Chapter I: Part 1

LIBRARY OF THE

WORLD'S BEST LITERATURE

ANCIENT AND MODERN

CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER

EDITOR

HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE LUCIA GILBERT RUNKLE GEORGE HENRY WARNER

ASSOCIATE EDITORS

Connoisseur Edition

VOL. V.

THE ADVISORY COUNCIL

* * * * *

CRAWFORD H. TOY, A.M., LL.D.,
Professor of Hebrew,
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, Cambridge, Mass.

THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY, LL.D., L.H.D.,
Professor of English in the Sheffield Scientific School of
YALE UNIVERSITY, New Haven, Conn.

WILLIAM M. SLOANE, PH.D., L.H.D.,
Professor of History and Political Science,
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, Princeton, N.J.

BRANDER MATTHEWS, A.M., LL.B.,
Professor of Literature,
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, New York City.

JAMES B. ANGELL, LL.D.,
President of the UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, Ann Arbor, Mich.

WILLARD FISKE, A.M., PH.D.,
Late Professor of the Germanic and Scandinavian Languages
and Literatures, CORNELL UNIVERSITY, Ithaca, N.Y.

EDWARD S. HOLDEN, A.M., LL.D.,
Director of the Lick Observatory, and Astronomer,
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, Berkeley, Cal.

ALCÉE FORTIER, LIT.D.,
Professor of the Romance Languages,
TULANE UNIVERSITY, New Orleans, La.

WILLIAM P. TRENT, M.A.,
Dean of the Department of Arts and Sciences, and Professor of
English and History, UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH, Sewanee, Tenn.

PAUL SHOREY, PH.D.,
Professor of Greek and Latin Literature,
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, Chicago, Ill.

WILLIAM T. HARRIS, LL.D.,
United States Commissioner of Education,
BUREAU OF EDUCATION, Washington, D.C.

MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN, A.M., LL.D.,
Professor of Literature in the
CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA, Washington, D.C.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

VOL. V

LIVED PAGE
OTTO EDWARD LEOPOLD VON BISMARCK 1815- 1929

BY MUNROE SMITH

Letters--To Fran von Arnim
To His Wife: Aug. 7, 1851; June 6, 1859; June
8, 1859; June 28, 1859; July 26, 1859
To Oscar von Arnim
To His Wife: Aug. 4, 1862; July 9, 1866; Sept. 3,
1870; June 23, 1852
Personal Characteristics of the Members of the Frankfort Diet
From a Speech on the Military Bill

BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON 1832- 1959

BY WILLIAM MORTON PAYNE

Over the Lofty Mountains ('Arne')
The Cloister in the South ('Arnljot Gelline')
The Plea of King Magnus ('Sigurd Slembe')
Sin and Death (same)
The Princess
Sigurd Slembe's Return
How the Mountain Was Clad ('Arne')
The Father

WILLIAM BLACK 1841- 1983

The End of Macleod of Dare
Sheila in London ('A Princess of Thule')

RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE 1825- 2011

A Desperate Venture ('Lorna Doone')
A Wedding and a Revenge (same)
Landing the Trout ('Alice Lorraine')
A Dane in the Dike ('Mary Anerley')

WILLIAM BLAKE 1757-1827 2041

Song The Piper and the Child
Song Holy Thursday
The Two Songs Cradle Song
Night The Little Black Boy
The Tiger

CHARLES BLANC 1813-1882 2051

Rembrandt ('The Dutch School of Painters')
Albert Dürer's 'Melancholia' (same)
Ingres ('Life of Ingres')
Calamatta's Studio ('Contemporary Artists')
Blanc's Début as Art Critic (same)
Delacroix's 'Bark of Dante' (same)
Genesis of the 'Grammar'
Moral Influence of Art ('Grammar of Painting and Engraving')
Poussin's 'Shepherds of Arcadia' (same)
Landscape (same)
Style (same)
Law of Proportion in Architecture (same)

STEEN STEENSEN BLICHER 1782-1848 2064

A Picture
The Knitting-Room
The Hosier

MATHILDE BLIND 1847-1896 2075

From 'Love in Exile' The Mystic's Vision
Seeking From 'Tarantella'
Songs of Summer O Moon, Large Golden Summer Moon
A Parable
Love's Somnambulist Green Leaves and Sere

GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO 1313-1375 2089

BY W.J. STILLMAN

Frederick of the Alberighi and His Falcon
The Jew Converted to Christianity by Going to Rome
The Story of Saladin and the Jew Usurer
The Story of Griselda

FRIEDRICH MARTIN VON BODENSTEDT 1819-1892 2116

Two
Wine
Song
Unchanging
The Poetry of Mirza-Schaffy ('Thousand and One Days in the East')
Mirza-Schaffy (same)
The School of Wisdom (same)
An Excursion into Armenia (same)
Mirza-Jussuf
Wisdom and Knowledge

JOHANN JAKOB BODMER 1698-1783 2128

Kinship of the Arts ('Rubens')
Poetry and Painting ('Holbein')
Tribute to Tobacco ('Dürer')

BOËTIUS 475-525 2133

Of the Greatest Good ('Consolations of Philosophy')

NICHOLAS BOILEAU-DESPRÉAUX 1636-1711 2141

Advice to Authors ('The Art of Poetry')
The Pastoral, the Elegy, the Ode, and the Epigram (same)
To Molière ('The Satires')

GASTON BOISSIER 1823-2152 2152

Madame de Sévigné as a Letter-Writer ('Life of Madame
de Sévigné')
French Society in the Seventeenth Century (same)
How Horace Lived at his Country-House ('The Country
of Horace and Virgil')

