hould 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 Ruedesheim; 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 Maeusethuerm 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