A few extracts from his letters to Wetzlar will reveal his state of
mind during the months that immediately followed his return to
Frankfort. Within a week after his return we have these hurried lines
addressed to Kestner: "God bless you, dear Kestner, and tell Lotte
that I sometimes imagine I could forget her; but then comes the
recitative, and I am worse than ever." In the same month (September)
he again addresses Kestner: "I would not desire to have spent my days
better than I did at Wetzlar, but God send me no more such days!...
This I have just said to Lotte's silhouette." In the beginning of
November he paid a flying visit to Wetzlar, and apparently had reason
to regret it. "Certainly, Kestner," he wrote the day after he left,
"it was time that I should go; yesterday evening, as I sat on the
sofa, I had thoughts for which I deserve hanging." On Christmas Day he
writes still at the same high pitch: "It is still night, dear Kestner,
and I have risen to write again by the morning light, which recalls
pleasant memories of past days.... Immediately on my arrival here I
had pinned up Lotte's silhouette; while I was in Darmstadt, they
placed my bed here, and there to my great joy hangs Lotte's picture at
its head.
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