The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-11-29
TIE MOTHER AND SISTER OF BIS
MARCR

MARCR.
Otto Won Bismarck was born of clever,
imperious, ambitious mother (not of the no.
bLesse) who, from her sons earliest years,
entertained high-sosring views for him, and
sent him off to his distant school without any
of those maternal pangs and weaknesses
which ESQ fathers say) are the ruin of so many
boys. She was careful for his health and
energetic abo1t his education but it was
after such fashion as tells of the iron in her
blood, and makes one recognize the maternal
strain In the courage, energy, and will of her
now famous son. '"rhe father was the heart,
the mother the understanding, of the house
I hold" writes old friend of the family,
speaking of Bismarck's youth. With his
sister, his 'heart- beloved Malvina' (married
. to q Herr Won Arnim), for whom from the
earliest days of youth he had felt the warmest
tenderness tenderness which led the people
about the estate to say that be was quite
'1over-like' in his devotion-he kept up as
constant correspondence as his multifariouS
occupations would allow.
In the following letter to his brother-in-
law, Oscar Won Arnim, there are tones the
true ring of whose metal tell us of the tender
heart and sympathetic nature of the mani
'At this moment receive the news of the
= dreadful misfortune which has overtaken you
&end Malvina. My first thought was to go to
VI you at once, but overrated my strength. The
N cure has prostrated me, and the idea of sud-
FL denly interrupting the treatment met with
such decided opposition that have resolved
on letting Johanna go alone. Such blow is
SO completely beyond the reach of any human
4 consolation; and yet it is natural desire to
long to be with those we love in sorrow, and
with them to mourn. 1t is the only thing
4 one can do A heavier grief could not we'll
befall you: to lose such an amiabie and pro-
\ missing child, and with it to bury all your
hopes-hopes that were to have been the Joys
Of rx,l1 nf lNTNf
Il live, will never leave YOU l feel for and with
q you, in painful sympathy. In Gods power
" full hands we are helpless and without coun-
sci, and, except in so far as He will help us,
can do nothing but humbly submit to His
i visitations. He can take from us all that He
gave, and leave us utterly lonely: and our
grief for our losses will be all the more bitter
In proportion az we show it by rebellious
murmurs against His almighty will. Do not,
therefore, let murmuring and rebellion
poison your natural and ust grief;
Il but try to realize thankfully that a
n son and daughter still remain to you; and
Yin them, and even in the thought that you
have, during fifteen years, possessed be-
loved child, try to look on yourself as blessed
? IN comparison with many who have never had
children, and never known parental joys.
will not trouble you with weak attempts at
consolation; 1 would only say that, as your
\ friend and brother, feel your sorrow with
you, and am moved by it in my very inner
most soul. How all small grievances and
! annoyanees. which are necessary Ingredients
of life, disappear before the iron stroke of
real misfortune! The remembrance Of my
repinings and desires appears to me now in
the shape of a reproach for forgetting how
much God gives; and how many dangers daily
encompass us without our falling q prey to
them. We are not to love this world, neither
4 to regard it as an abiding-place. Twenty or
thirty years more, at the best, and then we
shall both be far beyond its cares and sor-
rows, and our children will have reached our
present standpoint, and will recognize with
surprise the fact that life, which seems but
freshly begun, is already going hill
A 1T would not be worth while to dress and
\undress, if all were over with that! Do you
remember these words of Stolpmunder tra-
yelling companion? The thought that death
is but passage to another life will, indeed,
not lessen your grief; for you might have be-
lieved that your beloved son would have been
IA dear companion for the time you were on
earth, and would have kept your memory
fresh in the hearts of those who should
come after The circle of those we love
grows ever narrower, and only begins to
widen again when we have grandchildren.
At our age no new friendships can replace
those which have died out. Let us then
hold all the faster together in love until
dc ath shall come and separate us, as it has
7 separated us from your son-who knows how
soon VIII you not come to us with NAL
vina, and spend some quiet weeks or days
at Stolpmunde ? At any rate L shall go to
you at Krochlendorf in three or four weeks,
eor wherever you may be. I greet my be-
loved Malvina from nay heart; may God give
her. as well as you, the strength to bear with
m eekness and patience. "-BetgraUid.