GEORGE H. BOKER 1823-1890 2163

The Black Regiment
The Sword-Bearer
Sonnets

SAINT BONAVENTURA 1221-1274 2169

BY THOMAS DAVIDSON

On the Beholding of God in His Footsteps in This Sensible World

GEORGE BORROW 1803-1881 2175

BY JULIAN HAWTHORNE

At the Horse-Fair ('Lavengro')
A Meeting ('The Bible in Spain')

JUAN BOSCAN 1493-?1540 2203

On the Death of Garcilaso
A Picture of Domestic Happiness ('Epistle to Mendoza')

JACQUES BÉNIGNE BOSSUET 1627-1704 2209

BY ADOLPHE COHN

From the Sermon upon 'The Unity of the Church'
Opening of the Funeral Oration on Henrietta of France
From the 'Discourse upon Universal History'
Public Spirit in Rome

JAMES BOSWELL 1740-1795 2227

BY CHARLES F. JOHNSON

An Account of Corsica
A Tour to Corsica
The Life of Samuel Johnson

PAUL BOURGET 1852- 2252

The American Family ('Outre-Mer')
The Aristocratic Vision of M. Renan ('Study of M. Renan')

SIR JOHN BOWRING 1792-1872 2263

The Cross of Christ
Watchman! What of the Night?
Hymn
From Luis de Gongora: Not All Nightingales
From John Kollar: Sonnet
From Bogdanovich (Old Russian): Song
From Bobrov: The Golden Palace
From Dmitriev: The Dove and The Stranger
From Sarbiewski: Sapphics to A Rose

HJALMAR HJORTH BOYESEN 1848-1895 2272

A Norwegian Dance ('Gunnar')

MARY ELIZABETH BRADDON 1837- 2279

Advent of the Hirelings ('The Christmas Hirelings')
"How Bright She Was--" etc. ('Mohawks')

GEORG BRANDES 1842- 2299

BY WILLIAM MORTON PAYNE

Björnson ('Eminent Authors of the Nineteenth Century')
The Historical Movement in Modern Literature ('Main
Currents in the Literature of the Nineteenth Century')

SEBASTIAN BRANDT 1458-1521 2311

The Universal Shyp
Of Hym That Togyder Wyll Serve Two Maysters
Of To[o] Moche Spekynge or Bablynge

FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME V

* * * * *

PAGE Saint Dunstan (Colored Plate) Frontispiece Bismarck (Portrait) . . . . . . . 1930 "The Surrender at Sedan" (Photogravure) . . 1944 Richard Doddridge Blackmore (Portrait) . . 2012 "Rembrandt and His Wife" (Photogravure) . . 2055 Giovanni Boccaccio (Portrait) . . . . 2090 "The Decameron" (Photogravure) . . . . 2108 "Fatima" (Photogravure) . . . . . . 2120 "Domestic Happiness" (Photogravure) . . . 2206

VIGNETTE PORTRAITS

Björnstjerne Björnson William Black William Blake Mathilde Blind Friedrich M. von Bodenstedt Johann Jakob Bodmer Boëtius Nicholas Boileau-Despréaux Gaston Boissier George H. Boker George Borrow Jacques Bénigne Bossuet James Boswell Paul Bourget Sir John Bowring Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen Georg Brandes Sebastian Brandt

OTTO EDWARD LEOPOLD VON BISMARCK

(1815-)

BY MUNROE SMITH

Otto Edward Leopold, fourth child of Charles and Wilhelmina von Bismarck, was born at Schönhausen in Prussia, April 1, 1815. The family was one of the oldest in the "Old Mark" (now a part of the province of Saxony), and not a few of its members had held important military or diplomatic positions under the Prussian crown. The young Otto passed his school years in Berlin, and pursued university studies in law (1832-5) at Göttingen and at Berlin. At Göttingen he was rarely seen at lectures, but was a prominent figure in the social life of the student body: the old university town is full of traditions of his prowess in duels and drinking bouts, and of his difficulties with the authorities. In 1835 he passed the State examination in law, and was occupied for three years, first in the judicial and then in the administrative service of the State, at Berlin, Aix-la-Chapelle, and Potsdam. In 1838 he left the governmental service and studied agriculture at the Eldena Academy. From his twenty-fourth to his thirty-sixth year (1839-51) his life was that of a country squire. He took charge at first of property held by his father in Pomerania; upon his father's death in 1845 he assumed the management of the family estate of Schönhausen. Here he held the local offices of captain of dikes and of deputy in the provincial Diet. The latter position proved a stepping-stone into Prussian and German politics; for when Frederick William IV. summoned the "United Diet" of the kingdom (1847), Bismarck was sent to Berlin as an alternate delegate from his province.

The next three years were full of events. The revolution of 1848 forced all the German sovereigns who had thus far retained absolute power, among them the King of Prussia, to grant representative constitutions to their people. The same year witnessed the initiation of a great popular movement for the unification of Germany. A national Parliament was assembled at Frankfort, and in 1849 it offered to the King of Prussia the German imperial crown; but the constitution it had drafted was so democratic, and the opposition of the German princes so great, that Frederick William felt obliged to refuse the offer. An attempt was then made, at a Parliament held in Erfurt, to establish a "narrower Germany" under Prussian leadership; but this movement also came to nothing. The Austrian government, paralyzed for a time by revolts in its own territories, had re-established its power and threatened Prussia with war. Russia supported Austria, and Prussia submitted at Olmütz (1850). In these stirring years, Bismarck--first as a member of the United Diet and then as a representative in the new Prussian Chamber of Deputies--made himself prominent by hostility to the constitutional movement and championship of royal prerogative. He defended the King's refusal of the imperial crown, because "all the real gold in it would be gotten by melting up the Prussian crown"; and he compared the pact which the King, by accepting the Frankfort constitution, would make with the democracy, to the pact between the huntsman and the devil in the 'Freischütz': sooner or later, he declared, the people would come to the Emperor, and pointing to the Imperial arms, would say, "Do you fancy this eagle was given you for nothing?" He sat in the Erfurt Parliament, but had no faith in its success. He opposed the constitution which it adopted, although this was far more conservative than that drafted at Frankfort, because he deemed it still too revolutionary. During the Austro-Prussian disputes of 1850 he expressed himself, like the rest of the Prussian Conservatives, in favor of reconciliation with Austria, and he even defended the convention of Olmütz.

