affection; an injury to the leg received while shooting in
Sweden, became painful; the treatment adopted by the doctor, bleeding
and iodine, seems to have made him worse. At the beginning of July,
1860, he returned on leave to Berlin; there he was laid up for ten days;
his wife was summoned and under her care he began to improve. August he
spent at Wiesbaden and Nauheim, taking the waters, the greater part of
the autumn in Berlin; in October he had to go Warsaw officially to
receive and accompany the Czar, who came to Breslau for an interview
with the Prince Regent. From Breslau he hurried back to Berlin, from
Berlin down to Pomerania, where his wife was staying with her father;
then the same week back to Berlin, and started for St. Petersburg. The
result of these long journeys when his health was not completely
reestablished was very serious. He was to spend a night on the journey
to St. Petersburg with his old friend, Herr von Below, at Hohendorf, in
East Prussia; he had scarcely reached the house when he fell dangerously
ill of inflammation of the lungs and rheumatic fever. He remained here
all the winter, and it was not until the beginning of March, 1860, that
he was well enough to return to Berlin. Leopold von Gerlach, who met him
shortly afterwards, speaks of him as still looking wretchedly ill. This
prolonged illness forms an epoch in his life. He never recovered the
freshness and strength of his youth. It left a nervous irritation and
restlessness which often greatly interfered with his political work and
made the immense labour which came upon him doubly distasteful. He loses
the good humour which had been characteristic of him in early life; he
became irritable and more exacting. He spent the next three months in
Berlin attending the meetings of the Herrenhaus, and giving a silent
vote in favour of the Government measures; he considered it was his duty
as a servant of the State to support the Government, though he did not
agree with the Liberal policy which in internal affairs they adopted. At
this time he stood almost completely alone. His opinions on the Italian
question had brought about a complete breach with his old friends. Since
the conclusion of the war, public opinion in Germany, as in England, had
veered round. The success of Cavour had raised a desire to imitate him;
a strong impulse had been given to the national feeling, and a society,
the _National Verein_, had been founded to further the cause of