Page:Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843 - Volume 1.djvu/281

 guided by circumstances as to the manner. We hope to find some sort of railroad after Budweis, which will abbreviate a part of our journey.

I leave several sights unseen. I fear that sightseeing will renew my attack of illness, and delay our leaving Dresden, and our journey towards mountain, forest, and stream, for which this heat and drought inspire an ardent longing. My imagination takes refuge at times in shady spots beside murmuring rills, and I look out on the dusty Alt Markt in despair.

When I returned from Rabenau a week or two ago, I found a grasshopper nestled in my muslin dress, and thoughtlessly I shook it off, out of window. That night the act weighed on my conscience. It was a stroke of adversity for the insect, to be transported from the fresh grass and cool streamlets of wooded Rabenau, and cast out to die in the arid, herbless market-place of a big town. In the morning, when I opened my eyes, to my great satisfaction, I found that my grasshopper had rebelled against my cruelty, and had leapt back into the room; it lay evidently in great distress on the floor. I gave it water, which it drank greedily, and put it in a cornet of paper;—that evening, M, in her walk, on the other side of the Elbe, took it with her, and set it free on the grassy