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Vienna, August 16, 1873
Dear Friend,
I have been less punctual than usual this time, because I have saddled myself with activities that threaten to swallow up the whole day. It is with great admiration that you will hear I am learning
French in the morning and philosophy after lunch, both in Braun's1 company. But I have teamed up with a very lazy companion who always feigns fatigue whenever we come up against difficult problems, and on other occasions, by contrast, attempts to forge ahead with the most irrational dispatch. This explains why I have not had time to reply to you for four or five days, something that would horrify me were you to do it to me. In philosophy we are on a par, but the angelic (not the English)2 glances I confessed to yearning for I cannot obtain at home, as you suppose—one does not long for what one possesses but rather I yearn for them because I do not possess them. In worldly matters, you have gained an advantage over me. Your aunt seems to be a woman of great understanding. Now you can rightly say: “I, too, have been a shepherd in Arcadia,”3 as Schiller put it. Or, if you prefer to read it in another language, “anch' io sono pastore.”4 But I am no shepherd and have not been one all through the holidays, which is curiously noteworthy, yet it is worthy of your confidant.
I beg you to inform me μαλ'
5 whether, as I expect, the game of forfeits has been resumed, of which I have heard it said that you do not always get back what you have forfeited and that you receive a great deal that is not restored to its owners.
I believe that my mother will soon be leaving Roznau and I would like to know when your family will be doing likewise. The “Rivers”6 with the small brooks and the rest will arrive in Vienna in early September.
I have eaten the cypress samples you sent me with gratitude. They come from two species, but the difference between them is so small that you have to be a seasoned eater of leaves and branches like myself to detect it. If it is n