which in fact he always wore, and you declared “he would be a lucky fellow if his soul were half as immortal as his kurtka!” So little did you value him. I loved him, I repeat; and to this Schlemihl, whom I had not seen for many a year, we owe the following sheets. To you, Edward, to you only, my nearest, dearest friend—my better self, from whom I can hide no secret,—to you I commit them; to you only, and of course to Fouqué, who, like yourself, is rooted in my soul—but to him as a friend alone, and not as a poet. You can easily imagine, how unpleasant it would be to me, if the secret reposed by an honourable man, confiding in my esteem and sincerity, should be exposed in the pillory of an

    épopée

   , or in any way distorted, as if some miserable witling had engendered unnatural and impossible things. Indeed, I must frankly own it is a very shame that a history, which another and cleverer hand might have exhibited in all its comic force, has been reduced to mere insipidity

   by our good man’s pen. What would not John Paul Richter have made of it! In a word, my dear friend, many who are yet alive may be named, but—

   One word more on the way in which these leaves came into my hands. Yesterday morning early—as soon as I was up—they were presented to me. A strange man with a long grey beard, wearing a black, worn-out kurtka, with a botanical case suspended at his side, and slippers over his boots, on account of the damp rainy weather, inquired after me, and left these papers behind him. He pretended he came from Berlin.

    Adelbert von Chamisso

   .

    Kunersdorf

   , 27

    Sept.

   , 1813.

   At last, after a fortunate, but to me most tedious passage, we reached our destined haven. As soon as the boat had landed me on the shore, I loaded myself with my little possessions, and forcing my way through the swarming crowd, entered the first and meanest house distinguished by a sign-board. I ordered a chamber; the waiter measured me with a glance, and sent me up to the garret.

   I ordered fresh water, and inquired for the abode of Mr. Thomas Jones. “Near the North gate, the first country house on the right-hand side; a 

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