[Bremen] Sept. 11 [1838]

Dear Marie,

“Hoping to receive another four-page letter from you, I remain,
etc.” Yes, you little goose, you shall have four pages but they are
according to the saying that with the same measure as you
measure will it be measured unto you,” and even that is too much
for you. For I manage to get as much on a small page like this as
you do on a big one, and I forbid such a waste of paper in future;
when Fatty writes so spread out, that’s a different matter. Do you
understand me, little Mamsell?—If you don’t go to Xanten this
year, you must say:

Console yourself with Job
And anoint the monk with syrup.

I can’t help it, they say here in Bremen. You can imagine to
yourselves that you have already been there, and don’t you, Marie,
know how Hermann? went on when he had a glass of wine? He
drank it very slowly so as to have the pleasure of it for a long
time. So you should say to yourselves: If we were at Xanten now,
we would not be able to be glad that we were still to go there, but
now we have a whole hopeful year ahead of us and we can be glad
to our fill. See, that’s the political way, Socrates and Eulenspiegel
would say just the same thing. Remember this for the future. You
see, I can lecture you just as well as you me. And when you write

* Cf. Matthew 7:2.— Ed.
> Hermann Engels.— Ed.

to me again, don’t begin every paragraph with “Just imagine”.
How did you get such a noble habit? How can you say “I don’t
know what else to write about” when you have not yet told me
what kind of school report you and Anna* have and who worked
out your programme this year. Fatty must also have cracked a joke
or two during the eight weeks I’ve been away, couldn’t you
perhaps have written to me about that? How much else may have
happened that I cannot know anything about? Tell me, what kind
of excuse is “I don’t know what else to write about”. I don’t know
what to write about either. When I begin a line, I don’t yet know
what to put in the following one, but something always comes to
me, and I hope that what I write to you will be useful and of no
little profit to you. But when you have filled two pages with lines
wide apart, you immediately think you have performed a colossal
Herculean labour, but what about me? When I have finished this
letter to you, I must still write three others and they must be ready
for posting tomorrow or the day after. And I have not much time
for the Panchita is being sent off to Havana this afternoon and so I
have to copy letters instead of writing some of my own. I am
expecting a letter from Striicker at midday today and then he’ll be
wanting an answer too, and I can’t write exactly the same thing to
one as I have written to the other. So, you see that it would be
right if you wrote me six pages and should not complain if I only
wrote you one-sixth of a page? However, this lecture is already as
long as your whole letter and so that you can see that I can also
write about other things I will now make so free as to tell you that
if I have brushes before this letter goes off, I will enclose a few
drawings of Bremen peasant fashions—- But now you are right, I
don’t know what else to write about, but I just want to see if I get
anything more to do. The four pages will be filled, and quite
honestly too. What is very unpleasant is that in the evenings the
city gates are closed when it gets dark and whoever wants to go
out or come in has to pay a toll and it now starts at seven o'clock,
when you have to pay two groats, and this increases as it gets later.
You pay three groats after nine and six groats at ten and twelve
groats at eleven. If you are on horseback you have to pay even
more. I too have had to pay toll once or twice — The Consul? is at
this moment talking to Herr Grave about the letters which have to
be written this afternoon. I am listening with the greatest excite-
ment like a rascal who sees the jury return and is waiting to hear

* Anna Engels.— Ed.
 Heinrich Leupold — Ed.

“Guilty” or “Not guilty”. Once Grave starts writing, before I know
where I am I have six, seven, eight or even more letters to copy,
each of which may be of one, two or perhaps three pages. During
the time I have been here I’ve already copied forty pages, forty
pages in a huge copy-book. Another letter for Baltimore is lying in
front of me now, and look—the four pages are full, it is 11.30
and I shall go to the post under the pretext of collecting the
Consul’s letters but really to see if there is a letter from Stricker.
Adieu, dear Marie, I’m looking forward to four big pages.

Your brother

Friedrich