After Olmütz, the German Federal Diet, which had disappeared in 1848, was reconstituted at Frankfort, and to Frankfort Bismarck was sent, in 1857, as representative of Prussia. This position, which he held for more than seven years, was essentially diplomatic, since the Federal Diet was merely a permanent congress of German ambassadors; and Bismarck, who had enjoyed no diplomatic training, owed his appointment partly to the fact that his record made him _persona grata_ to the "presidential power," Austria. He soon forfeited the favor of that State by the steadfastness with which he resisted its pretensions to superior authority, and the energy with which he defended the constitutional parity of Prussia and the smaller States; but he won the confidence of the home government, and was consulted by the King and his ministers with increasing frequency on the most important questions of European diplomacy. He strove to inspire them with greater jealousy of Austria. He favored closer relations with Napoleon III., as a make-weight against the Austrian influence, and was charged by some of his opponents with an undue leaning toward France; but as he explained in a letter to a friend, if he had sold himself, it was "to a Teutonic and not to a Gallic devil."

In the winter of 1858-9, as the Franco-Austrian war drew nearer, Bismarck's anti-Austrian attitude became so pronounced that his government, by no means ready to break with Austria, but rather disposed to support that power against France, felt it necessary to put him, as he himself expressed it, "on ice on the Neva." From 1859 to 1862 he held the position of Prussian ambassador at St. Petersburg. In 1862 he was appointed ambassador at Paris. In the autumn of the same year he became Minister-President of Prussia.

The new Prussian King, William I., had become involved in a controversy with the Prussian Chamber of Deputies over the reorganization of the army; his previous ministers were unwilling to press the reform against a hostile majority; and Bismarck, who was ready to assume the responsibility, was charged with the premiership of the new cabinet. "Under some circumstances," he said later, "death upon the scaffold is as glorious as upon the battlefield." From 1862 to 1866 he governed Prussia without the support of the lower chamber and without a regular budget. He informed a committee of the Deputies that the questions of the time were not to be settled by-debates, but by "blood and iron."

In the diplomatic field it was his effort to secure a position of advantage for the struggle with Austria for the control of Germany,--a struggle which, six years before, he had declared to be inevitable. During his stay in St. Petersburg he had strengthened the friendly feeling already subsisting between Prussia and Russia; and in 1863 he gave the Russian government useful support in crushing a Polish insurrection. To a remonstrance from the English ambassador, somewhat arrogantly delivered in the name of Europe, Bismarck responded, "Who is Europe?" While in Paris he had convinced himself that no serious interference was to be apprehended from Napoleon. That monarch overrated Austria; regarded Bismarck's plans, which appear to have been explained with extraordinary frankness, as chimerical; and pronounced Bismarck "not a serious person." Bismarck, on the other hand, privately expressed the opinion that Napoleon was "a great unrecognized incapacity." When, in 1863, the death of Frederick VII. of Denmark without direct heirs raised again the ancient Schleswig-Holstein problem, Bismarck saw that the opportunity had come for the solution of the German question.

The events of the next seven years are familiar history. In 1864 Prussia and Austria made war on Denmark, and obtained a joint sovereignty over the duchies of Holstein and Schleswig. In 1866, with Italy as her ally, Prussia drove Austria out of the German Confederation; annexed Schleswig, Holstein, Hanover, Electoral Hesse, and Frankfort; and brought all the German States north of the Main, except Luxemburg, into the North German Confederation, of which the King of Prussia was President and Bismarck Chancellor. When war was declared by France in 1870, the South German States also placed their forces at the King of Prussia's disposal; and before the war was over they joined the newly established German Empire, which thus included all the territories of the old Confederation except German Austria and Luxemburg. The old Confederation was a mere league of sovereign States; the new Empire was a nation. To this Empire, at the close of the war, the French Republic paid an indemnity of five milliards of francs, and ceded Alsace and Lorraine.

In giving the German people political unity Bismarck realized their strongest and deepest desire; and the feeling entertained toward him underwent a sudden revulsion. From 1862 to 1866 he had been the best hated man in Germany. The partial union of 1867--when, as he expressed it, Germany was "put in the saddle"--made him a national hero. The reconciliation with the people was the more complete because, at Bismarck's suggestion, a German Parliament was created, elected by universal suffrage, and because the Prussian ministers (to the great indignation of their conservative supporters) asked the Prussian Deputies to grant them indemnity for their unconstitutional conduct of the government during the preceding four years. For the next ten years Bismarck had behind him, in Prussian and in German affairs, a substantial nationalist majority. At times, indeed, he had to restrain their zeal. In 1867, for instance, when they desired to take Baden alone into the new union,--the rest of South Germany being averse to entrance,--Bismarck was obliged to tell them that it would be a poor policy "to skim off the cream and let the rest of the milk turn sour."

