pecial mission to
Vienna to try and bring about an agreement as to the rivalry concerning
the Customs' Union. He failed, but he had gained a knowledge of persons
and opinions at the Austrian Court which was to be of much use to him.

During these years, indeed, he acquired a most remarkable knowledge of
Germany; before, he had lived entirely in Prussia, now he was at the
centre of the German political system, continually engaged in important
negotiations with the other Courts; after a few years there was not a
man of importance in German public life whose character and opinions he
had not gauged.

Further experience only confirmed in him the observations he had made at
the beginning, that it was impossible to maintain a good understanding
with Austria. The tone of his letters soon changes from doubt and
disappointment to settled and determined hostility. In other matters
also he found that the world was not the same place it had seemed to
him; he had been accustomed to regard the Revolution as the chief danger
to be met; at Frankfort he was in the home of it; here for nearly a year
the German Assembly had held its meetings; in the neighbouring States of
Baden, Hesse, and in the Palatinate, the Republican element was strong;
he found them as revolutionary as ever, but he soon learnt to despise
rather than fear them:

"The population here would be a political volcano if revolutions
were made with the mouth; so long as it requires blood and
strength they will obey anyone who has courage to command and, if
necessary, to draw the sword; they would be dangerous only under
cowardly governments.

"I have never seen two men fighting in all the two years I have
been here. This cowardice does not prevent the people, who are
completely devoid of all inner Christianity and all respect for
authority, from sympathising with
the Revolution."

His observations on the character of the South Germans only increased
his admiration for the Prussian people and his confidence in the
Prussian State.

He had not been at Frankfort a year before he had learnt to look on this
hostility of Austria as unsurmountable. As soon as he had convinced
himself of this, he did not bewail and bemoan the desertion of their
ally; he at once accustomed himself to the new position and considered
in what way the Government ought to act. His argument was simple.
Austria is now our enemy; we must be prepared to meet this enmity either
by