Produced by D.R. Thompson
HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II. OF PRUSSIA
FREDERICK THE GREAT
By Thomas Carlyle
FREDERICK THE GREAT.
Book I. -- BIRTH AND PARENTAGE. -- 1712.
Chapter I. -- PROEM: FRIEDRICH'S HISTORY FROM THE DISTANCE WE ARE AT.
About fourscore years ago, there used to be seen sauntering on the
terraces of Sans Souci, for a short time in the afternoon, or you might
have met him elsewhere at an earlier hour, riding or driving in a rapid
business manner on the open roads or through the scraggy woods
and avenues of that intricate amphibious Potsdam region, a highly
interesting lean little old man, of alert though slightly stooping
figure; whose name among strangers was King FRIEDRICH THE SECOND, or
Frederick the Great of Prussia, and at home among the common people, who
much loved and esteemed him, was VATER FRITZ,--Father Fred,--a name of
familiarity which had not bred contempt in that instance. He is a King
every inch of him, though without the trappings of a King. Presents
himself in a Spartan simplicity of vesture: no crown but an old military
cocked-hat,--generally old, or trampled and kneaded into absolute
SOFTNESS, if new;--no sceptre but one like Agamemnon's, a walking-stick
cut from the woods, which serves also as a riding-stick (with which he
hits the horse "between the ears," say authors);--and for royal robes,
a mere soldier's blue coat with red facings, coat likely to be old, and
sure to have a good deal of Spanish snuff on the breast of it; rest of
the apparel dim, unobtrusive in color or out, ending in high over-knee
military boots, which may be brushed (and, I hope, kept soft with an
underhand suspicion of oil), but are not permitted to be blackened or
varnished; Day and Martin with their soot-pots forbidden to approach.
The man is not of godlike physiognomy, any more than of imposing stature
or costume: close-shut mouth with thin lips, prominent jaws and nose,
receding brow, by no means of Olympian height; head, however, is of
long form, and has superlative gray eyes in it. Not what is called a
beautiful man; nor yet, by all appearance, what is called a happy.
On the contrary, the face bears evidence of many sorrows, as they are
termed, of much hard labor done in this world; and seems to anticipate
nothing but more still coming. Quiet stoicism, capable enough of what
joy there were, but not expecting any worth mention; great unconscious
and some conscious pride, well tempered with a cheery mockery of
humor,--are written on that old face; which carries its chin well
forward, in spite of the slight stoop about the neck; snuffy nose rather
flung into the air, under its old cocked-hat,--like an old snuffy lion
on the watch; and such a pair of eyes as no man or lion or lynx of that
Century bore elsewhere, according to all the testimony we have.
"Those eyes," says Mirabeau, "which, at the bidding of his great soul,
fascinated you with seduction or with terror _(portaient, au gre de son
ame heroique, la seduction ou la terreur)_." [Mirabeau, _Histoire
Secrete de la Cour de Berlin,_ Lettre 28?? (24 September, 1786) p. 128
(in edition of Paris, 1821)]. Most excellent potent brilliant eyes,
swift-darting as the stars, steadfast as the sun; gray, we said, of the
azure-gray color; large enough, not of glaring size; the habitual
expression of them vigilance and penetrating sense, rapidity resting on
depth. Which is an excellent combination; and gives us the notion of a
lambent outer radiance springing from some great inner sea of light and
fire in the man. The voice, if he speak to you, is of similar
physiognomy: clear, melodious and sonorous; all tones are in it, from
that of ingenuous inquiry, graceful sociality, light-flowing banter
(rather prickly for most part), up to definite word of command, up to
desolating word of rebuke and reprobation; a voice "the clearest and
most agreeable in conversation I ever heard," says witty Dr. Moore.
[Moore, View of Society and Manners in France, Switzerland and Germany
(London, 1779), ii. 246.] "He speaks a great deal," continues the
doctor; "yet those who hear him, regret that he does not speak a good
deal more. His observations are always lively, very often just; and few
men possess the talent of repartee in greater perfection."