Bismarck remained Chancellor of the Empire as well as Minister-President of Prussia until 1890, when William II. demanded his resignation. During these years the military strength of the Empire was greatly increased; its finances were placed upon an independent footing; its authority was extended in legislative matters, and its administrative system was developed and consolidated. Conflicts with the Roman Catholic hierarchy (1873-87), and with the Social Democracy (1878-90) resulted indecisively; though Bismarck's desire to alleviate the misery which in his opinion caused the socialistic movement gave rise to a series of remarkable laws for the insurance of the laboring classes against accident, disease, and old age. With a return to the protective system, which Bismarck advocated for fiscal reasons, he combined the attempt to enlarge Germany's foreign market by the establishment of imperial colonies in Africa and in the Pacific Ocean. In other respects his foreign policy, after 1870, was controlled by the desire to preserve peace. "Germany," he said, "belongs to the satisfied nations." When the Russian friendship cooled, he secured an alliance with Austria (1879), which Italy also joined (1882); and the "triple alliance" thus formed continued to dominate European politics for many years after Bismarck's withdrawal from office.

Of Bismarck's State papers, the greater portion are still buried in the Prussian archives. The most important series that has been published consists of his dispatches from Frankfort (Poschinger, Preussen im Bundestag, 1851-8, 4 vols.). These are marked by clearness of statement, force of argument, and felicity of illustration. The style, although less direct and simple than that of his unofficial writings, is still excellent. A large part of the interest attaching to these early papers lies in their acute characterization of the diplomatists with whom he had to deal. His analysis of their motives reveals from the outset that thorough insight into human nature which was to count for so much in his subsequent diplomatic triumphs. Of his later notes and dispatches, such as have seen the light may be found in Hahn's documentary biography ('Fürst Bismarck,' 5 vols.). His reports and memorials on economic and fiscal questions have been collected by Poschinger in 'Bismarck als Volkswirth.'

Of Bismarck's parliamentary speeches there exists a full collection (reproduced without revision from the stenographic reports) in fifteen volumes. Bismarck was not an orator in the ordinary acceptation of the word. His mode of address was conversational; his delivery was monotonous and halting. He often hesitated, searching for a word; but when it came, it usually seemed the only word that could have expressed his meaning, and the hesitation that preceded it gave it a singular emphasis. It seemed to be his aim to convince his hearers, not to win them; his appeal was regularly to their intelligence, not to their emotions. When the energy and warmth of his own feelings had carried him into something like a flight of oratory, there was apt to follow, at the next moment, some plain matter-of-fact statement that brought the discussion back at once to its ordinary level. Such an anti-climax was often very effective: the obvious effort of the speaker to keep his emotions under restraint vouched for the sincerity of the preceding outburst. It should be added that he appreciated as few Germans do the rhetorical value of understatement.

He was undoubtedly at his literary best in conversation and in his letters. We have several volumes of Bismarck anecdotes, Bismarck table-talk, etc. The best known are those of Busch, which have been translated into English--and in spite of the fact that his sayings come to us at second hand and colored by the personality of the transmitter, we recognize the qualities which, by the universal testimony of those who knew him, made him one of the most fascinating of talkers. These qualities, however, come out most clearly in a little volume of letters ('Bismarck briefe'), chiefly addressed to his wife. (These letters have been excellently translated into English by F. Maxse.) They are characterized throughout by vivid and graphic descriptions, a subtle sense of humor, and real wit; and they have in the highest degree--far more than his State papers or speeches--the literary quality, and that indescribable something which we call style.

Bismarck furnishes, once for all, the answer to the old French question, whether a German can possibly have _esprit_--witness his response to the German prince who desired his advice regarding the offer of the crown of one of the Balkan States:--"Accept, by all means: it will be a charming recollection for you." He possessed also to a high degree the power of summing up a situation or characterizing a movement in a single phrase; and his sayings have enriched the German language with more quotations than the spoken words of any German since Luther.

Of the numerous German biographies, Harm's gives the greatest amount of documentary material; Hesekiel's (which has been translated into English) is the most popular. The best French biography is by Simon; the only important English work is that by Lowe. For bibliography, see Schulze and Roller, (Bismarck-Literatur) (1895), which contains about 600 titles. The Frankfort dispatches and the speeches have been translated into French, but not into English.

TO FRAU VON ARNIM

SCHÖNHAUSEN, August 7th, 1850.

The fact is, this journey, and I see it more clearly the nearer it approaches, gives me a right of reversion on the new lunatic asylum, or at least a seat for life in the Second Chamber. I can already see myself on the platform of the Genthiner station; then both of us packed in the carriage, surrounded with all sorts of child's necessaries--an embarrassing company; Johanna ashamed to suckle the baby, which accordingly roars itself blue; then the passports, the inn; then at Stettin railway station with both bellowing monkeys; then waiting an hour at Angermünde for the horses; and how are we to get from Kröchlendorf to Külz? It would be perfectly awful if we had to remain for the night at Stettin. I did that last year with Marie and her squallings. I was in such a state of despair yesterday over all these visions that I was positively determined to give the whole thing up, and at last went to bed with the resolve at least to go straight through, without stopping anywhere; but what will one not commit for the sake of domestic peace? The young cousins, male and female, must become acquainted, and who knows when Johanna will see you again? She pounced upon me last night with the boy in her arms, and with all those wiles which formerly lost us Paradise; of course she succeeded in wringing my consent that everything should remain as before. I feel, however, that I am as one to whom fearful injustice is done, and I am certain that I shall have to travel next year with three cradles, wet-nurses, long-clothes, and counterpanes. I am now awake by six o'clock, and already in a gentle simmer of anger; I cannot get to sleep, owing to all the visions of traveling which my imagination paints in the darkest colors, even up to the "picnics" on the sandhills of Stolpmünde. And then if one were only paid for it! But to travel away the last remnants of a once handsome fortune with sucking babies!--I am very unhappy!

