_My Dear Heart_,--Now that the rush of today noon is past, I sit down
in the evening to write you a few more lines in peace. When I closed
my letter today I did it with the intention of writing to you next a
birthday letter, and thought I had plenty of time for it; it is only
the 23d of March here. I have thought it over, and find that a letter
must go out today exactly to reach Frankfort on the 11th; it is hard
to get used to the seven days' interval which the post needs. So I
hurry my congratulations. May God grant you His rich blessing in soul
and body, for all your love and truth, and give you resignation and
contentment in regard to the various new conditions of life, contrary
to your inclinations, which you will meet here. We cannot get rid of
the sixtieth degree of latitude, and we have not chosen our own lot.
Many live happily here, although the ice is still solid as rock, and
more snow fell in the night, and there are no garden and no Taunus
here.

I could get along very well indeed here if I only knew the same of
you, and, above all, if I had you with me. All official matters--and
in them rests really the calling which in this world has fallen to my
lot, and which you, through your significant "Yes" in the Kolziglow
church, are bound to help bear in joy and sorrow--all official matters
are, in comparison with Frankfort, changed from thorns to roses;
whether they will ever blossom is, indeed, uncertain. The aggravations
of the Diet and the palace venom look from here like childishness. If
we do not wantonly make ourselves disagreeable, we are welcome here.
Whenever the carriages are called here, and "_Prusku passlanika"_
("Prussian carriage") is cried out among those waiting, then all the
Russians look about with pleasant smiles, as though they had just
popped down a ninety-degree glass of schnapps. There is some social
affair every evening, and the people are different from those in