The wife was as fond of traveling as the husband, but during the first half of the summer he was kept at home by his duties as professor, and she by her interest in their own beautiful garden, and in the education of the children. By midsummer Berlin became unendurable to them both, and they were accustomed to leave home usually in July with the children, who then had their holidays. In the autumn of 1863 they took a longer journey, to Cologne and the Swiss Rhine, with their elder daughter Anna and Uncle Abeken. Shortly before the master of the house commenced his lectures they returned to Berlin, where their delightful social life began anew. Frau Elizabeth suffered from many physical ailments, especially “tic douloureux,” and had also assumed an almost oppressive number of domestic, pedagogic, social and benevolent duties. When she felt greatly in need of refreshment she retreated for a few days to Sacrow, a pretty and charmingly situated little village on the Havel near Potsdam, and on returning home she would resume with renewed strength the labors which awaited her.
After the death of Jonas, the family pastor was first Snethlage, who was then growing old, and afterwards the vigorous and manly Court Chaplain Kögel. In spite of his tendency to greater strictness, this latter entirely filled the place to Frau Lepsius of the deceased friend whom she so deeply lamented. After one of his sermons (1865) she wrote in the diary: “To be able to preach like Kögel! I should think that the highest earthly happiness. What a blessing for us!”
On the twenty-eighth of February, 1866, Lepsius started on his second journey to Egypt, the details of which are given on page 201. He was alone except for the faithful draughtsman Weidenbach. While he was on the way, Uncle Abeken became engaged to, and subsequently married, Fraulein Helene von Olfers, a daughter of the Director of the museum. The fear lest the old friend of the house should change proved unfounded, for as a married man he still preserved his old friendship for the Lepsiuses.
The master of the house returned home sooner than he had been expected. He had given up the journey to upper Egypt for several reasons, chief among which was the great inundation of the Nile. He was met at Berlin by the clang of arms. A civil war appeared inevitable, and Bismarck was as little of a favorite in Bendler street as in other constitutional circles of the country, though the sagacity of Lepsius and the information derived from Abeken, who always regarded his chief with fervent admiration, had caused the Lepsiuses to repose great confidence in him. At court, too, he had many more bitter opponents and enemies than friends, and when, shortly before the war, Bismarck injured his foot, a gentleman who held a situation near the Queen uttered the pointed bon-mots, “His foot hurts him because he has gone too far,” and “The cloven hoof is showing.”
But never did the feeling of a nation towards a great man undergo such a sudden, universal and complete revolution as that towards Bismarck during the short months of the war of 1866. At that time Frau Lepsius, with the ardent enthusiasm peculiar to herself and with the assistance of her daughters, made herself most useful in the Hospital Association and still more in the Elizabeth Hospital. The diary records the preliminaries of peace with anxious interest, and contains the following anecdote, perhaps from the mouth of Abeken: “At the negotiations for peace Benedetti began to speak cautiously of slight enlargements of the French boundaries, as Prussia was now so well rounded out. Then Bismarck cried: ‘Give me that in writing! To-morrow I must present a demand for a credit of sixty millions for war expenses to the Chamber; with this paper in my hand I can ask for double the sum.’”
Before the war many an angry word had been uttered against Bismarck in Bendler Street, but when a party of literati had assembled there on the twenty-second of July, 1866, they soon began to talk of politics, and each one gave expression to the admiration with which Bismarck’s greatness inspired him. Even Frau Lepsius praised the man whom she had previously judged none too mildly. (See page 245.) They all agreed that it was now possible for the first time to understand this great statesman’s aims and mode of action, and that as an envoy to the Diet he must undoubtedly have already grasped the idea which had now been carried into execution in such a wonderful manner. But Wichern thought he should have allowed his great intentions to be perceived a little more plainly, so that he might have been better understood and not so much hated. Lepsius then rose, and responded to this opinion of the clever master of the “reformatory,” that it was the great characteristic of Bismarck as a statesman that he knew how to keep silence for years, and to pursue his aims quietly. A few days before this the great Chancelor, on the occasion of the celebration of victory at Kroll, had proposed his beautiful toast to “The Children of Berlin,” who were a little rash in word, but had head and heart in the right place.
The wave of enthusiasm rolled high at that time. Every Prussian heart beat full and quick for its King. Lepsius had always greatly extolled his direct and honest nature, and his clear intelligence, which could never be confused. He was delighted therefore at the Monarch’s saying to him, “I myself proposed you,” when he received the red order of the eagle of the second class in 1867, on the annual celebration of the founding of that order.
The Court Chaplain Snethlage, who had been a faithful friend of the family, resigned his office in July, 1867, and the diary contains the following touching anecdote: “On a certain day one of the men of his parish comes to Snethlage, assures him of his fidelity and reverence, and then says to him, ‘But now I have a request to make of you: Preach no more; it will not do any longer!’ Thereupon the Court Chaplain held his peace for a short time, and then said, ‘You are right, it will no longer do, and I will give up preaching.’”
In September of the same year Lepsius went to Paris and London with his daughters, and in the autumn of 1869 he went to Egypt for the last time, and chiefly on account of the celebration of the opening of the Suez Canal.
When the war between Germany and France broke out, in 1870, the oldest son, Richard, who was just approaching his examination previous to matriculation, begged his parents to be allowed to take the field, and both, with ardent patriotism, accorded him permission. But he was rejected, as not yet sufficiently strong, and therefore, after passing the examination, he visited the arena of war but once, under the command of the army chaplain at whose disposal he had placed himself. His mother meanwhile with restless zeal and the practical ability characteristic of her, was working for the wounded. To put herself in a prominent position was repugnant to her, her only object was to be of real service to the hospital, and this she accomplished with the aid of her daughters and others upon whom she was able to call. Many people brought their donations to her and a large part of the linen and clothing for the Berlin hospital, especially that for the chief depot, was got together by her, and sewed and made ready under her supervision. In doing this she was able to furnish remunerative work for so many poor women that she wrote in the diary: “That is the only good thing about a war, that one can employ so many needy women.” She forgot that it is war which plunges so many women into poverty.