11 P.M. Decidedly the Jew rises in my estimation. He treated us in the German fashion to a veal cutlet and a glass of beer which we paid for ourselves. His boon companions were apparently Christians of a half-baked sort. One who sat next to me was half drunk [and] insisted on talking the most hideous English. T. S. P., who necessarily took small part in the conversation, endeavored to explain to Selberg that he was a "skeleton at the banquet," but could not get through. I came to his assistance, but forgot, of course, the word "Skelett," and found nothing better to say than that he was a _vertebral column_ at their banquet, which classical allusion I do not think was understood by the Jew. The young men did not behave with the politeness and attention to us which would have been shown to two Germans by a similar crowd at home. Selberg himself however improved every minute, and I have no doubt will turn out a capital fellow. Excuse these scraps of paper, W. J. Good night. _To his Sister._ BERLIN, _Nov. 19, 1867_. SÜSS BALCHEN!--I stump wearily up the three flights of stairs after my dinner to this lone room where no human company but a ghastly lithograph of Johannes Müller and a grinning skull are to cheer me. Out in the street the slaw and fine rain is falling as if it would never stop--the sky is low and murky, and the streets filled with water and that finely worked-up paste of mud which never is seen on our continent. For some time past I have thought with longing of the brightness and freshness of my home in New England--of the extraordinary, and in ordinary moments little appreciated, but sometimes-coming-across-you-and-striking-you-with-an-unexpected-sense-of-rich-privilege blessings of a mother's love (excuse my somewhat German style)--of the advantage of having a youthful-hearted though bald-headed father who looks at the Kosmos as if it had some life in it--of the delicious and respectable meals in the family circle with the aforesaid father telling touching horse-car anecdotes,[40] and the serene Harry dealing his snubs around--with a clean female handmaiden to wait, and an open fire to toast one's self at afterwards instead of one of these pallid porcelain monuments here,--with a whole country around you full of friends and acquaintances in whose company you can refresh your social nature, a library of books in the house and a still bigger one over the way,--and all the rest of it. The longer I live, the more inclined am I to value the domestic affections and to be satisfied with the domestic and citizenly virtues (probably only for the reason that I am temporarily debarred from exercising any of them, I blush to think). At any rate I feel _now_ and _here_ the absence of any object with which to start up some sympathy, and the feeling is real and unpleasant while it lasts.