"Unhappy souls, these same! The slow-poison has gone deep into them. Instead of manna, this long while back, they have been living on mouldy corrupt meats sweetened by sugar-of-lead; or perhaps, like Voltaire, a few individuals prefer hunger, as the cleaner alternative; and in contemptuous, barren, mocking humor, not yet got the length of geniality or indignation, snuff the east-wind by way of spiritual diet. Pilgriming along on such nourishment, the best human soul fails to become very ruddy!Tidings about Heaven are fallen so uncertain, but the Earth and her joys are still Interesting: 'Take to the Earth and her joys;let your soul go out, since it must; let your five senses and their appetites be well alive.' That is a dreadful 'Sham-Christian Dispensation' to be born under! You wonder at the want of heroism in the Eighteenth Century. Wonder rather at the degree of heroism it had; wonder how many souls there still are to be met with in it of some effective capability, though dieting in that way,nothing else to be had in the shops about. Carterets, Belleisles, Friedrichs, Voltaires; Chathams, Franklins, Choiseuls: there is an effective stroke of work, a fine fire of heroic pride, in this man and the other; not yet extinguished by spiritual famine or slow-poison; so robust is Nature the mighty Mother!
"But in general, that sad Gospel, 'Souls extinct, Stomachs well alive!' is the credible one, not articulately preached, but practically believed by the abject generations, and acted on as it never was before. What immense sensualities there were, is known; and also (as some small offset, though that has not yet begun in 1740) what immense quantities of Physical Labor and contrivance were got out of mankind, in that Epoch and down to this day. As if, having lost its Heaven, it had struck desperately down into the Earth; as if it were a BEAVER-kind, and not a mankind any more. We had once a Barbaossa; and a world all grandly true. But from that to Karl VI., and HIS Holy Romish Reich in such a state of 'Holiness'!" I here cut short my abstruse Friend.
Readers are impatient to have done with these miscellaneous preludings, and to be once definitely under way, such a Journey lying ahead. Yes, readers; a Journey indeed! And, at this point, permit me to warn you that, where the ground, where Dryasdust and the Destinies, yield anything humanly illustrative of Friedrich and his Work, one will have to linger, and carefully gather it, even as here. Large tracts occur, bestrewn with mere pedantisms, diplomatic cobwebberies, learned marine-stores, and inhuman matter, over which we shall have to skip empty-handed: this also was among the sad conditions of our Enterprise, that it has to go now too slow and again too fast; not in proportion to natural importance of objects, but to several inferior considerations withal. So busy has perverse Destiny been on it; perverse Destiny, edacious Chance;and the Dryasdusts, too, and Nightmares, in Prussia as elsewhere, we know how strong they are!
Friedrich's character in old age has doubtless its curious affinities, its disguised identities, with these prognostic features and indications of his youth: and to our readers,if we do ever get them to the goal, of seeing Friedrich a little with their own eyes and judgments,there may be pleasant contrasts and comparisons of that kind in store, one day. But the far commoner experience (which also has been my own),here is Smelfungus's stern account of that:
"My friend, you will be luckier than I, if, after ten years, not to say, in a sense, twenty years, thirty years, of reading and rummaging in those sad Prussian Books, ancient and new (which often are laudably authentic, too, and exact as to details), you can gather any character whatever of Friedrich, in any period of his life, or conceive him as a Human Entity at all! It is strange, after such thousand-fold writing, but it is true, his History is considerably unintelligible to mankind at this hour; left chaotic, enigmatic, in a good many points,the military part of it alone being brought to clearness, and rendered fairly conceivable and credible to those who will study. And as to the Man himself, or what his real Physiognomy can have been! Well, it must be owned few men were of such RAPIDITY of face and aspect; so difficult to seize the features of. In his action, too, there was such rapidity, such secrecy, suddenness: a man that could not be read, even by the candid, except as in flashes of lightning. And then the anger of by-standers, uncandid, who got hurt by him; the hasty malevolences, the stupidities, the opacities: enough, in modern times, what is saying much, perhaps no man's motives, intentions, and procedure have been more belied, misunderstood, misrepresented, during his life. Nor, I think, since that, have many men fared worse, by the Limner or Biographic class, the favorable to him and the unfavorable; or been so smeared of and blotched of, and reduced to a mere blur and dazzlement of cross-lights, incoherences, incredibilities, in which nothing, not so much as a human nose, is clearly discernible by way of feature!"Courage, reader, nevertheless; on the above terms let us march according to promise.
Chapter II. THE HOMAGINGS
Young Friedrich, as his Father had done, considers it unnecessary to be crowned. Old Friedrich, first of the name, and of the King series, we did see crowned, with a pinch of snuff tempering the solemnities. That Coronation once well done suffices all his descendants hitherto. Such an expense of money,of diluted mendacity too! Such haranguing, gesturing, symbolic fugling, all grown half false:avoid lying, even with your eyes, or knees, or the coat upon your back, so far as you easily can!
Nothing of Coronation: but it is thought needful to have the HULDIGUNGEN (Homagings) done, the Fealties sworn; and the young Majesty in due course goes about, or gives directions, now here now there, in his various Provinces, getting that accomplished. But even in that, Friedrich is by no means strait-laced or punctilious; does it commonly by Deputy: only in three places, Konigsberg, Berlin, Cleve, does he appear in person. Mainly by deputy; and always with the minimum of fuss, and no haranguing that could be avoided. Nowhere are the old STANDE (Provincial Parliaments) assembled, now or afterwards: sufficient for this and for every occasion are the "Permanent Committees of the STANDE;" nor is much speaking, unessential for despatch of business, used to these.
"STANDEof Ritterschaft mainly, of Gentry small and greatexisted once in all those Countries, as elsewhere," says one Historian; "and some of them, in Preussen, for example, used to be rather loud, and inclined to turbulence, till the curb, from a judicious bridle-hand, would admonish them. But, for a long while past,especially since the Great Elector's time, who got an 'Excise Law' passed, or the foundations of a good Excise Law laid; [Preuss, iv. 432; and Thronbesteigung, pp. 379-383.] and, what with Excise, what with Domain-Farms, had a fixed Annual Budget, which he reckoned fair to both parties,they have been dying out for want of work; and, under Friedrich Wilhelm, may be said to have gone quite dead. What work was left for them? Prussian Budget is fixed, many things are fixed: why talk of them farther? The Prussian King, nothing of a fool like certain others,"which indeed is the cardinal point, though my Author does not say so,"is respectfully aware of the facts round him; and can listen to the rumors too, so far as he finds good. The King sees himself terribly interested to get into the right course in all things, and avoid the wrong one! Probably he does, in his way, seek 'wise Advice concerning the arduous matters of the Kingdom;' nay I believe he is diligent to have it of the wisest:who knows if STANDE would always give it wiser; especially STANDE in the haranguing condition?"Enough, they are not applied to. There is no Freedom in that Country. "No Freedom to speak of," continues he: "but I do a little envy them their Fixed Budget, and some other things. What pleasure there can be in having your household arrangements tumbled into disorder every new Year, by a new-contrived scale of expenses for you, I never could ascertain!"