bird was mine. He gave him to the porter,
who permitted him to fly about his room.
When the poor fellow was caught again to
bring him to me, they must have handled
him roughly, for one of his wings hung down,
and under it was a blood-blister as thick as
a hazel-nut.

When Hans came into the cage and sat there
crest-fallen, his little wife was glad, though
she seemed not to care much about him; but
he did not answer some of her questions, and
she then became uneasy, looked at him
from all sides, placed herself then close to
him, and lifted with her little beak the hurt
wing to look under it. I have never seen
such a thing from any other bird. After
having discovered that Hans was much hurt,
she chirped comfort in his ear, kissed him,
and he answered her tenderness as
languishingly as a wounded man would have
answered the soft whisper of his wife. She
was constantly busied about him, and did all
she could to show how much she pitied his
misfortune.

I bathed the hurt wing all day to prevent
inflammation, and next day the surgeon of
the house performed an operation, which was
very painful, but of the best consequences.
I bound up the limb, and, after a few months,
poor Hans could fly again, although he
always hung his wing, so that Sebastian used
to say he was carrying a sabre.

Next year I got only one young bird;
he was christened Bütchen. When I left
the prison, my birds, of course, went
with me. They looked rather shabby, and
would not have lived another winter.

But, canary birds do not content man fully.
I proposed to myself objects that were just
attainable, and worked till I attained them.

The first thing I longed for, was to throw
aside my miserable work as learner of shoe-
making, and to be permitted to draw only.
Rheumatism in one arm helped very
opportunely, and I was suffered to draw, by paying
to the house more than double the sum
I could have earned as a shoe-maker.
My pen-drawings were my own, and
I sent them to my wife. In my cell there
was a permanent exhibition, for my work
interested me, and many of my visitors also.
My pen-drawings were highly esteemed by
the printsellers, and several of them sold
very well. The thought that by them I
could perhaps help my wife in her great
struggle with the world, made me most eager
to work, and I did so from sunrise till night.
Occupied with a drawing that interested me
I rose with pleasure, and the day passed
swiftly away. I was very often so gay that
I sang all day long, until entreated by the
overseers to hold my tongue, because it was
not permitted to trouble the seriousness of
the place by such glad notes.

When I got writing materials I began to
write; but, in this solitude I had so much
material in store that too much at once
thronged to my pen. Nevertheless, I wrote
many things, and on the most various
themes: Pictures of the Life of Animals;
Letters of a Hermit; on Religion; on Military
Art; a great many essays and recollections
of my life. I remarked that too
deep speculations were not in accordance
with the insufficient food. Sometimes my
head was so fatigued that I could not so
much as read more than four or five
pages.

The learning of languages I judge to be
the fittest occupation for a prisoner. When
free I never could spare time to learn the
English language; as prisoner, I had more
leisure than I wanted, and was glad to
teach myself the language of the free. It
was a curious thing, when I came to England,
and had to put my lonely prison studies to
the test. It was, as if I had learnt playing
the piano, on an instrument provided with
keys only, producing no sound. This is
now the first time, that I try to express my
thoughts by writing in the English
language; it is to me as if I must walk with
a hundred weight attached to my foot.

Thus far we have removed most of the traces
of a foreign idiom in the writer's English; now
we think it may interest the reader to see
what English style was compassed by this
energetic German gentleman in his solitary
cell. The rest of the narrative is printed as
it comes to us.

When there was spoken of the marriage
of the prince-regent, people believed that the
political prisoners would be set free at this
opportunity; but, the Princess of Prussia
being very young, the effectuation trained much
too long. At last, in the autumn, eighteen
hundred and fifty-five, my wife received a
hint, that I was to be freed at a certain day,
and she had already sent her luggage to the
railway, when she received a telegraphical
despatch, that it was no time yet, and that
she might stay a little longer in Berlin.

It was the second October in the morning,
when I was interrupted in a drawing by the
visit of the director, who announced me my
deliverance, and the presence of my wife in
Bruchsal. I was glad, of course, but I had
waited too long for this moment, to feel it
with such force as would have been the case
two years before.

Nevertheless, I stept into the carriage
with a thankful heart, and when we drove
along the streets to the hotel, there were
trees, flowers, carriages, horses, women and
children! I heard merry voices instead of
the whining of the organ, and saw smiling
and compassionate faces greeting us on our
way.

In the hôtel of the Poste we were received
with a hearty welcome by the brave landlady,
and led into her best room, where
stood upon the table the finest flower-