and over beyond Arneburg lay the last pink border of the sunset.  I was truly filled with gratitude to God, and there arose before my soul the quiet happiness of a family life filled with love, a peaceful haven, into which a gust of wind perchance forces its way from the storms of the world-ocean and ruffles the surface, but its warm depths remain clear and still so long as the cross of the Lord is reflected in them.  Though the reflected image be often faint and distorted, God knows his sign still.  Do you give thanks to Him, too, my angel; think of the many blessings He has conferred upon us, and the many dangers against which He has protected us, and, with firm reliance on His strong hand, confront the evil spirits with that when they try to affright your sick fancy with all sorts of images of fear. * * *

Your most faithful
v.B.

Brandenburg, July 23, ’49.

My Beloved Nanne!—­I have just received your short letter of Friday, which reassures me somewhat, as I infer from it that our little one has not the croup, but the whooping-cough, which is, indeed, bad, but not so dangerous as the other.  You, poor dear, must have worried yourself sick.  It is very fortunate that you have such good assistance from our people and the preacher, yet are you all somewhat lacking in confidence, and increase each other’s anxiety instead of comforting one another.  Barschall has just told me that all of his children have had this croupy cough—­that it was endemic in Posen in his time; his own and other children were attacked by it repeatedly in the course of a few days; that every family had an emetic of a certain kind on hand in the house, and by that means overcame the enemy easily every time, and without permanent consequences for the child.  Be comforted, then, and trust in the Lord God; He does, indeed, show us the rod that He has ready for us, but I have the firm belief that He will put it back behind the mirror.  As a child I, too, suffered from whooping-cough to the extent of inflammation of the lungs, and yet entirely outgrew it.  I have the greatest longing to be with you, my angel, and think day and night about you and your distress, and about the little creature, during all the wild turmoil of the elections. * * *

Here in Brandenburg the party of the centre is decidedly stronger than ours; in the country districts I hope it is the other way, yet the fact cannot be overlooked.  It is incredible what cock-and-bull stories the democrats tell the peasants about me; in fact, one from the Schoenhausen district, three miles from us, confided to me yesterday that, when my name is mentioned among them, a regular shudder goes through them from head to foot, as though they should get a couple of “old-Prussian broadsword strokes” laid across their shoulders.  As an opponent said recently, at a meeting, “Do you mean to elect Bismarck Schoenhausen, the man ’who, in the countryman’s evening prayer, stands hard by the devil’?” (From Grillparzer’s