One thing had to become clear to me in Naumburg: that I would not find a satisfying life in small cities. Among them Naumburg would perhaps have been the most pleasant. One must see this little city on its festival days, during the Hussite-Festival or Cherry-Festival, in order to properly evaluate it. The well-known saga has been too widely spread by Kotzebue's almighty theatrical hand. The Hussite leader Procopius is supposed to have advanced with his troops against the defense Naumburg, and the quarter-master Wolf, leading all the children of the city, dressed in funeral clothing, approached him, to beg for mercy, which he then granted to the fearful population. This is given as the reason for the festival.

In the early morning the drums with hollow sound march through all the streets. Under the direction of their teacher there are processions of all the little girls, shining in their blue or red dresses, and even more beautifully adorned with silken ribbons, to the Schützenwiese [guard-meadow]. This offers a broad space, surrounded in the manner of an amphitheater by some little hills, and closed off by the Guardhouse. There, many steins are emptied and there is dancing in the evenings. Around the meadow, however, pleasure tents are put up, which families gather socially, and enjoy the merry crowd of children who are playing and dancing. I can still hear the refrain of the children's song

Eijafreilich, Wie ich bin, so bleil’ ich, Bleil’ ich, wie ich bin, Eingutes Kin(d)!

(the modification of some words — bleil’ instead of bleib', Kin instead of Kind, is authentic).

The charming festival, the graceful, almost romantic vicinity, the Saale river, which I already knew from Halle with much more flow, the merry life of wine and wineries — all this was unable, as soon as the excitement of novelty was past, to make me forget the more spiritual life of the university city; over all these little cities my yearning new to Halle, the highest goal to which I had yet aspired. I had certainly already heard many scathing opinions: the civil servant, and especially the jurist, must take his satisfaction in his work alone. But I had also already realized that this opinion was a deception. The most dutiful of works did not fail to also take part in every enjoyment in life that was accessible to them, and appropriate.