'Vous avez sans doute cuit toutes sortes de bouillons amers, ainsi que moi.' Nevertheless I rose in better health and spirits than yesterday, and immediately set to work making all the little arrangements necessary at the beginning of a long journey. In the evening I felt extremely depressed, and as I dreaded an attack of my nervous hypochondriacal disorder, which you christened my 'maladie imaginaire,' I sent for Hofrath (Court-counsellor) W----, the favourite physician of the strangers who pass through Dresden, because, independently of his skill, he is an amusing and merry companion. You know the use I make of physicians. Nobody can be of a more homoeopathic nature than I am; for the mere conversing with a medical man on my complaint and its remedies, generally half cures me; and if I take any of his prescriptions, it is only in thousandth parts. This was the case to-day; and after some hours, which W---- passed by my bedside, and seasoned with many a piquant anecdote, I supped with better appetite, and slept tolerably till morning. On opening my eyes, they lighted on a letter from you, which the honest B---- had laid upon my bed, well knowing that I could not begin the day so joyfully. Indeed, after the pleasure of hearing from you, I have only one other--that of writing to you. Do but continue thus unrestrainedly to give utterance to all your feelings, and fear not to wound mine. I well know that your letters must long resemble a sad and dreary landscape. I shall be tranquil, if I do but see an occasional gleam of sunlight throw its rays across it. _Leipsig, Sept. 11th._ In a very pretty room, with well waxed parquet, elegant furniture, and silken curtains, all in their first 'fraicheur,' the waiter is now laying the table for my dinner, while I employ these few minutes in writing to you. I left Dresden at ten o'clock this morning, in tolerably good spirits,--that is, painting fancy pictures for the future. But my lingering regrets at leaving you, dear Julia, and the comparison of my insipid and joyless solitude with the exquisite pleasure I should have had in taking this journey under more happy circumstances, with you, fell heavily upon my heart. Of the road hither, there is not much to be said; it is not romantic,--not even the vineyards, which extend to Meissen, and which present to the eye more sand than verdure. Yet the country, though too open, sometimes excites agreeable feelings by its freshness and fertility: this is the case at Oschatz, where the pretty bushy Culmberg looks down upon the plain, like the rich-locked head of youth. The 'chaussée' is good, and it appears that the post is improving even in Saxony, since the excellent Nagler created a new post-era in Prussia. Nothing amuses me more than the energetic zeal with which B---- drives on the willing as well as the phlegmatic: he behaves to them as if he had already made the tour of the globe with me, and had--of course--found things better everywhere than at home.