Carlsbad, 12th July, 1865.
I am ashamed that I did not write to you on your birthday; but there is so much of “must” in my life that I scarcely ever get to “will.” The treadwheel goes on from day to day, and I seem as if I were the tired horse in it, pushing it along without getting any forwarder. One day after the other a courier arrives, one day after the other another departs—between whiles come others from Vienna, Munich, or Rome; the burden of papers increases, ministers are all at odds, and from this centre I am obliged to write to each of them singly.
The review I hope to stop; as far as I know, the actual return has not yet reached the King; but I have brought the matter forward, and His Majesty has promised to examine into the provision question for man and horse. To-morrow I will inquire in the military cabinet as to how far the writing has got.
Late in the evening, the 13th.
The whole day I have been writing, dictating, reading, going down and up the mountain as to the report to the King. The courier’s bag and my letter are both closing. Across the table I see the Erzgebirge, along the Tepl by the evening twilight, very beautiful; but I feel leathery and old. The King starts from here on the 19th, five days off, for Gastein, whither the Emperor designs to come. On the road I will see —— somewhere in Bavaria. “Neither rest by day nor night.” It looks ugly for peace—it must be settled at Gastein.
Gastein, 4th August, 1865.
I begin to count the days I shall have to sit through in this fog-chamber. As to what the sun looks like, we have only dark reminiscences from a better past. Since this morning it has at least been cold; until then sultry moist heat, with a change only in the form of rain, and continued uncertainty as to whether one gets wet with rain or perspiration, when one stumps up and down the esplanade steps in the mud. How people with nothing to do can endure it I do not understand. What with bathing, work, dinner, reports, and tea at His Majesty’s, I have scarcely time to realize the horrors of the situation. These last three days there has been a theatre of comedians here; but one is almost ashamed to go, and most people avoid the passage through the rain. I am very well through it all, particularly since we have had Kaltenhäuser beer. —— and —— are dreadfully cast down from not knowing what to drink. The landlord gives them bad beer in order to force them to drink worse wine. Other news than this there is none from this steam-kitchen, unless I talk politics.
