"Now do not, for heaven's sake," he wrote, "believe that I mean to become satirical as regards the progress of my young lady friends in the knowledge of the chemical elements of a collar or a cake; they are deeply important and necessary things. And why should not a young lady know how and where her shawl has grown, quite as well as the professor, who is behind her in the knowledge of its practical use? And another great advantage: suppose you were suddenly cast away in Mongolia, you would only have to submit some mountain or river or earth to a trifling investigation to say for certain, here I am in Mongolia; consequently so and so many post stages from Leipziger Strasse, No. 3, and quietly order your horses… One thing, however, I have to reproach you with, which is, that you follow the false principle that prevails among women and do not carry your knowledge into life and letters. I find (in your letter) no comparison or metaphor from chemistry, and yet they would be so ornamental! If I did but know anything of the matter, I would make a better use of it!"
In October, 1828, Wilhelm Hensel returned from Italy. He found Fanny grown from a gay girl of seventeen to a brilliant young woman of twenty-two, surrounded by a circle of intimate and admiring friends, whom she won alike by her personal charms and by her art. The circle, which went by the name of "The Wheel," was so close, so complete in itself, it possessed so many jokes and by-words that he could not understand, so many memories that he did not share, that at first he felt himself a stranger, and was jealous. Fanny's friends in their turn regarded him somewhat in the light of an intruder, come to carry away a prize which several secretly coveted for themselves, and few were willing to see bestowed upon another. But these feelings were but transient and superficial, as Hensel himself soon recognized. It was, as
