kept him waiting an hour in the anteroom, and when he was admitted asked
him curtly, "What do you want?" Bismarck at once answered, "I came to
ask for leave of absence, but now I wish for permission to send in my
resignation." He was clearly deficient in that subservience and ready
obedience to authority which was the best passport to promotion in the
Civil Service; there was in his disposition already a certain truculence
and impatience. From this time he nourished a bitter hatred of the
Prussian bureaucracy.

This did not, however, prevent him carrying out his public duties as a
landed proprietor. In 1846 we find him taking much interest in proposals
for improving the management of the manorial courts; he wished to see
them altered so as to give something of the advantages of the English
system; he regrets the "want of corporate spirit and public feeling in
our corn-growing aristocracy"; "it is unfortunately difficult among most
of the gentlemen to awake any other idea under the words 'patrimonial
power' but the calculation whether the fee will cover the expenses." We
can easily understand that the man who wrote this would be called a
liberal by many of his neighbours; what he wanted, however, was a reform
which would give life, permanency, and independence to an institution
which like everything else was gradually falling before the inroads of
the dominant bureaucracy. The same year he was appointed to the
position of Inspector of Dykes for Jerichow. The duties of this office
were of considerable importance for Schoenhausen and the neighbouring
estate; as he writes, "it depends on the managers of this office
whether from time to time we come under water or not." He often refers
to the great damages caused by the floods; he had lost many of his
fruit-trees, and many of the finest elms in the park had been destroyed
by the overflowing of the Elbe.