My dear Tom,--There 's an old Turkish proverb, to the effect that, whenever a man finds himself happy, he should immediately sit down and write word of it to his friends; for the great likelihood is, that if he loses a post, he 'll have to change his note. Depend upon it, the adage has some truth in it! If, for example, I 'd have finished and sent off a letter I began to you last Wednesday, I 'd have given you a very favorable account of myself and our prospects here. The place seemed very much what we were looking for,--a quiet little University town on the bank of this fine river,--snug and comfortable, and yet, at the same time, not shut in, but with glorious expansive views on every side; shady walks for noonday, and hill rambles for sunset; museums and collections for bad weather occupation, and that kind of simple, unostentatious living that bespeaks a community of small fortunes and as small ambitions. A quaint-looking, half-shy, half-defiant look in the faces showed that if not very great or very rich folk, they still had other and perhaps not less sterling claims to worldly reverence; and so they have too! There are some of the first men, not only in Germany but in Europe, here, living on the income of a London butler, and letting the "first floor furnished" to people like the Dodd family. It is a great privation to me that I don't speak German, for something tells me we should suit each other wonderfully! Don't mistake me, Tom, and fancy that I am saying this out of any conceit in my abilities, or any false notion of my education. I believe, in my heart, I have as little of one thing as the other; and the only wise thing my father ever did was to take me away from Dr. Bell's when I was thirteen, and when he saw that putting Latin and Greek into me was like sowing barley in a bog,--a waste of good seed in a soil not fit for it. But I 'll tell you why I think I 'd get on well with these Germans. They seem to be a kind of dreamy, thoughtful, imaginative creatures, that would relish the dry, commonplace thoughts, and hard, practical hints of a man like myself. I could n't discuss a classical subject with them, nor talk about the varieties of the Greek dialects; but I could converse pleasantly enough about the difference between the ancients and ourselves in points of government and on matters of social life. I know little of books, but I 've seen a good deal of men; and if it be objected that they were chiefly of my own country, I answer at once, that, however strongly impressed with his nationality, there's not a man in any country of Europe so versatile, so many-sided, and so difficult to understand, as Paddy. Don't be frightened, Tom; I 'm not going off into the "ethnologies," and not a word will you hear from me about the facial angle, or frontal development! I 'm not speaking of Pat as if he were a plaster cast to be measured with a rule and marked with a piece of charcoal; I 'm talking of him as he is, in a frieze coat or one of