Just about threescore and ten years ago, [A.D. 1856,--17th August, 1786]
his speakings and his workings came to finis in this World of Time; and
he vanished from all eyes into other worlds, leaving much inquiry about
him in the minds of men;--which, as my readers and I may feel too well,
is yet by no means satisfied. As to his speech, indeed, though it had
the worth just ascribed to it and more, and though masses of it were
deliberately put on paper by himself, in prose and verse, and continue
to be printed and kept legible, what he spoke has pretty much vanished
into the inane; and except as record or document of what he did, hardly
now concerns mankind. But the things he did were extremely remarkable;
and cannot be forgotten by mankind. Indeed, they bear such fruit to the
present hour as all the Newspapers are obliged to be taking note of,
sometimes to an unpleasant degree. Editors vaguely account this man the
"Creator of the Prussian Monarchy;" which has since grown so large
in the world, and troublesome to the Editorial mind in this and other
countries. He was indeed the first who, in a highly public manner,
notified its creation; announced to all men that it was, in very deed,
created; standing on its feet there, and would go a great way, on the
impulse it had got from him and others. As it has accordingly done; and
may still keep doing to lengths little dreamt of by the British Editor
in our time; whose prophesyings upon Prussia, and insights into Prussia,
in its past, or present or future, are truly as yet inconsiderable, in
proportion to the noise he makes with them! The more is the pity for
him,--and for myself too in the Enterprise now on hand.
It is of this Figure, whom we see by the mind's eye in those Potsdam
regions, visible for the last time seventy years ago, that we are now to
treat, in the way of solacing ingenuous human curiosity. We are to try
for some Historical Conception of this Man and King; some answer to the
questions, "What was he, then? Whence, how? And what did he achieve and
suffer in the world?"--such answer as may prove admissible to ingenuous
mankind, especially such as may correspond to the Fact (which stands
there, abstruse indeed, but actual and unalterable), and so be sure of
admissibility one day.
An Enterprise which turns out to be, the longer one looks at it, the
more of a formidable, not to say unmanageable nature! Concerning which,
on one or two points, it were good, if conveniently possible, to come
to some preliminary understanding with the reader. Here, flying on loose
leaves, are certain incidental utterances, of various date: these, as
the topic is difficult, I will merely label and insert, instead of
a formal Discourse, which were too apt to slide into something of a
Lamentation, or otherwise take an unpleasant turn.
1. FRIEDRICH THEN, AND FRIEDRICH NOW.
This was a man of infinite mark to his contemporaries; who had witnessed
surprising feats from him in the world; very questionable notions and
ways, which he had contrived to maintain against the world and its
criticisms. As an original man has always to do; much more an original
ruler of men. The world, in fact, had tried hard to put him down, as it
does, unconsciously or, consciously, with all such; and after the
most conscious exertions, and at one time a dead-lift spasm of all its
energies for Seven Years, had not been able. Principalities and powers,
Imperial, Royal, Czarish, Papal, enemies innumerable as the seasand,
had risen against him, only one helper left among the world's Potentates
(and that one only while there should be help rendered in return); and
he led them all such a dance as had astonished mankind and them.
No wonder they thought him worthy of notice. Every original man of any
magnitude is;--nay, in the long-run, who or what else is? But how much
more if your original man was a king over men; whose movements were
polar, and carried from day to day those of the world along with them.
The Samson Agonistes,--were his life passed like that of Samuel Johnson
in dirty garrets, and the produce of it only some bits of written
paper,--the Agonistes, and how he will comport himself in the Philistine
mill; this is always a spectacle of truly epic and tragic nature. The
rather, if your Samson, royal or other, is not yet blinded or subdued
to the wheel; much more if he vanquish his enemies, not by suicidal
methods, but march out at last flourishing his miraculous fighting
implement, and leaving their mill and them in quite ruinous
circumstances. As this King Friedrich fairly managed to do.
For he left the world all bankrupt, we may say; fallen into bottomless
abysses of destruction; he still in a paying condition, and with
footing capable to carry his affairs and him. When he died, in 1786, the
enormous Phenomenon since called FRENCH REVOLUTION was already growling
audibly in the depths of the world; meteoric-electric coruscations
heralding it, all round the horizon. Strange enough to note, one
of Friedrich's last visitors was Gabriel Honore Riquetti, Comte de
Mirabeau. These two saw one another; twice, for half an hour each time.
