HOHENMAUTH, Monday, July 9th, 1866.
Do you still remember, my heart, how nineteen years ago we passed
through here on the way from Prague to Vienna? No mirror showed the
future, neither when, in 1852, I went along this line with the good
Lynar. Matters are going well with us; if we are not immoderate in our
demands, and do not imagine that we have conquered the world, we shall
acquire a pace which will be worth the trouble. But we are just as
quickly intoxicated as discouraged, and I have the ungrateful task of
pouring water in the foaming wine, and making them see that we are not
living alone in Europe, but with three neighbors still. The Austrians
are in Moravia, and we are already so bold that their positions to-day
are fixed for our headquarters to-morrow. Prisoners are still coming in,
and one hundred and eighty guns since the 3d up to to-day. If they call
up their southern army, with God's good help we shall beat them again.
Confidence is universal. I could hug our fellows, each facing death so
gallantly, so quiet, obedient, well-behaved, with empty stomachs, wet
clothes, wet camp, little sleep, the soles of their boots falling off,
obliging to everybody, no looting, no incendiarism, paying where they
can, and eating moldy bread. There must after all abide in our man of
the soil a rich store of the fear of God, or all that would be
impossible. News of acquaintances is difficult to obtain; people are
miles apart from one another; no one knows where the other is, and
nobody to send; men enough, but no horses. I have had Philip searched
for, for four days; he is _slightly_ wounded in the head by a lance, as
G---- wrote to me, but I cannot find out where he is, and now we are
already forty miles farther on.
The King exposed himself very much indeed on the 3d, and it was a very
good thing that I was with him; for all warnings on the part of others
were of no avail, and no one would have ventured to speak as I allowed
myself to do the last time, and with success, after a heap of ten men
and fifteen horses of the Sixth Regiment of cuirassiers were wallowing
in their blood near us, and the shells whizzed round the sovereign in
the most unpleasant proximity. The worst luckily did not burst. But
after all I like it better than if he should err on the other side. He
was enchanted with his troops, and rightly, so that he did not seem to
remark all the whistling and bursting about him; as quiet and
comfortable as on the Kreuzberg, and kept constantly finding battalions
that he wanted to thank and say good evening to, until there we were
again under fire. But he has had to hear so much about it, that he will
leave it alone for the future, and you can be at ease; besides, I hardly
believe in another real battle.
If you have _no_ news of a person, you can all implicitly believe that
he lives and is well, as all casualties occurring to one's acquaintances
are known in twenty-four hours at the longest. We have not come at all
into communication with Herwarth and Steinmetz, but know that they are
both well. G----- quietly leads his squadron with his arm in a sling.
Good-bye, I must go on duty.