Library of the Worlds Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 5 | Page 6

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 Rüdesheim;
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 Mäusethürm 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 the weather was bad; on this fresh summer
morning, however, and after the dusty monotony of Frankfort, the
Rhine has risen very considerably in my estimation. I promise myself
complete enjoyment in spending a couple of days with you at
Rüdesheim; the place is so quiet and rural, honest people and cheap
living. We will hire a small boat and row at our leisure downwards,
climb up the Niederwald and a castle or two, and return with the
steamer. One can leave this place early in the morning, stay eight hours
at Rüdesheim, Bingen, or Rheinstein, etc., and be back again in the
evening. My appointment here appears now to be certain.
Moscow, June 6th, 1859.
I will send you at least a sign of life from here, while I am waiting for
the samovar; and a young Russian in a red shirt is exerting himself
behind me with vain attempts to light a fire--he puffs and blows, but it
will not burn. After having complained so much about the scorching
heat lately, I woke to-day between Twer and here, and thought I was
dreaming when I saw the country and its fresh verdure covered far and
wide with snow. I shall wonder at nothing again, and having convinced
myself of the fact beyond all doubt, I turned quickly on the other side
to sleep and roll on farther, although the play of colors--from green to
white--in the red dawn of day was not without its charm. I do not know
if the snow still lies at Twer; here it has thawed away, and a cool gray
rain is rattling on the green tin of the roofs. Green has every reason to

be the Russian favorite color. Of the five hundred miles I have passed
in traveling here, I have slept away about two hundred, but each
hand-breadth of the remainder was green in every shade. Towns and
villages, and more particularly houses, with the exception of the
railway stations, I did not observe. Bushy forests with birch-trees cover
swamp and hill, a fine growth of grass beneath, long tracts of
meadow-land between; so it goes on for fifty, one hundred, two
hundred miles. Ploughed land I do not remember to have