"Before his departure, Weber regulated all his affairs in the most punctilious manner. The presentiment of the fast-approaching end rendered him doubly careful that all should be in order; and, in his last conferences with his legal friends, he was always anxious to insure the presence of his wife, whose strong practical good sense he knew. During these painful duties his personal appearance became so fearfully changed, that most of his friends began to fear he would no longer find strength sufficient for his journey. His form sank together: his voice was almost totally gone: his cough was incessant. "In the circle of intimates who still visited him at that tea-table, of which his wit, and pleasantry, and genial humour had so long made the charm, he would often murmur, with a faint smile, 'Don't take it ill, good people, if I drop asleep: indeed I cannot help it.' "And his head would fall upon his breast. His poor wife suffered cruel agonies: she could not but feel that he was really spending the small remaining breath of life for the sake of her and the children. She manoeuvred in secret to induce friends to persuade him that he ought to renounce his fearful journey, when all her own affectionate efforts to this intent had failed. But the response was ever the same sad one. "'Whether I undertake this journey, or no, it is all one! Within a year I am a dead man. But if I go, my children will have bread, when their father is gone: if I do not, want may stare them in the face. What is to be done?' On one occasion he added, 'I should like to come back once more and see my dear ones' faces again: and then, in God's name, let God's will be done! But to die there, it would be hard, very hard!' "The morning of the 7th of February had not yet dawned, after a night of bitter tears, when Weber's travelling-carriage drove up to his door. The time was come for the separation of the husband, who scarcely hoped to see his home again, from the loving wife, who felt that he was a dying man. Another tear upon the forehead of his sleeping children--another long lingering kiss--the suffering man dragged his swollen feet into the carriage, huddled feverishly in his furs--the door was closed--and he rolled away from home, on that cold winter's morning, sobbing till the shattered chest might almost burst at once. "Caroline rushed back to her room, and sank on her knees, with the cry: 'It is his coffin I have closed upon him!' "At the first post, Weber parted with his own coachman and his own horses. It was the last wrench from home and its remembrances. His voluminous correspondence with his wife was the only tie left to Weber; and nothing can be more touching than these letters, amounting in all to fifty-three, in which the sufferer was always trying to conceal, as far as he could, his sufferings; the anxious woman left behind, always repressing her own bitter anguish lest it should increase the other's sorrow."