During the summer trip, which Bismarck made alone, he wrote the following letters to his wife:—
Ostend, 19th August, 1853.
Up to the present time, besides the one of to day, I have taken three baths, with which I have been well pleased; there is a strong sea and soft bottom. Most people bathe close under the pier forming the parade, ladies and gentlemen all together; the first in very unbecoming long gowns of dark woollen, the last in a tricot, being jacket and trowsers in one piece, so that the arms above and the legs beneath are almost free. Only the consciousness of possessing a perfectly well-proportioned form can allow one of us to produce himself in ladies’ society thus.
Brussels, 21st August, 1853.
I have left Ostend with sorrow, and really wish myself back again: I found an old sweetheart of mine there, and as unchanged and charming as on our first acquaintance. I really feel the sorrow of separation deeply at this moment, and look forward impatiently to the instant when I shall cast myself on her heaving bosom at Nordeney. I can hardly understand why people can not always live by the sea, and why I have been cajoled into passing two days in this parallelogrammatic stone heap, to see bull-fights, Waterloo, and pompous processions. If I had not to keep that most unlucky appointment with N. N., I should stay several weeks longer in Ostend, and give N. N. up. I shall only remain till noon to-morrow, and then start, or early the next morning, for Antwerp, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam; thence by steamer to Harlingen, and through Friesland to Nordeney. I am afraid N. N. will soon disturb me there, and if I once get to Bremen with him, I hardly know whether I ever shall accomplish the tiresome journey to N. again, but shall make my way by Hanover, Hamm, Kassel, and Frankfurt to the place you inhabit. If you write to me, direct to Nordeney.
Amsterdam, 24th August, 1853.
In Brussels and Antwerp I have never had a quiet minute on account of feasts and sight-seeing. I have passed a detestable night on a camp-stool, in a crowded boat from Antwerp, starting at one in the morning. By an angular labyrinth of arms of the Scheldt and Maas, and the Rhine, I reached Rotterdam early, about eleven, and about four arrived here. That is a singular town: many streets are like Venice, some with water right up to the walls, others like canals with a towing path, and with narrow walks planted with limes before the houses. The latter have fantastic gables, strange and smoky, almost ghostly—the chimneys like men standing on their heads and stretching out their legs. That which does not savor of Venice is the busy life, and the massive handsome shops—one window close to the other, and more magnificently than I remember those of Paris or London. When I listen to the bells, and, with a long clay pipe in my mouth, look through the forest of masts, across the canals into the twilight towards the romantically confused gables and chimneys, all the Dutch ghost stories of my childhood come back to me, of Dolph Heylinger, and Rip van Winkle, and the Flying Dutchman. To-morrow morning I go by steamer to Harlingen on the Zuyder Zee, and to-morrow evening I hope to be in Nordeney, the farthest point from you I propose to touch; and then the time will not be far off when I hope to encounter you unexpectedly on a glacier. I have nothing from Berlin since I left Ostend, and therefore conclude that the storms are all laid, and the waters returned into the old bed—the pleasantest event that could happen for us. I am very glad I have seen Holland; from Rotterdam to this place there is one continual verdant and level meadow, upon which there are many bushes, much grazing cattle, and some old cities cut out of picture-books; no arable land anywhere.