Excerpt from a letter to Sofie Hess, 3 June, 1879 (?)
My sweatheart,
Many years ago Bürger wrote:
”Hop, hop! It started at a full galop“
You could say that about the Express-train from London to Glasgow: over 700 km in 10 h, and we arrived still halv a minute before time. In two wagons, which are through carriages and are not exchanged, there were only two passengers, a Scotsman and I. I whiled away my time and read a historical narrative by Viktor Hugo - who studiet the coup d‘état of Napoleon 1852, and it was very well written. That way the hours easily disappeared although they could not run as quickly as the Lokomotive did. A good book makes even a visit in Scotland tolerable...
1 Bürger, Gottfried August (1747-1794), German poet.
1 Victor Hugo (1802-1885),Author, dramatic,poet. Possible that Nobel referred to the book ”Napoleon le Petit” 1852.