Well--Wednesday, then, in Gerswalde--I should have done probably better by driving over Passow, and you would not have had so far to Prenzlau as to G----. However, it is now a _fait accompli_, and the pain of selection is succeeded by the quiet of resignation. Johanna is somewhat nervous about her dresses, supposing you Boitzenburgers have company.

TO HIS WIFE

FRANKFORT, August 7th, 1851.

I wanted to write to you yesterday and to-day, but, owing to all the clatter and bustle of business, could not do so until now, late in the evening on my return from a walk through the lovely summer-night breeze, the moonlight, and the murmuring of poplar leaves, which I took to brush away the dust of the day's dispatches and papers. Saturday afternoon I drove out with Rochow and Lynar to Rüdesheim; there I took a boat, rowed out upon the Rhine, and swam in the moonlight, with nothing but nose and eyes out of the water, as far as the Mäusethürm near Bingen, where the bad bishop came to his end. It gives one a peculiar dreamy sensation to float thus on a quiet warm night in the water, gently carried down by the current, looking above on the heavens studded with the moon and stars, and on each side the banks and wooded hill-tops and the battlements of the old castles bathed in the moonlight, whilst nothing falls on one's ear but the gentle splashing of one's own movements. I should like to swim like this every evening. I drank some very fair wine afterwards, and then sat a long time with Lynar smoking on the balcony--the Rhine below us. My little New Testament and the star-studded heavens brought us on the subject of religion, and I argued long against the Rousseau-like sophism of his ideas, without, however, achieving more than to reduce him to silence. He was badly treated as a child by _bonnes_ and tutors, without ever having known his parents. Later on, in consequence of much the same sort of education as myself, he picked up the same ideas in his youth; but is more satisfied and more convinced by them than ever I was.

Next day we took the steamer to Coblenz, stopped there an hour for breakfast, and came back the same way to Frankfort, where we arrived in the evening. I undertook this expedition with the intention of visiting old Metternich, who had invited me to do so at Johannisberg; but I was so much pleased with the Rhine that I preferred to make my way over to Coblenz and to postpone the visit. When you and I saw it we had just returned from the Alps, and the weather was bad; on this fresh summer morning, however, and after the dusty monotony of Frankfort, the Rhine has risen very considerably in my estimation. I promise myself complete enjoyment in spending a couple of days with you at Rüdesheim; the place is so quiet and rural, honest people and cheap living. We will hire a small boat and row at our leisure downwards, climb up the Niederwald and a castle or two, and return with the steamer. One can leave this place early in the morning, stay eight hours at Rüdesheim, Bingen, or Rheinstein, etc., and be back again in the evening. My appointment here appears now to be certain.

Moscow, June 6th, 1859.

I will send you at least a sign of life from here, while I am waiting for the samovar; and a young Russian in a red shirt is exerting himself behind me with vain attempts to light a fire--he puffs and blows, but it will not burn. After having complained so much about the scorching heat lately, I woke to-day between Twer and here, and thought I was dreaming when I saw the country and its fresh verdure covered far and wide with snow. I shall wonder at nothing again, and having convinced myself of the fact beyond all doubt, I turned quickly on the other side to sleep and roll on farther, although the play of colors--from green to white--in the red dawn of day was not without its charm. I do not know if the snow still lies at Twer; here it has thawed away, and a cool gray rain is rattling on the green tin of the roofs. Green has every reason to be the Russian favorite color. Of the five hundred miles I have passed in traveling here, I have slept away about two hundred, but each hand-breadth of the remainder was green in every shade. Towns and villages, and more particularly houses, with the exception of the railway stations, I did not observe. Bushy forests with birch-trees cover swamp and hill, a fine growth of grass beneath, long tracts of meadow-land between; so it goes on for fifty, one hundred, two hundred miles. Ploughed land I do not remember to have remarked, nor heather, nor sand. Solitary grazing cows or horses awoke one at times to the presumption that there might be human beings in the neighborhood. Moscow, seen from above, looks like a field of young wheat: the soldiers are green, the cupolas green, and I do not doubt that the eggs on the table before me were laid by green hens.

You will want to know how I come to be here. I also have already asked myself this question, and the answer I received was that change is the soul of life. The truth of this profound saying becomes especially obvious after having lived for ten weeks in a sunny room of a hotel, with the look-out on pavements. The charms of moving become rather blunted if they occur repeatedly within a short period; I therefore determined to forego them, handed over all paper to----, gave Engel my keys, declared that I would put up in a week at Stenbock's house, and drove to the Moscow station. This was yesterday at noon, and this morning, at eight o'clock, I alighted here at the Hôtel de France. First of all I shall pay a visit to a charming acquaintance of former times, who lives in the country, about twenty versts from here; to-morrow evening I shall be here again; Wednesday and Thursday shall visit the Kremlin and so forth; and Friday or Saturday sleep in the beds which Engel will meantime buy. Slow harnessing and fast driving lie in the character of this people. I ordered the carriage two hours ago: to every call which I have been uttering for each successive ten minutes of an hour and a half, the answer is, "Immediately," given with imperturbably friendly composure; but there the matter rests. You know my exemplary patience in waiting, but everything has its limits; afterwards there will be wild galloping, so that on these bad roads horse and carriage break down, and at last we reach the place on foot. I have meanwhile drunk three glasses of tea and annihilated several eggs; the efforts at getting warm have also so perfectly succeeded that I feel the need of fresh air. I should, out of sheer impatience, commence shaving if I had a glass. This city is very straggling, and very foreign-looking, with its green-roofed churches and innumerable cupolas; quite different from Amsterdam, but both the most original cities I know. No German guard has a conception of the luggage people drag with them into the railway carriage; not a Russian goes without two real pillows in white pillow-cases, children in baskets, and masses of eatables of every kind. Out of politeness they bowed me into a sleeping car, where I was worse off than in my seat. Altogether, it is astonishing to me to see the fuss made here about a journey.

