greetings and assurances of my love to your parents, and the former—the latter, too, if you like—to all your cousins, women friends, etc. What have you done with Aennchen?[1] My forgetting the Versin letters disturbs me; I did not mean to make such a bad job of it. Have they been found? Farewell, my treasure, my heart, consolation of my eyes.
Your faithfulBismarck.
Another picture, a description of a storm in the Alps, which catches my eye as I turn over the pages of the book, and pleases me much:
"The sky is changed, and such a change! night,
And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light
Of a dark eye in woman! Far along
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among,
Leaps the live thunder; not from one lone cloud,
But every mountain now has found a tongue,
And Jura answers through her misty shroud—
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud.
And this is in the night:—most glorious night!
Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be
A sharer in thy fierce and fair delight—
A portion of the tempest and of thee!
How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea,
And the big rain comes dancing to the earth!
And now again 'tis black, and now the glee
Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth,
As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth."
On such a night the suggestion comes uncommonly near to me that I wish to be a sharer in the delight, a portion of tempest, of night;[2] mounted on a runaway horse, to dash down the cliffs into the falls of the Rhine, or something similar. A pleasure of that kind, unfortunately, one can enjoy but once in this life. There is something intoxicating in nocturnal storms. Your nights, dearest, I hope you re-
