History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 13Carlyle, Thomas
History
History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 13
Carlyle, Thomas
Frederick II, King of Prussia, 1712-1786; Prussia (Germany) -- History -- Frederick II, 1740-1786; Social problems
An English soul has small exhilaration, looking into those old
expenditures, and bullyings for want of promptitude! But if English
souls will solemnly, under high Heaven, constitute a Duke of Newcastle
and a George II. their Captains of the march Heavenward, and say,
without blushing for it, nay rejoicing at it, in the face of the
sun, "You are the most godlike Two we could lay hold of for that
object,"--what have English souls to expect? My consolation is, and,
alas, it is a poor one, the money would have been mostly wasted any way.
Buy men and gunpowder with your money, to be shot away in foreign parts,
without renown or use: is that so much worse than buying ridiculous
upholsteries, idle luxuries, frivolities, and in the end unbeautiful
pot-bellies corporeal and spiritual with it, here at home? I am struck
silent, looking at much that goes on under these stars;--and find that
misappointment of your Captains, of your Exemplars and Guiding and
Governing individuals, higher and lower, is a fatal business always; and
that especially, as highest instance of it, which includes all the lower
ones, this of solemnly calling Chief Captain, and King by the Grace of
God, a gentleman who is NOT so (and SEEMS to be so mainly by Malice of
the Devil, and by the very great and nearly unforgivable indifference
of Mankind to resist the Devil in that particular province, for the
present), is the deepest fountain of human wretchedness, and the head
mendacity capable of being done!--
As for the brave young Queen of Hungary, my admiration goes with that of
all the world. Not in the language of flattery, but of evident fact, the
royal qualities abound in that high young Lady; had they left the world,
and grown to mere costume elsewhere, you might find certain of them
again here. Most brave, high and pious-minded; beautiful too, and
radiant with good-nature, though of temper that will easily catch fire:
there is perhaps no nobler woman then living. And she fronts the roaring
elements in a truly grand feminine manner; as if Heaven itself and the
voice of Duty called her: "The Inheritances which my Fathers left me,
we will not part with these. Death, if it so must be; but not
dishonor:--Listen not to that thief in the night!" Maria Theresa has
not studied, at all, the History of the Silesian Duchies; she knows only
that her Father and Grandfather peaceably held them; it was not she
that sent out Seckendorf to ride 25,000 miles, or broke the heart of
Friedrich Wilhelm and his Household. Pity she had not complied with
Friedrich, and saved such rivers of bitterness to herself and mankind!
But how could she see to do it,--especially with little George at her
back, and abundance of money? This, for the present, is her method
of looking at the matter; this magnanimous, heroic, and occasionally
somewhat female one.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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