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Kaspar Hauser.
125
One of Kaspar’s latest school exercises was a composition upon
the subject : “ Do good to your enemies.”
He followed the train of thought suggested by the rules, and,
after the theme was finished, added on another line: “If your
enemy has done you bodily harm, return the evil with good.”
He was probably thinking of the murderous attack upon his
life in Nuremberg ; but Meyer quoted this circumstance as another
proof of Kaspar’s deceitfulness, saying that he evidently intended
showing the sentence at a later day as a proof that he had had a
presentiment of a second attack, just as he pretended to have had
when with Professor Daumer.
It is certain that Kaspar Hauser would have been disposed to
listen to anybody who held out hopes of freeing him from his un-
pleasant position in Ansbach. But although he was unhappy,
there was no temptation to commit suicide, especially as just then
the outlook was brighter than formerly. He was in hopes of being
allowed by Lord Stanhope to make a long visit in Vienna, whither
he had been invited by Frau Kannawurf, and he intended, after
attaining his majority, to place himself again under the kind care
of Professor Daumer in Nuremberg.
Meyer's theory was that Kaspar, tired of carrying on imposture,
and dreading final exposure, decided to make himself the hero of
a second sensation like the one he had so successfully attempted
in Nuremberg. If the blow should cause only a slight wound, so
much the better ; if it should prove fatal, it did not matter.
This theory is wholly untenable, disproved alike by Kaspar’s
disposition and by the facts of the case.
There was more in that invitation to visit the Artesian well in
the royal park than Kaspar Hauser ever confessed, and he doubt-
less withheld the truth out of fear of severe reproofs from the
guardians who had always been so ready to blame him for slighter
faults.
For many months after Kaspar Hauser’s death the two great ques-
tions, “Who was Kaspar Hauser?” and * Was he murdered, or did
he kill himself?” were constant themes of conversation and subjects