[E53] 'Hours of Spiritual Refreshment.' This very popular book of devotion was first published in 1664, and had an extraordinary run both in Germany and, through translations, in Denmark. The last Danish extract of it was published in 1846, and reached the third edition in 1856.
On October 23 I received the book back through Tötzlöff, and I found within it the following lines, written by the Landgravine's own hand:
Ce qui n'est pas en ta puissance Ne doit point troubler ton repos; Tu balances mal à propos Entre la crainte et l'espérance. Laisse faire ton Dieu et ton roy, Et suporte avec passience ce qu'il résoud pour toy.
Je prie Dieu de vous faire cette grâce, et que je vous puisse tesmoigner combien je suis,
Madame, vostre très-affectionée à vous servir, { Monogram}
The book is still in my possession, and I sent word through Tötzlöff to the lady in waiting to request her to convey my most humble thanks to her Highness; and afterwards, when the Landgravine was about to start on her journey, to commend me to her Serene Highness's favour.
In the same year, 1671, Karen, Nils' daughter, left me on account of ill health. For one night a woman was with me named Margrete, who was a serf from Holstein. She had run away from her master. She was a very awkward peasant woman, so towards evening on the following day she was sent away, and in her place there came a woman named Inger, a person of loose character. This woman gave herself out as the widow of a non-commissioned officer, and that she had long been in service at Hamburg, and nursed lying-in women. It happened with her, as is often the case, that one seeks to obtain a thing, and that to one's own vexation. Chresten had spoken for this woman with the prison governor, and had praised her before me, but the prison governor took upon another recommendation the before-mentioned Margrete. So long as there was hope that the Landgravine might obtain my freedom, this woman was very amenable, but afterwards she began by degrees to show what was in her, and that it was not for nothing that she resembled Dina.
She caused me annoyance of various kinds, which I received with patience, thinking within myself that it was another trial imposed by God upon me, and Dina's intrigues often came into my mind, and I thought, 'Suppose she should devise some Dina plot?' (She is capable of it, if she had only an instigator, as Dina had.) Among other annoyances, which may not be reckoned among the least, was this: I was one day not very well, having slept but little or not at all during the night, and I had lain down to sleep on the bed in the day; and she would give me no rest, but came softly past me in her socks, and in order to wake me teased a dog which I had,[137] so that he growled. I asked her why she grudged my sleeping? She answered, 'I did not know that you were asleep.' 'Why, then,' I said, 'did you go by in your stockings?' She replied, 'If you saw that, then you were not asleep,' and she laughed heartily by herself. (She sat always in front of my table with her back turned to me; whether it was because she had lost one eye that she sat in that position to the light, I know not.)