and they break the monotony of a space without trees near the water....
I am now going to the musical festival at Coblentz, and am to return this evening. I breakfast with the Prince of Holstein (the highest in command), and am to sup with Mayor Schott in Biebrich....
P. S.—We should make some excursions to the interior of the island this summer, with the fiddle on our back.
This extract from a letter to his son, in Paris, dated at Bergen, September 4, 1866, is interesting for its prescience of political events:—
Take care, Alexander! political events are following closely on one another; the French have an enemy in the United States not to be ignored [since the affair in Mexico]; they must also beware of Germany; their fleets and finance would soon be ruined by a war. The times have changed, and the turn has come for Prussia to play the master in Europe. She has a solid basis, a sound exchequer; while in France all is unsettled and can easily fall out of equilibrium. The French are to be banished from Rome, too; and they must create new surprises and new gloires in time, or fail. The great man [Napoleon III.] is seriously ill; France knows it, and is silent; but events will speak. Be careful,—never take part in political discussions, I pray you!
Ole Bull was an eager reader of the newspapers, and kept up always with the daily telegraphic news. In the war between Germany and France he was an enthusiastic advocate of the German cause as against the imperialism of Napoleon. A fortnight before the event, he predicted to a friend in Wisconsin the compulsory resignation of McMahon as president of the republic and the election of Grévy, and, with almost faultless accuracy, the members of Grévy’s cabinet. He had a personal acquaintance with leading men and workers in every country of Europe, and this, together with his profound sympathy with the thoughts and aspirations of the people as a whole, enabled him to arrive at his own conclusions.
From St. Petersburg he wrote his son, April 17, 1867:—
These lines to tell you in haste that I have determined to visit Paris as soon as possible. To–morrow to Warsaw, where I am to give two concerts, and then direct to Paris....
I have just composed a fantasy on a Russian air, “The Nightingale,”—my adieu to Moscow,—and was obliged to repeat it. It has no great musical worth,—only effective. Perhaps you will like it; there is a sad thought running through it. I will rewrite it at Valestrand. My “Gaspar da Salo” is full of joy, and bears its virtuoso like an Arab; it is really matchless since I had a bar of seven–hundred–years’–old wood put in by Weihe; and I have discovered a new method for measuring and placing the bar in its relation to the building and playing of the violin.