Moscow, June 8th.

This city is really, as a _city_, the handsomest and most original existing: the environs are cheerful, not pretty, not ugly; but the view from the top of the Kremlin on this panorama of green-roofed houses, gardens, churches, spires of the strangest possible form and color, mostly green, or red or bright blue, generally crowned at the top with a gigantic golden onion, and mostly five or more on one church,--there are certainly a thousand steeples!--anything more strangely beautiful than all this lit up by the slanting rays of the setting sun it is impossible to see. The weather has cleared up again, and I should stay here a few days longer if there were not rumors of a great battle in Italy, which may perhaps bring diplomatic work in its train, so I will be off there and get back to my post. The house in which I am writing is, curiously enough, one of the few that survived 1812; old, thick walls, like those at Schönhausen, Oriental architecture, big Moorish rooms.

June 28th, Evening.

After a three hours' drive through the gardens in an open carriage, and a view of all its beauties in detail, I am drinking tea, with a prospect of the golden evening sky and green woods. At the Emperor's they want to be _en famille_ the last evening, as I can perfectly well understand; and I, as a convalescent, have sought retirement, and have indeed done quite enough to-day for my first outing. I am smoking my cigar in peace, and drinking excellent tea, and see, through the smoke of both, a sunset of really rare beauty. I send you the inclosed jasmine as a proof that it really grows and blossoms here in the open air. On the other hand, I must own that I have been shown the common chestnut in shrub-form as a rare growth, which in winter is wrapped up; otherwise, there are very fine large oaks, ash-trees, limes, poplars, and birches as thick as oaks.

Petersburg, July 26, 1859.

Half an hour ago a cabinet courier woke me with war and peace. Our policy drifts more and more into the Austrian wake; and when we have once fired a shot on the Rhine, it is over with the Italian-Austrian war, and in its place a Prussian-French comes on the scene, in which Austria, after we have taken the burden from her shoulders, stands by us or fails to stand by us just so far as her own interests require. She will certainly not allow us to play a very brilliant victor's part.

As God wills! After all, everything here is only a question of time: nations and individuals, folly and wisdom, war and peace, they come and go like the waves, but the sea remains. There is nothing on this earth but hypocrisy and jugglery; and whether fever or grape-shot tear off this fleshly mask, fall it must sooner or later: and then, granted that they are equal in height, a likeness will after all turn up between a Prussian and an Austrian which will make it difficult to distinguish them. The stupid and the clever, too, look pretty much alike when their bones are well picked. With such views, a man certainly gets rid of his specific patriotism; but it would indeed be a subject for despair if our salvation depended on them.

TO HIS BROTHER-IN-LAW, OSCAR VON ARNIM

RHEINFELD, August 16th, 1861.

I have just received the news of the terrible misfortune which has befallen you and Malwine, My first thought was to come to you at once, but in wanting to do so I overrated my powers. My _régime_ has touched me up a good deal, and the thought of suddenly breaking it off met with such decided opposition that I have resolved to let Johanna go alone. Such a blow goes beyond the reach of human consolation. And yet it is a natural desire to be near those we love in their sorrow, and to lament with them in common. It is the only thing we can do. A heavier sorrow could scarcely have befallen you. To lose such an amiable and a so-happily-thriving child in such a way, and to bury along with him all the hopes which were to be the joys of your old days,--sorrow over such a loss will not depart from you as long as you live on this earth; this I feel with you, with deep and painful sympathy. We are powerless and helpless in God's mighty hand, so far as he will not himself help us, and can do nothing but bow down in humility under his dispensations. He can take from us all that he gave, and make us utterly desolate; and our mourning for it will be all the bitterer, the more we allow it to run to excess in contention and rebellion against his almighty ordinance. Do not mingle your just grief with bitterness and repining, but bring home to yourself that a son and a daughter are left to you, and that with them, and even in the feeling of having possessed another beloved child for fifteen years, you must consider yourself blessed in comparison with the many who have never had children nor known a parent's joy.

I do not want to trouble you with feeble grounds for consolation, but only to tell you in these lines how I, as friend and brother, feel your suffering like my own, and am moved by it to the very core. How all small cares and vexations, which daily accompany our life, vanish at the iron appearance of real misfortune! and I feel like so many reproaches the reminiscences of all complaints and covetous wishes, over which I have so often forgotten how much blessing God gives us, and how much danger surrounds us without touching us. We are not to attach ourselves to this world, and not regard it as our home. Another twenty, or in happiest case thirty years, and we are both of us beyond the cares of this life, and our children have reached our present standpoint, and find with astonishment that the freshly begun life is already going down hill. It would not be worth while to dress and undress if it were over with that.

Do you still remember these words of a fellow-traveler from Stolpemünde? The thought that death is the transition to another life will certainly do little to alleviate your grief; for you might think that your beloved son might have been a true and dear companion to you during the time you are still living in this world, and would have continued, by God's blessing, the memory of you here. The circle of those whom we love contracts itself and receives no increase till we have grandchildren. At our time of life we form no fresh bonds which are capable of replacing those that die off. Let us therefore keep the closer together in love until death separates us from one another, as it now separates your son from us. Who knows how soon? Won't you come with Malle to Stolpmünde, and stay quietly with us for a few weeks or days? At all events I shall come to you at Kröchlendorf, or wherever else you are, in three or four weeks. I greet my dearest Malle with all my heart. May God give her, as well as you, strength to bear and patiently submit.

