We then spoke of the Bohemian campaign, and in the course of the conversation the Chief, among other things, recalled the following characteristic episodes: “In the council of war at Nikolsburg, which was held in my room, the others wished to continue the campaign, proceeding right into Hungary. I was, however, against this. The cholera, the Hungarian steppes, the questionable change of front, as well as political and other considerations, gave me pause. But they held to their plan, and it was in vain that I spoke once more against it. I then left them and went into the bedroom, which was only divided from where they sat by a wooden partition, closed the door and threw myself on the bed, where I sobbed aloud from nervous excitement. After a while they became quite silent in the other room, and their plan was subsequently dropped. When it was feared that the French would intervene, Moltke wished to retire to the Elbe, let the Austrians be, and turn upon the French, who were then weak. I convinced him, however, that that would be a mistake, as 100,000 South Germans, with at least 25,000 red-breeches, might prove extremely inconvenient to us.” The Imperial Chancellor is regarded as a man of iron character, whose self-confidence never fails. Many will think that he must look back upon his deeds and creations with something of the feeling with which God the Father on the seventh day regarded the world He had made. I am not disposed to question that. But he has also softer moments--moments of apparent or real dissatisfaction with his achievements and his fate--a vein of melancholy or, perhaps we should say, pensive sentiment, that finds expression as _Weltschmerz_. He sometimes recalls Achilles in his tent, sometimes Solomon, exclaiming: “Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.” Many of these expressions also recall the spirit in which Hamlet sadly meditates:-- “How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world! Fye on’t! O fye! ’Tis an unweeded garden That grows to seed: things rank and gross in nature Possess it merely.” Perhaps it is some mystic change in his spirit, or possibly it may be an affection of the nerves, arising from bodily conditions such as over-excitement and fatigue. Thus on Sunday, the 21st of October, while seated in the position I have already described, and after gazing for a while into space, he complained to us that he had had little pleasure or satisfaction from his political life. He had made no one happy thereby, neither himself, nor his family, nor others. We protested, but he continued as follows:--