them to be correct, which do not literally agree with yours.  To what interpretation does the word “faith” not lend itself, both when taken alone and in connection with that which the Scriptures command us “to believe,” in every single instance where they employ the word!  Against my will, I fall into spiritual discussion and controversies.  Among Catholics the Bible is read not at all, or with great precaution, by the laity; it is expounded only by the priests, who have concerned themselves all their lives with the study of the original sources.  In the end, all depends upon the interpretation.  Concert in Buetow amuses me:  the idea of Buetow is, to my mind, the opposite of all music.

I have been quite garrulous, have I not?  Now I must disturb some document-dust, and sharpen my pen afresh to the police-official style, for the president of the provincial court and the government.  Could I but enclose myself herewith, or go along in a salmon-basket as mail-matter!  Till we meet again, dearest black one.[13] I love you, c’est tout dire.

BISMARCK.

(I am forgetting the English verses): 

  “Sad dreams, as when the spirit of our youth
  Returns in sleep, sparkling with all the truth
  And innocence, once ours, and leads us back
  In mournful mockery over the shining track
  Of our young life, and points out every ray
  Of hope and peace we’ve lost upon the way!”

By Moore, I think; perhaps Byron.

  “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
  Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
  To the last syllable of recorded time;
  And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
  The way to dusty death.  Out, out, brief candle! 
  Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
  That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
  And then is heard no more:  it is a tale
  Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
  Signifying nothing.”

Cordial remembrances to your parents and the Reddentin folk.

Schoenhausen, February 23, ’47.

My Angel!—­I shall not send this letter on its way tomorrow, it’s true, but I do want to make use of the few unoccupied minutes left me to satisfy the need I am conscious of every hour, to communicate with you, and forthwith to compose a “Sunday letter” to you once more.  Today I have been “on the move” all day long.  “The Moorish king rode up and down,” unfortunately not “through Granada’s royal town,” but between Havelberg and Jerichow, on foot, in a carriage, and on horseback, and got mighty cold doing so—­because, after the warm weather of the last few days, I had not made the slightest preparation to encounter five degrees below freezing, with a cutting north wind, and was too much in haste or too lazy to mount the stairs again when I noticed the fresh air.  During the night it had been quite endurable and superb moonlight.  A beautiful spectacle it was, too, when the great fields of ice first set