History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 20Carlyle, Thomas
History
History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 20
Carlyle, Thomas
Frederick II, King of Prussia, 1712-1786; Prussia (Germany) -- History -- Frederick II, 1740-1786; Social problems
"SIC ITUR AD ASTRA;" all Nations certain
that the way to Heaven is By voting, by eloquently wagging the tongue
"within those walls"! Diseases, real or imaginary, await Nations like
individuals; and are not to be resisted, but must be submitted to, and
got through the best you can. Measles and mumps; you cannot prevent them
in Nations either. Nay fashions even; fashion of Crinoline, for instance
(how infinitely more, that of Ballot-Box and Fourth-Estate!),--are you
able to prevent even that? You have to be patient under it, and keep
hoping!
2. In regard to England. Her JENKINS'S-EAR CONTROVERSY is at last
settled. Not only liberty of the Seas, but, if she were not wiser,
dominion of them; guardianship of liberty for all others whatsoever:
Dominion of the Seas for that wise object. America is to be English,
not French; what a result is that, were there no other! Really a
considerable Fact in the History of the World. Fact principally due to
Pitt, as I believe, according to my best conjecture, and comparison of
probabilities and circumstances. For which, after all, is not
everybody thankful, less or more? O my English brothers, O my Yankee
half-brothers, how oblivious are we of those that have done us
benefit!--
These are the results for England. And in the rear of these, had these
and the other elements once ripened for her, the poor Country is to
get into such merchandisings, colonizings, foreign-settlings,
gold-nuggetings, as lay beyond the drunkenest dreams of Jenkins
(supposing Jenkins addicted to liquor);--and, in fact, to enter on a
universal uproar of Machineries, Eldorados, "Unexampled Prosperities,"
which make a great noise for themselves in the very days now come.
Prosperities evidently not of a sublime type: which, in the mean while,
seem to be covering the at one time creditably clean and comely face
of England with mud-blotches, soot-blotches, miscellaneous squalors and
horrors; to be preaching into her amazed heart, which once knew better,
the omnipotence of
SHODDY; filling her ears and soul with shriekery and metallic clangor,
mad noises, mad hurries mostly no-whither;--and are awakening, I
suppose, in such of her sons as still go into reflection at all,
a deeper and more ominous set of Questions than have ever risen in
England's History before. As in the foregoing case, we have to be
patient and keep hoping.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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