This young King is magnanimous; not much to be called ambitious, or not in the vulgar sense almost at all,--strange as it may sound to readers. His hopes at this time are many;--and among them, I perceive, there is not wanting secretly, in spite of his experiences, some hope that he himself may be a good deal "happier" than formerly. Nor is there any ascetic humor, on his part, to forbid trial. He is much determined to try. Probably enough, as we guess and gather, his agreeablest anticipations, at this time, were of Reinsberg: How, in the intervals of work well done, he would live there wholly to the Muses; have his chosen spirits round him, his colloquies, his suppers of the gods. Why not? There might be a King of Intellects conceivable withal; protecting, cherishing, practically guiding the chosen Illuminative Souls of this world. A new Charlemagne, the smallest new Charlemagne of Spiritual type, with HIS Paladins round him; how glorious, how salutary in the dim generations now going!--These too were hopes which proved signally futile. Rigorous Time could not grant these at all;--granted, in his own hard way, other things instead. But, all along, the Life-element, the Epoch, though Friedrich took it kindly and never complained, was ungenial to such a man. "Somewhat of a rotten Epoch, this into which Friedrich has been born, to shape himself and his activities royal and other!"--exclaims Smelfungus once: "In an older earnest Time, when the eternally awful meanings of this Universe had not yet sunk into dubieties to any one, much less into levities or into mendacities, into huge hypocrisies carefully regulated,--so luminous, vivid and ingenuous a young creature had not wanted divine manna in his Pilgrimage through Life. Nor, in that case, had he come out of it in so lean a condition. But the highest man of us is born brother to his Contemporaries; struggle as he may, there is no escaping the family likeness. By spasmodic indignant contradiction of them, by stupid compliance with them,--you will inversely resemble, if you do not directly; like the starling, you can't get out!--Most surely, if there do fall manna from Heaven, in the given Generation, and nourish in us reverence and genial nobleness day by day, it is blessed and well. Failing that, in regard to our poor spiritual interests, there is sure to be one of two results: mockery, contempt, disbelief, what we may call SHORT-DIET to the length of very famine (which was Friedrich's case); or else slow-poison, carefully elaborated and provided by way of daily nourishment.