Library of the Worlds Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 5 | Page 8

fine large oaks, ash-trees, limes, poplars, and birches as thick as
oaks.
Petersburg, July 26, 1859.
Half an hour ago a cabinet courier woke me with war and peace. Our
policy drifts more and more into the Austrian wake; and when we have
once fired a shot on the Rhine, it is over with the Italian-Austrian war,
and in its place a Prussian-French comes on the scene, in which Austria,
after we have taken the burden from her shoulders, stands by us or fails
to stand by us just so far as her own interests require. She will certainly
not allow us to play a very brilliant victor's part.
As God wills! After all, everything here is only a question of time:
nations and individuals, folly and wisdom, war and peace, they come
and go like the waves, but the sea remains. There is nothing on this
earth but hypocrisy and jugglery; and whether fever or grape-shot tear
off this fleshly mask, fall it must sooner or later: and then, granted that
they are equal in height, a likeness will after all turn up between a
Prussian and an Austrian which will make it difficult to distinguish
them. The stupid and the clever, too, look pretty much alike when their
bones are well picked. With such views, a man certainly gets rid of his
specific patriotism; but it would indeed be a subject for despair if our
salvation depended on them.
TO HIS BROTHER-IN-LAW, OSCAR VON ARNIM
RHEINFELD, August 16th, 1861.
I have just received the news of the terrible misfortune which has
befallen you and Malwine, My first thought was to come to you at once,
but in wanting to do so I overrated my powers. My régime has touched
me up a good deal, and the thought of suddenly breaking it off met with
such decided opposition that I have resolved to let Johanna go alone.

Such a blow goes beyond the reach of human consolation. And yet it is
a natural desire to be near those we love in their sorrow, and to lament
with them in common. It is the only thing we can do. A heavier sorrow
could scarcely have befallen you. To lose such an amiable and a
so-happily-thriving child in such a way, and to bury along with him all
the hopes which were to be the joys of your old days,--sorrow over
such a loss will not depart from you as long as you live on this earth;
this I feel with you, with deep and painful sympathy. We are powerless
and helpless in God's mighty hand, so far as he will not himself help us,
and can do nothing but bow down in humility under his dispensations.
He can take from us all that he gave, and make us utterly desolate; and
our mourning for it will be all the bitterer, the more we allow it to run
to excess in contention and rebellion against his almighty ordinance.
Do not mingle your just grief with bitterness and repining, but bring
home to yourself that a son and a daughter are left to you, and that with
them, and even in the feeling of having possessed another beloved child
for fifteen years, you must consider yourself blessed in comparison
with the many who have never had children nor known a parent's joy.
I do not want to trouble you with feeble grounds for consolation, but
only to tell you in these lines how I, as friend and brother, feel your
suffering like my own, and am moved by it to the very core. How all
small cares and vexations, which daily accompany our life, vanish at
the iron appearance of real misfortune! and I feel like so many
reproaches the reminiscences of all complaints and covetous wishes,
over which I have so often forgotten how much blessing God gives us,
and how much danger surrounds us without touching us. We are not to
attach ourselves to this world, and not regard it as our home. Another
twenty, or in happiest case thirty years, and we are both of us beyond
the cares of this life, and our children have reached our present
standpoint, and find with astonishment that the freshly begun life is
already going down hill. It would not be worth while to dress and
undress if it were over with that.
Do you still remember these words of a fellow-traveler from
Stolpemünde? The thought that death is the transition to another life
will certainly do little to alleviate your grief; for you might think that

your beloved son might have been a true and dear companion to you
during the time you are still living in this world, and would have
continued, by God's blessing, the memory of you here. The circle