(Continuation of my letter to Hermann.) The Stadtbote is full of 
absolute nonsense and I am writing poems about it at the office 
which ridicule it by always praising it to the skies, just incoherent 
twaddle, and I send it to the paper signed Th. Hildebrandt and 
they print it in all innocence. I have got one in my desk at this 
very moment which I am going to send in. It runs like this: 

Book Wisdom? 

He is not wise who from his reading draws 
Nothing but floods of useless erudition. 

For all his learning, life’s mysterious laws 

Are a closed book beyond his comprehension. 
He who acquires a thorough textbook grounding 
In Botany, won't hear the grass that grows. 

Nor will he ever teach true understanding 
Who tells you all the dogma that he knows. 

Oh, no! the germ lies hid in man’s own heart. 
Who seeks the art of life must look within. 
Burning the midnight oil will not impart 

The secret of emotion’s discipline. 

The man is lost who hears his own heart’s voice 
And spurns it, wilfully misapprehending. 

Of all your words so noble and so wise 

The most profound is human understanding. 

So it goes, on and on, all mockery. Usually, when I am not quite 
sure what to send, I get hold of the Bote and scrape something 
together from that. The other day I sat Karl Leupold at my desk 

* See this volume, p. 6.— Ed. 

and dictated to him a rude letter to the Bote,’ which they 
received and printed with the most fantastically stupid comments. 
But I must go out now. So I remain 

Your loving brother 

Friedrich