if he sometimes attended the lectures, they showed only how far he had fallen behind in the race of knowledge, and he hastened in vexation to the kneip, in order to drown in beer and play the upbraidings of his conscience. Thus he continued to live on for a long time; he returned to his room only to pass the night, even not that always. In the morning he fled from it as early as possible, because all there looked desolate. His books were at length sold, and by degrees he had disposed of every thing to the Jews, except the wretched clothes on his back, in order to feed his unhappy passion. Many a time would he fall into a horror, when he awoke out of a dream, which had carried him back into his early life, and saw around him that empty room, or when he received a letter from his affectionate mother, which was full of tender warnings,--from his mother, who denied herself even the most necessary things, that he might not want that money which he thus consumed on his ruinous habits. But these terrible reflections drove him only for a brief space out of his wild life, for he was already too deep sunk in it, and felt no longer the strength necessary to work himself out of the gulf. It was then that he one day received a letter addressed by a strange hand, and sealed with black. His mother was dead, and the letter was from his guardian. Far as Schwartzkopf was already fallen, yet this letter deeply shook him; it embittered the melancholy intelligence beyond words, since his guardian, a severe man, wrote him, that he had driven not a few nails into his mother's coffin; that he had wasted his property; that he should immediately return home, in order to be made acquainted with the real state of his affairs, which left him little other alternative than that of becoming a soldier in the ranks. His state of mind for the first few days was horrible, and he was at the very point of self-destruction; but this went by, and he concluded, after more quiet reflection, that it was the best to turn his footsteps homewards, in order, if possible, to move his guardian to more moderate measures, or, came it to the worst, to enlist into the army. His debts were paid, and he put up the slender remains of his possessions in his knapsack, with which, early one morning, he passed through the gate leading towards Frankfort.