1826, he was on the road a great deal, not to say
most, of the time, covering, to be sure, quite an extensive territory,
which, beside the Province of Brandenburg, included Saxony, Thuringia,
and finally Pomerania.

In later life this period of travel was a favorite topic of
conversation with my father, and likewise with my mother, who
ordinarily assumed a rather indifferent attitude toward the favorite
themes of my father. That she made an exception in this case was due
in part to the fact that during his journeyings my father had written
to his young wife many "love letters," which as letters it was my
mother's chief delight to ridicule, so long as she lived. "For I would
have you know, children," she was wont to say, "I still have your
father's love letters; one always keeps such charming things. One of
these I even know by heart, at least the beginning. The letter came
from Eisleben, and in it your father wrote to me: 'I arrived here this
afternoon and have found very good quarters. Also for the horse, whose
neck and shoulders are somewhat galled. However, I will not write you
today about that, but about the fact that this is the place where
Martin Luther was born on the 10th of November, 1483, nine years
before the discovery of America.' There you have your father as a
lover. You see, he would have been qualified to publish a _Letter
Writer_."

All this was said by my mother not only with considerable seriousness,
but also, unfortunately, with bitterness. It always grieved her that
my father, much as he loved her, had never shown the slightest
familiarity with the ways of tenderness.

The travels, which were kept up for nine months, were finally directed
eastward toward the mouth of the Oder. Shortly before Christmas my
father set out by stage coach, to save his horse from the hardships of
winter travel, and when he arrived in Swinemuende the thermometer stood
at 15 deg. below zero, Fahrenheit. The cognac in his bottle was frozen to
a lump of ice. He was so much the more warmly received by the widow
Geisler, who, inasmuch as her husband had died the previous year,
desired to sell her apothecary's shop as quickly as possible. And the
sale was made. In the letter announcing the conclusion of the
transaction was this passage: "We now have a new home in the province
of Pomerania, Pomerania, of which false notions are frequently held;
for it is really a splendid province and much richer than the Mark.
And where the