The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 10: Prince Otto Von Bismarck, Count Helmuth Von Moltke, Ferdinand Lassalle
History
The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 10: Prince Otto Von Bismarck, Count Helmuth Von Moltke, Ferdinand Lassalle
German literature -- 19th century -- Translations into English; German literature -- 20th century -- Translations into English
you so plainly, attending to the children, covering up Midget, with
sensible speeches, and father sitting at his desk smoking, the mayor
beside him, and mammy bolt-upright on her sofa, by wretched light, one
hand lying on the arm-rest, or holding _Musée Français_ close before
her eyes. God grant that at this moment everything at Reinfeld is
going as smoothly as this. I have at last received a letter from Hans,
one that is very charming, and, contrary to his custom, mysterious, in
view of the post-office spies. You may imagine how Senfft writes to me
under these circumstances. I received an unsigned letter from him the
other day, out of which the most quick-witted letter-bandit would have
been at a loss to decipher what he was driving at. If you occasionally
come across some unintelligible notices at the tail end of the
_Observer_, they will thus seem to you more puzzling still, and to the
blockhead who breaks open this letter they will remain unintelligible,
even if I tell you that they are a part of my correspondence. Only
give me frequent tidings, my beloved heart, even if short ones, so
that I may have the assurance that you are alive and well. A have
picked the enclosed leaves for you in the garden of old Amschel
Rothschild, whom I like, because he is simply a haggling Jew, and does
not pretend to be anything else, and, at the same time, a strictly
orthodox Jew, who touches nothing at his dinners, and eats only
"undefiled" food. "Johann dage vid you some bread for de deers," he
said his servant as he came out to show me his garden, in which there
were some tame fallow deer. "Baron, dat blant costs me two thousand
guilders, honor bride, two thousand guilders gash; I vill let you have
it for one thousand or, if you vant it for nuddings, he shall bring id
to your house. God knows I abbrejiate you highly, Baron; you are a
nize man, a brave man." With that he is a little, thin gray imp of a
man, the patriarch of his tribe, but a poor man in his palace,
childless, a widower, cheated by his servants, and ill-treated by
aristocratically Frenchified and Anglicized nephews and nieces who
will inherit his treasures without gratitude and without love.
Good-night, my angel. The clock is striking twelve; I want to go to
bed and read chap. ii. of the Second Epistle of St. Peter. I am now
doing that in a systematic way, and, when I have finished St. Peter,
at your recommendation I shall read the He-brews, which I do not know
at all as yet. May God's protection and blessing be with you all.
Your most faithful v.B.
Frankfort, July 3, 1851.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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