I set off for the Oberpfalz in the first days of
1804. But I was soon called away to Mecklenburg to the situation at
Gross-Milchow which I had definitively chosen, and in the raw,
frightfully severe winter-time of February I journeyed thither by the
mail-coach. Yet, short as had been my stay in the Oberpfalz, and
continual and uninterrupted as had been my labour in order that I might
get through the work I had undertaken, the time I spent in Bavaria
yielded me much that was instructive. The men, ingenuous, lively young
fellows from Saxony and Prussia, received me very kindly, and the
variety of their different services and their readiness to talk about
them, gave me a good insight into the inner relationship between the
landed aristocracy and their retainers. In recalling these circumstances
I thankfully acknowledge how my ever-tender loving destiny took pains
kindly to prepare me for each vocation next to come. I had never before
had the opportunity to see the mode of keeping accounts used on a great
estate, to say nothing of keeping them myself, and here I had this very
work to do, and that after a plan both ample and clear, in which every
particular, down to the single details, was carefully provided for.
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