ir-and-water cure, which is doing me so much good that I actually
hate the thought of the dusty, close air of the royal residence. The
Emperor is too reasonable a gentleman to take my absence amiss, and
from Berlin I have an honest leave of absence. * * * Farewell, my
angel, with dearest love.

Your most faithful v.B.

Hohenmauth, Monday, September 7, '66.

Do you remember, sweetheart, how we passed through here nineteen years
ago, on the way from Prague to Vienna? No mirror showed the future
then, nor in 1852, when I went over this railway with good Lynar. How
strangely romantic are God's ways! We are doing well, in spite of
Napoleon; if we are not unmeasured in our claims and do not imagine we
have conquered the world, we shall achieve a peace that is worth the
trouble. But we are as easily intoxicated as disheartened, and it is
my thankless part to pour water into the foaming wine, and to insist
that we do not live alone in Europe, but with three other powers which
hate and envy us. The Austrians hold position in Moravia, and we are
bold enough to announce our headquarters for tomorrow at the point
where they are now. Prisoners still keep passing in, and cannon, one
hundred and eighty from the 3d to today. If they bring up their
southern army, we shall, with God's gracious help, defeat it too;
confidence is universal. Our people are ready to embrace one another,
every man so deadly in earnest, calm, obedient, orderly, with empty
stomach, soaked clothes, wet camp, little sleep, shoe-soles dropping
off, kindly to all, no sacking or burning, paying what they can and
eating mouldy bread. There must surely be a solid basis of fear of God
in the common soldier of our army, or all this could not be. News of
our friends is hard to get; we lie miles apart from one another, none
knowing where the other is, and nobody to send--that is, men might be
had, but no horses. For four days I have had search made for
Philip,[19] who was slightly wounded by a lance-thrust in the head, as
Gerhard[20] wrote me, but I can't find out where he is, and we have now
come thirty-seven miles farther. The King exposed himself greatly on
the 3d and it was well I was present, for all the warnings of others
had no effect, and no one would have dared to talk so sharply to him
as I allowed myself to do on the last occasion, which gave support to
my words, when a knot of ten cuirassiers and fifteen horses of the
Sixth Cuirassier Regiment rushed conf