Letter from Adalbert Kehr to Konrad Joseph
October 1879

Old friend,

You may find it hard to believe, so inextricable a part of my very being this place must have seemed to you over the duration of our correspondence, but I will soon be departing from Grüssau Abbey. The townspeople may be ignorant and suspicious; the pastor may be cruel and dogmatic; but I will always think fondly of Grüssau, remembering neither the town nor the parish (still less my trivial and stultifying duties!) but dwelling only in my mind upon the Abbey itself--this wondrous cavern of time.

But enough of sentiment--I am writing to let you know that I have been offered--and have accepted--a post in the Patent Office at Leipzig. I made it quite clear to my superiors in the Civil Service that I am not an engineer, having little mathematics and no physics, but apparently my skills as a philologist have won me the assignment. They seem to need someone in firm control of both French diactritics and English punctuation, from the haughty circonflexe to the humble comma, and I, ready for a change in venue, am their man.

I will write to let you know of my address as soon as I have found lodgings.

Ever with friendship,

Adalbert Kehr
[marginal note]
I do not know whether it matters to you, but in case it does, I want to reassure you that that the Library I discovered here has been safely sealed.