I was struck by a small, beautifully-formed greyhound, which was built up in a cellar, and was found, after the lapse of many years, perfectly dried. He looked as if carved out of gray sandstone, and presented an affecting image of resignation,--rolled up as if in sleep, and with such a mournful expression of his little head, that one could not look at it without pity. A cat, starved and dried in the same manner, looking on the contrary savage and fiendish. Thus, thought I, is gentleness beautiful even in suffering! It was a picture of the good and the wicked in a like situation; and yet how different the effects! I must mention the skeleton of the Frenchman who was exhibited here as 'the living skeleton,' his bones being really covered with little more than skin. His stomach was smaller than that of a new-born child; and the unhappy creature was condemned to a prolonged starvation, for he could not eat more than half a cup of broth a-day. He was twenty years old,--died in London, and sold himself, while yet alive, to the museum. As I was driving home, I had taken a quantity of small money in change at the turnpikes, and I amused myself in an odd humour by letting a penny fall quietly out of the carriage every time I saw a poor, ragged person. Not one of them perceived it; all passed over it. And just so does Fortune with us! She drives continually through the world in her chariot, and throws out her gifts blindfold. How seldom do any of us see them, or stoop to pick them up! We are generally seeking elsewhere at the lucky moment. On my return home, I found a real gift of fate, and a very precious one,--a long letter from you * * * Herr von S----, whom you mention as one of the recent arrivals at the baths, is an old acquaintance of mine, a strange original whom we all liked, and yet could not resist making a butt of, and who was continually meeting with adventures the most ludicrous and the most serious. You have seen what a caricature he looks, and that he is of all men the least formed to be a man 'à bonnes fortunes.' When a young lieutenant, however, he was madly in love with one of the most beautiful women of her time, Baroness B----; and one evening, on her torturing him to the utmost by some biting jest, he ran a sword through his body before her eyes. The weapon went through his lungs, so that a candle held to the wound was blown out. Nevertheless our tragic madman was cured, and Frau von B---- was so touched by this proof of passion, that she became less cruel to so desperate a lover. * * * _Salthill, August 25th._