Dear Marion,

It appears that I've gotten hooked on Buechner-Vietor. An error
to be corrected: Minna Jaegle and Georg Buechner were never married.
They became engaged while Buechner studied in Strassburg. Buechner was
distracted in Giessen by his medical studies and by his conspiratorial
activities. He died in exile in Zuerich of typhus before the marriage
could take place. The last letter he wrote to her:

_    "Du kommst bald? Mit dem Jugendmut ist's fort,
_    ich bekomme sonst graue Haare; ich muss mich bald wieder
_    an Deiner inneren Glueckseligkeit staerken und Deiner
_    goettlichen Unbefangenheit und Deinem lieben Leichtsinn
_    und all Deinen boesen Eigenschaften, boeses Maedchen.
_    Addio piccola mia! -"

Vietor gives a touching account of the last three weeks of
Buechner's life, chronicled in the diary entries of a friend
Karoline Schulz who nursed him. His physician was a fellow exile
Johann Lukas Schoenlein - who later as professor in Berlin 
described the purpura that was named for him. - "Drei Tage vor dem
Tod, als sein Zustand keine Hoffnung mehr zuliess, fragte sich
die fromme Freundin (Karoline) mit zweifelnder Bitterkeit:
"Warum?" Auf diese anklagende Frage nun erhielt sie unerwartete
Antwort. Sie berichtet darueber:

Da trat Wilhelm (ihr Mann) ins Zimmer, und da ich ihm meine
verzweiflungsvollen Gedanken mitteilte, sagte er: "Unser Freund
gibt Dir selbst Antwort, er hat soeben, nachdem ein heftiger Sturm
von Phantasieen vorueber war, mit ruhiger, erhobener, feierlicher
Stimme die Worte gesprochen:
    Wir haben der Schmerzen nicht zuviel, wir haben ihrer
    zu wenig, denn durch den Schmerz gehen wir zu Gott ein! -
    Wir sind Tod, Staub, Asche, wie duerften wir klagen?

I've read Buechner's short story "Lenz", an account of a
Winterreise through the Alps of Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz
whose deteriorating paranoid schizophrenia led him to the
parsonage of Johann Friedrich Oberlin from whose account
Buechner's story is said to be partially plagiarized. I read
vivid descriptions of a man lost in the wintry Alps from which
I have gleaned another perspective on Katenus' arrival at
his mountain retreat in Chapter 45 on which I expect to start
working again, sooner rather than later.

Buechner's first drama, Dantons Tod, I interpret as sublimation
of his own, failed efforts at violent revolution. I'm reminded
presumptuously as always, of coming to terms with my own, far
tamer, Nantucket disappointments in chapters 36 through 45 of
Die Freunde. I'll most likely have more to say about Dantons Tod
in subsequent letters.

=========================

So far as your computer-screen evoked giddiness and nausea are
concerned, there's no recognized relationship. Visual stimuli
are thought on occasion to trigger cortical dysfunctions as in
epilepsy and migraine, and the retina might well be sensitive to
changes in polarization of light emitted from LED screens at 
different angles. Speculation on such topics however is of little
practical value. More important, to make sure that blood pressure,
pulse, blood chemistries including electrolytes are normal. The
most likely diagnosis are the ordinary wear and tear of daily life
and the Minnesota winter. A vacation - Erholungsreise - to Belmont
or Konnarock might help. You're always invited.

Jochen