and I, as a convalescent, have sought retirement, and have indeed done
quite enough to-day for my first outing. I am smoking my cigar in peace,
and drinking excellent tea, and see, through the smoke of both, a sunset
of really rare beauty. I send you the inclosed jasmine as a proof that
it really grows and blossoms here in the open air. On the other hand, I
must own that I have been shown the common chestnut in shrub-form as a
rare growth, which in winter is wrapped up; otherwise, there are very
fine large oaks, ash-trees, limes, poplars, and birches as thick
as oaks.


Petersburg, July 26, 1859.

Half an hour ago a cabinet courier woke me with war and peace. Our
policy drifts more and more into the Austrian wake; and when we have
once fired a shot on the Rhine, it is over with the Italian-Austrian
war, and in its place a Prussian-French comes on the scene, in which
Austria, after we have taken the burden from her shoulders, stands by us
or fails to stand by us just so far as her own interests require. She
will certainly not allow us to play a very brilliant victor's part.

As God wills! After all, everything here is only a question of time:
nations and individuals, folly and wisdom, war and peace, they come and
go like the waves, but the sea remains. There is nothing on this earth
but hypocrisy and jugglery; and whether fever or grape-shot tear off
this fleshly mask, fall it must sooner or later: and then, granted that
they are equal in height, a likeness will after all turn up between a
Prussian and an Austrian which will make it difficult to distinguish
them. The stupid and the clever, too, look pretty much alike when their
bones are well picked. With such views, a man certainly gets rid of his