TO HIS WIFE

BIARRITZ, August 4th, 1862.

I am afraid I have caused some confusion in our correspondence, as I induced you to write too soon to places where I have not yet arrived. It will be better for you to address your letters to Paris, just as though I were there; the embassy then sends them after me, and I can more quickly send word there if I alter my route. Yesterday evening I returned from St. Sebastian to Bayonne, where I slept, and am now sitting here in a corner-room of the Hotel de l'Europe, with charming view on the blue sea, which drives its white foam through the curious cliffs against the lighthouse. I have a bad conscience for seeing so many beautiful things without you. If one could transport you here through the air, I would go directly back again to St. Sebastian, and take you with me. Fancy the Siebengebirge with the Drachenfels placed by the sea; close by, Ehrenbreitstein, and between the two, pushing its way into the land, an arm of the sea, somewhat broader than the Rhine, and forming a round bay behind the mountains. In this you bathe in transparently clear water, so heavy and so salt that you swim on the top of it by yourself, and look through the broad gate of rocks into the sea, or landward where the mountain chains top each other, always higher, always bluer.

The women of the middle and lower classes are strikingly pretty, occasionally beautiful; the men surly and uncivil; and the comforts of life to which we are accustomed are missing. The heat is not worse here than there, and I do not mind it; find myself, on the contrary, very well, thank God. The day before yesterday there was a storm, such as I have never seen anything like. I had to take a run three times before I could succeed in getting up a flight of three steps on the jetty; pieces of stone and large fragments of trees were carried through the air. Unfortunately, therefore, I countermanded my place in a sailing vessel to Bayonne, for I could not suppose that after four hours all would be quiet and cheerful. I lost thus a charming sail along the coast, remained a day more at St. Sebastian, and left yesterday in the diligence, rather uncomfortably packed between nice little Spanish women, with whom I could not talk a syllable. So much Italian, however, they understood that I could demonstrate to them my satisfaction with their exterior. I looked to-day at a railway guide to see how I could get from here--that is, from Toulouse--by railway over Marseilles to Nice, then by boat to Genoa; from there over Venice, Trieste, Vienna, Breslau, Posen, Stargard to Cöslin! If it were only possible to go over Berlin! I cannot very well pass through there just now.

TO HIS WIFE

HOHENMAUTH, Monday, July 9th, 1866.

Do you still remember, my heart, how nineteen years ago we passed through here on the way from Prague to Vienna? No mirror showed the future, neither when, in 1852, I went along this line with the good Lynar. Matters are going well with us; if we are not immoderate in our demands, and do not imagine that we have conquered the world, we shall acquire a pace which will be worth the trouble. But we are just as quickly intoxicated as discouraged, and I have the ungrateful task of pouring water in the foaming wine, and making them see that we are not living alone in Europe, but with three neighbors still. The Austrians are in Moravia, and we are already so bold that their positions to-day are fixed for our headquarters to-morrow. Prisoners are still coming in, and one hundred and eighty guns since the 3d up to to-day. If they call up their southern army, with God's good help we shall beat them again. Confidence is universal. I could hug our fellows, each facing death so gallantly, so quiet, obedient, well-behaved, with empty stomachs, wet clothes, wet camp, little sleep, the soles of their boots falling off, obliging to everybody, no looting, no incendiarism, paying where they can, and eating moldy bread. There must after all abide in our man of the soil a rich store of the fear of God, or all that would be impossible. News of acquaintances is difficult to obtain; people are miles apart from one another; no one knows where the other is, and nobody to send; men enough, but no horses. I have had Philip searched for, for four days; he is _slightly_ wounded in the head by a lance, as G---- wrote to me, but I cannot find out where he is, and now we are already forty miles farther on.

The King exposed himself very much indeed on the 3d, and it was a very good thing that I was with him; for all warnings on the part of others were of no avail, and no one would have ventured to speak as I allowed myself to do the last time, and with success, after a heap of ten men and fifteen horses of the Sixth Regiment of cuirassiers were wallowing in their blood near us, and the shells whizzed round the sovereign in the most unpleasant proximity. The worst luckily did not burst. But after all I like it better than if he should err on the other side. He was enchanted with his troops, and rightly, so that he did not seem to remark all the whistling and bursting about him; as quiet and comfortable as on the Kreuzberg, and kept constantly finding battalions that he wanted to thank and say good evening to, until there we were again under fire. But he has had to hear so much about it, that he will leave it alone for the future, and you can be at ease; besides, I hardly believe in another real battle.

If you have _no_ news of a person, you can all implicitly believe that he lives and is well, as all casualties occurring to one's acquaintances are known in twenty-four hours at the longest. We have not come at all into communication with Herwarth and Steinmetz, but know that they are both well. G----- quietly leads his squadron with his arm in a sling. Good-bye, I must go on duty.

YOUR MOST TRUE V.B.

TO HIS WIFE

Note.--This letter did not reach its destination, but, together with the entire post, was captured by franc-tireurs and published by a French newspaper.

VENDRESSE, 3 September [1870].

