l sorts about me. I have spent a tiresome day,
tramping the pavement, smoking and intriguing. Do not judge of the few
words I spoke yesterday from the report in the Berlin _Times_. I shall
manage to bring you a copy of the speech, which has no significance
except as showing that I did not wish to be included in the category
of certain venal bureaucrats who turned their coat with contemptible
shamelessness to suit the wind. The impression it made was piteous,
while even my most zealous opponents shook my hand with greater warmth
after my declaration. I have just come from a great citizens' meeting,
of perhaps a thousand people, in the Milenz Hall, where the Polish
question was debated very decorously, very good speeches were made,
and on the whole the sentiment seemed to turn against the Poles,
especially after a disconsolate Jew had arrived, straight from Samter,
who told terrible stories about the lawless excesses of the Poles
against the Germans; he himself had been soundly beaten. * * *

Just for my sake do not alarm yourself if each mail does not bring you
a letter from me. There is not the slightest probability that a hair
of our heads will be touched, and my friends of all kinds overrun
me, to share their political wisdom with me, so that I began a letter
of one-quarter sheet to Malle this morning at 9, and could not finish
before 3. I am living in comfort and economy with Werdeck, only rather
far away, in consequence of which I already feel the pavement through
my soles. Cordial remembrances to the mother and the Bellins. I am
writing on the _table d'hote_ table of the Hotel des Princes, and a
small salad has just been brought for my supper.

Your very faithful B. April 3, '48.

Schoenhausen, August 21, '48. 8.30 P.M.

To HERR VON PUTTKAMER, AT REINFELD, NEAR ZUCKERS, POMERANIA.

_Dear Father_,--You have just become, with God's gracious help, the
grandfather of a healthy, well-formed girl that Johanna has presented
me with after hard but short pains. At the moment mother and child are
doing as well as one could wish. Johanna lies still and tired, yet
cheerful and composed, behind the curtain; the little creature, in the
meantime, under coverlets on the sofa, and squalls off and on. I am
quite glad that the first is a daughter, but if it had been a cat I
should have thanked God on my knees the moment Johanna was rid of it:
it is really a desperately hard business. I came from Berlin last
night, and this mor