odder, money, potatoes, and manure; outside Johann is
persistently whistling a wretched schottische out of tune, and I
have not the cruelty to interrupt it, for he seeks to still by
music his violent love-sickness."

Then we have long letters from Nordeney, where he delighted in the sea,
but space will not allow us to quote more. It is only in these letters,
and in those which he wrote in later years to his wife, that we see the
natural kindliness and simplicity of his disposition, his love of
nature, and his great power of description. There have been few better
letter-writers in Germany or any other country.

His ability and success as an agriculturist made a deep impression on
his neighbours. As years went on he became much occupied in local
business; he was appointed as the representative of his brother, who was
Landrath for the district; in 1845 he was elected one of the members for
the Provincial Diet of Pomerania. He also had a seat in the Diet for the
Saxon province in which Schoenhausen was situated. These local Diets
were the only form of representative government which existed in the
rural districts; they had little power, but their opinion was asked on
new projects of law, and they were officially regarded as an efficient
substitute for a common Prussian Parliament. Many of his friends,
including his brother, urged him again to enter the public service, for
which they considered he was especially adapted; he might have had the
post of Royal Commissioner for Improvements in East Prussia.

He did make one attempt to resume his official career. At the beginning
of 1844 he returned to Potsdam and took up his duties as Referendar,
but not for long; he seems to have quarrelled with his superior. The
story is that he called one day to ask for leave of absence; his chief
kept him waiting an hour in the anteroom, and when he was admitted asked
him curtly, "What do you want?" Bismarck at once answered, "I came to
ask for leave of absence, but now I wish for permission to send in my
resignation." He was clearly deficient in that subservience and ready
obedience to authority which was the best passport to promotion in the
Civil Service; there was in his disposition already a certain truculence
and impatience. From this time he nourished a bitter hatred of the
Prussian bureaucracy.

This did not, however, prevent him carrying out his public duties as a
landed proprietor. In 1846 we find him taking much interest