Viewing page 23 of 54

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

15

Zillen-thal, August 3, 1871

the post, we don't know much, if anything, of the mode in which medicines operate, and it will be long, probably, before we shall have arrived at any reliable knowledge on this point. The Dr.'s theory about the cause of my trouble may be the correct one; I have thought it was myself, and have on several occasions taken medicines which contain an abundance of oxygen and part with it readily, hoping thereby to burn off the surplus carbo-hydrogen elements, or compounds, which this theory supposes to be formed in my bloodvessels and in the tissues outside of them also, or deposited there; but I have never been able to accomplish this result, devoutly wished for. Perhaps there may be something in the composition of these powders which the Dr.has been kind enough to send me, or perhaps in the dose, which will make them effectual to expel "the man of sin" whoever he may be. At any rate, they shall have a fair trial. I will try and get the book which he has named, and as I expect to pass through Nuremberg later in the season, I will, if I do so, try to see the author himself.

I have written a long letter to Emily telling her of some of our movements lately. I think we shall spend next winter, in Dresden, where I wish to put my boy at school, if I can get him into one of the public schools. I say public schools, because I think they are better than the private schools, and because at the latter, if of much reputation, there are so many English and American boys that the English language is as much spoken by the boys when together by themselves as the German; so that a foreigner has a much less complete opportunity of learning the latter. He has just gone off from us with an Artist friend from Rome, a German landscape painter of distinction, who invited him to accompany him on a sketching tour through a part of Tyrol. The boy is very fond of drawing and sketches uncommonly well considering his age.

I hope your wife will be benefited by her visit to the sea-