_My Dear Heart_:

I left my present quarters before early dawn the day before
yesterday, came back to-day, and have in the mean time
witnessed the great battle of Sedan, in which we made about
thirty thousand prisoners, and threw the remainder of the
French army, which we have been pursuing since Bar-le-Duc,
into the fortress, where they had to surrender themselves,
along with the Emperor, prisoners of war. Yesterday morning
at five o'clock, after I had been negotiating until one
o'clock A.M. with Moltke and the French generals about the
capitulation to be concluded, I was awakened by General
Reille, with whom I am acquainted, to tell me that Napoleon
wished to speak with me. Unwashed and unbreakfasted, I rode
towards Sedan, found the Emperor in an open carriage, with
three aides-de-camp and three in attendance on horseback,
halted on the road before Sedan. I dismounted, saluted him
just as politely as at the Tuileries, and asked for his
commands. He wished to see the King; I told him, as the truth
was, that his Majesty had his quarters fifteen miles away, at
the spot where I am now writing. In answer to Napoleon's
question where he should go to, I offered him, as I was not
acquainted with the country, my own quarters at Donchéry, a
small place in the neighborhood, close by Sedan. He accepted,
and drove, accompanied by his six Frenchmen, by me and by
Carl (who in the mean time had ridden after me) through the
lonely morning towards our lines. Before coming to the spot,
he began to hesitate on account of the possible crowd, and he
asked me if he could alight in a lonely cottage by the
wayside; I had it inspected by Carl, who brought word that it
was mean and dirty. "N'importe," said N., and I ascended with
him a rickety, narrow staircase. In an apartment of ten
feet square, with a deal table and two rush-bottomed chairs,
we sat for an hour; the others were below. A powerful
contrast with our last meeting in the Tuileries in 1867. Our
conversation was a difficult thing, if I wanted to avoid
touching on topics which could not but affect painfully the
man whom God's mighty hand had cast down. I had sent Carl to
fetch officers from the town and to beg Moltke to come. We
then sent one of the former to reconnoitre, and discovered
two and one-half miles off, in Fresnois, a small château
situated an a park. Thither I accompanied him with an escort
of the cuirassier regiment of life-guards, which had meantime
been brought up; and there we concluded with the French
general-in-chief, Wimpffen, the capitulation by virtue of
which forty to sixty thousand Frenchmen,--I do not know it
accurately at present,--with all they possess, became our
prisoners. Yesterday and the day before cost France one
hundred thousand men and an Emperor. This morning the latter,
with all his suite and horses and carriages, started for
Wilhelmshöhe, near Cassel.

_THE SURRENDER AT SEDAN_.

Photogravure from a Painting by Anton Von Werner.

The surrender, at Sedan, in 1870, of the French army of 84,000 under
Napoleon III., MacMahon and Wimpffen, to the Germans, 250,000 strong,
under William I., was the signal for the downfall of the French empire
and the establishment of the republic. In the accompanying picture,
the figure seated at the extreme left is GENERAL FAURE; the middle
figure of the group of three, standing, is GENERAL CASTELNAU. GENERAL
WIMPFFEN, who succeeded MacMahon as commander Sept. 1 and signed the
capitulation Sept. 2, stands in a stooping posture, leaning upon his
chair and the table. Across the table, his right hand resting upon it,
and standing erect, is GENERAL MOLTKE, The seated figure in the
foreground is BISMARCK; behind whom, writing, stands COUNT NOSTIZ.

It is an event of great weight in the world's history, a
victory for which we will humbly thank the Almighty, and
which decides the war, even if we have to carry it on against
France shorn of her Emperor.

I must conclude. With heartfelt joy I learnt from your and
Maria's letters that Herbert has arrived among you. Bill I
spoke to yesterday, as already telegraphed, and embraced him
from horseback in his Majesty's presence, while he stood
motionless in the ranks. He is very healthy and happy. I saw
Hans and Fritz Carl, both Billows, in the Second dragoon
guards, well and cheerful.

Good-by, my heart; love to the children.

Your

V.B.

TO HIS WIFE

OFEN, June 23d, 1852.

I have just come from the steamer, and do not know how better
to employ the moment I have at my disposal before Hildebrand
follows with my things, than by sending you a little sign of
life from this very easterly but very beautiful world. The
Emperor has been graciously pleased to assign me quarters in
his castle; and here I am in a large vaulted hall, sitting at
an open window through which the evening bells of Pesth are
pealing. The outlook is charming. The castle stands high;
beneath me, first, the Danube, spanned by the suspension
bridge; across it, Pesth; and further off the endless plain
beyond Pesth, fading away into the purple haze of evening. To
the left of Pesth I look up the Danube; far, very far away on
my left,--that is, on its right bank,--it is first bordered
by the town of Ofen; back of that are hills, blue and still
bluer, and then comes the brown-red in the evening sky that
glows behind them. Between the two towns lies the broad
mirror of water, like that at Linz, broken by the suspension
bridge and a wooded island. The journey here, too, at least
from Gran to Pesth, would have delighted you. Imagine the
Odenwald and the Taunus pushed near to each other, and the
space between filled with the waters of the Danube. The shady
side of the trip was its sunny side; it was as hot as if
Tokay was to be grown on the boat: and the number of tourists
was great, but--only think of it--not an Englishman! They
cannot yet have discovered Hungary. There were, however, odd
customers enough, of all races, oriental and occidental,
greasy and washed. A very amiable general was my chief
traveling companion; I sat and smoked with him nearly the
whole time, up on the paddle-box.

I am growing impatient as to what has become of Hildebrand; I
lean out of the window, partly mooning and partly watching
for him as if he were a sweetheart, for I crave a clean
shirt--if you could only be here for a moment, and if you too
could now see the dull silver of the Danube, the dark hills
on a pale-red background, and the lights that shine up from
below in Pesth, Vienna would go down a good way in your
estimation as compared with "Buda-Pesth," as the Hungarians
call it. You see that I too can go into raptures over nature.
Now that Hildebrand has really turned up, I shall calm my
fevered blood with a cup of tea, and soon after go to bed.

JUNE 24TH: Evening.