By degrees he went over, went into and through, every department of Prussian Business, in that fashion; steadily, warily, irresistibly compelling every item of it, large and little, to take that same character of perfect economy and solidity, of utility pure and simple. Needful work is to be rigorously well done; needless work, and ineffectual or imaginary workers, to be rigorously pitched out of doors. What a blessing on this Earth; worth purchasing almost at any price! The money saved is something, nothing if you will; but the amount of mendacity expunged, has any one computed that? Mendacity not of tongue; but the far feller sort, of hand, and of heart, and of head; short summary of all Devil's-worship whatsoever. Which spreads silently along, once you let it in, with full purse or with empty; some fools even praising it: the quiet DRY-ROT of Nations! To expunge such is greatly the duty of every man, especially of every King. Unconsciously, not thinking of Devil's-worship, or spiritual dry-rot, but of money chiefly, and led by Nature and the ways she has with us, it was the task of Friedrich Wilhelm's life to bring about this beneficent result in all departments of Prussian Business, great and little, public and even private. Year after year, he brings it to perfection; pushes it unweariedly forward every day and hour. So that he has Prussia, at last, all a Prussia made after his own image; the most thrifty, hardy, rigorous and Spartan country any modern King ever tied over; and himself (if he thought of that) a King indeed. He that models Nations according to his own image, he is a King, though his sceptre were a walking-stick; and, properly no other is. Friedrich Wilhelm was wondered at, and laughed at, by innumerable mortals for his ways of doing; which indeed were very strange. Not that he figured much in what is called Public History, or desired to do so; for, though a vigilant ruler, he did not deal in protocolling and campaining,--he let a minimum of that suffice him. But in court soirees, where elegant empty talk goes on, and of all materials for it scandal is found incomparably the most interesting. I suppose there turned up no name oftener than that of his Prussian Majesty; and during these twenty-seven years of his Reign, his wild pranks and explosions gave food for continual talk in such quarter.