisting others. Oh! dear, and yet he is so poor! May be at this moment he is hungry and cold; and he is said to be in ill-health, besides.” “Wife, I would willingly do the man a good turn if I could. If, now, he had some land, I could plough, and sow, and reap, and carry, and thresh by the week together for him. I should like to pay him attention in such a way that he might know there was at least one who cared for him. But his profession is one in which I can’t be of any use to him.” “Well, just seek him out and speak with him once; you are going to-day, you know, with your wood to Leipzig. Seek him out and thank him; that sort of thing does such a man’s heart good. Anybody can see him.” “Yes, yes; I should like much to see him, and hold out to him my hand,—but not empty: I wish I had something!” “Speak to your brother, and get him to give you a note to him.” “No, no; say nothing to my brother; but it might be possible for me to meet him in the street. Give me my Sunday coat; it will come to no harm under my cloak.” When his wife brought him the coat, she said: “If, now, Gellert had a wife, or a household of his own, one might send him something; but your brother says he is a bachelor, and lives quite alone.”