acquired that complete ease in
cosmopolitan society which he could not learn at Goettingen or Berlin,
and his experiences during this year were not without use to him when
he was afterwards placed in the somewhat similar society of Frankfort.
This period in his career did not last long; in June, 1837, we find him
applying for leave of absence on account of ill-health. He received
leave for eight days, but he seems to have exceeded this, for four
months afterwards he writes from Berne asking that his leave may be
prolonged; he had apparently gone off for a long tour in Switzerland and
the Rhine. His request was refused; he received a severe reprimand, and
Count Arnim approved his resolution to return to one of the older
Prussian provinces, "where he might shew an activity in the duties of
his office which he had in vain attempted to attain in the social
conditions of Aachen."

He was transferred to Potsdam, but he remained here only a few weeks; he
had not as yet served in the army, and he now began the year as a
private soldier which was required from him; he entered the Jaeger or
Rifles in the _Garde Corps_ which was stationed at Potsdam, but after a
few weeks was transferred to the Jaeger at Stettin. The cause seems to
have been partly the ill-health of his mother; she was dying, and he
wished to be near her; in those days the journey from Berlin to
Pomerania took more than a day; besides this there were pecuniary
reasons. His father's administration of the family estates had not been
successful; it is said that his mother had constantly pressed her
husband to introduce innovations, but had not consistently carried them
out; this was a not unnatural characteristic in the clever and ambitious
woman who wished to introduce into agricultural affairs those habits
which she had learnt from the bureaucrats in Berlin. However this may
be, matters had now reached a crisis; it became necessary to sell the
larger part of the land attached to the house at Schoenhausen, and in
the next year, after the death of Frau von Bismarck, which took place on
January 1, 1839, it was decided that Herr von Bismarck should in future
live at Schoenhausen with his only daughter, now a girl of twelve years
of age, while the two brothers should undertake the management of the
Pomeranian estates.

So it came about that at the age of twenty-four all prospect of an
official career had for the time to be abandoned, and Otto settled down
with his br