to-day, and I
breathe again. In my yesterday's letter I broke Helene to you. It is
extraordinarily fortunate that on the verge of forty I should be able
to find a wife so beautiful, so sympathetic, who loves me so much, and
who, as you and I agreed was indispensable, is entirely absorbed in my
personality. In your last letter you throw cold water on my proposed
journey to Hamburg; and perhaps you are right in thinking the coup I
planned not so great and critical as I have been imagining. But how
you misunderstand my motives when you write: 'Cannot you, till your
health is re-established, find contentment for a while in science, in
friendship, in Nature?' You think politics the breath of my nostrils.
Ah, how little you are _au fait_ with me! I desire nothing more
ardently than to be quite rid of all politics, and to devote myself to
science, friendship, and Nature. I am sick and tired of politics.
Truly I would burn as passionately for them as any one, if there were
anything serious to be done, or if I had the power or saw the means, a
means worthy of me; for without supreme power nothing can be done. For
child's play, however, I am too old and too great. That is why I very
reluctantly undertook the Presidentship. I only yielded to you, and
that is why it now weighs upon me terribly. If I were but rid of it,
this were the moment I should choose to go to Naples with you. But how
to get rid of it? For events, I fear, will develop slowly, so slowly,
and my burning soul finds no interest in these children's maladies and
petty progressions. Politics means actual, immediate activity.
Otherwise one can work just as well for humanity by writing. I shall
still try to exercise at Hamburg a pressure upon events. But up to
what point it will be effective I cannot say. Nor do I promise myself
much from it. Ah, could I but get out of it!

"Helene is a wonderful creature, the only personality I could wed. She
looks forward to your friendship. I know it. For I am a good observer
of women without seeming to be. That dear _enfant du diable_, as
everybody calls her at Geneva, has a deep sympathy for you, because
she is, as Goethe puts it, an original nature. Only one fault--but
gigantic. She has no Will. But if we became husband and wife, that
would cease to be a fault. I have enough Will for two, and she would
be the flute in the hands of the artist. But till then--"

The Countess showed herself a kind Cassandra. His haste, she replied,