Excerpt from Joshua: A Biblical Picture; And the Burgomaster's Wife; A Romance When in the course of last winter I made up my mind to finish this book and occupied myself in giving it the form in which it is now offered to the public, I constantly bore in mind the dear friend to whom I always intended to dedicate it. Now, it is my sad privilege to inscribe it only to the Manes of Gustav Baur, for death snatched him away only a few months since. Every one who had ever come into close communion with him felt his death as an unspeakably bitter loss, not only because his bright and cheerful nature and happy wit brought light to the soul of his friends; not only because he was ready from the brimming stores of his abundant knowledge to give freely to all who came into intellectual contact with him; but, above all, because the warm heart which beamed through his eyes, made him feel the joy and sorrow of others as his own, and throw himself into their thoughts and feelings. Till my latest day I can never forget how, in these latter years, infirm in body and overwhelmed with the work of a professor and a member of the Consistory, he would still constantly find his way to see me, his yet more crippled friend. The hours it was then my good fortune to spend in eager conversation with him, were such as we "write down good," to quote old Horace, whom he knew and loved so well. I have done so; as I gratefully recall them my friends voice sounds in my ear asking: "And what about the tale of the Exodus?" When I first told him that it was in the midst of the desert, while following up the traces of the fugitive Hebrews, that the idea had occurred to me of treating their wanderings in a work of imagination, he expressed his approval with the captivating eagerness which was characteristic of the man. When, then, I developed the idea which I had first sketched riding on a camel, he never was weary of encouraging me, although he quite understood my hesitation and fully recognized the difficulties which surrounded the execution of my task. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.