The last of the old Gods and the first of the modern Titans;--before
Pelion leapt on Ossa; and the foul Earth taking fire at last, its vile
mephitic elements went up in volcanic thunder. This also is one of the
peculiarities of Friedrich, that he is hitherto the last of the
Kings; that he ushers in the French Revolution, and closes an Epoch of
World-History. Finishing off forever the trade of King, think many; who
have grown profoundly dark as to Kingship and him.
The French Revolution may be said to have, for about half a century,
quite submerged Friedrich, abolished him from the memories of men;
and now on coming to light again, he is found defaced under strange
mud-incrustations, and the eyes of mankind look at him from a singularly
changed, what we must call oblique and perverse point of vision. This is
one of the difficulties in dealing with his History;--especially if you
happen to believe both in the French Revolution and in him; that is to
say, both that Real Kingship is eternally indispensable, and also that
the destruction of Sham Kingship (a frightful process) is occasionally
so. On the breaking-out of that formidable Explosion, and Suicide of his
Century, Friedrich sank into comparative obscurity; eclipsed amid the
ruins of that universal earthquake, the very dust of which darkened all
the air, and made of day a disastrous midnight. Black midnight,
broken only by the blaze of conflagrations;--wherein, to our terrified
imaginations, were seen, not men, French and other, but ghastly
portents, stalking wrathful, and shapes of avenging gods. It must be
owned the figure of Napoleon was titanic; especially to the generation
that looked on him, and that waited shuddering to be devoured by him.
In general, in that French Revolution, all was on a huge scale; if not
greater than anything in human experience, at least more grandiose. All
was recorded in bulletins, too, addressed to the shilling-gallery; and
there were fellows on the stage with such a breadth of sabre, extent of
whiskerage, strength of windpipe, and command of men and gunpowder, as
had never been seen before. How they bellowed, stalked and flourished
about; counterfeiting Jove's thunder to an amazing degree! Terrific
Drawcansir figures, of enormous whiskerage, unlimited command of
gunpowder; not without sufficient ferocity, and even a certain heroism,
stage-heroism, in them; compared with whom, to the shilling-gallery, and
frightened excited theatre at large, it seemed as if there had been
no generals or sovereigns before; as if Friedrich, Gustavus, Cromwell,
William Conqueror and Alexander the Great were not worth speaking of
henceforth.
All this, however, in half a century is considerably altered. The
Drawcansir equipments getting gradually torn off, the natural size is
seen better; translated from the bulletin style into that of fact and
history, miracles, even to the shilling-gallery, are not so miraculous.
It begins to be apparent that there lived great men before the era
of bulletins and Agamemnon. Austerlitz and Wagram shot away more
gunpowder,--gunpowder probably in the proportion of ten to one, or a
hundred to one; but neither of them was tenth-part such a beating to
your enemy as that of Rossbach, brought about by strategic art, human
ingenuity and intrepidity, and the loss of 165 men. Leuthen, too, the
battle of Leuthen (though so few English readers ever heard of it) may
very well hold up its head beside any victory gained by Napoleon or
another. For the odds were not far from three to one; the soldiers were
of not far from equal quality; and only the General was consummately
superior, and the defeat a destruction. Napoleon did indeed, by immense
expenditure of men, and gunpowder, overrun Europe for a time: but
Napoleon never, by husbanding and wisely expending his men and
gunpowder, defended a little Prussia against all Europe, year after year
for seven years long, till Europe had enough, and gave up the enterprise
as one it could not manage. So soon as the Drawcansir equipments are
well torn off, and the shilling-gallery got to silence, it will be found
that there were great kings before Napoleon,--and likewise an Art
of War, grounded on veracity and human courage and insight, not upon
Drawcansir rodomontade, grandiose Dick-Turpinism, revolutionary madness,
and unlimited expenditure of men and gunpowder. "You may paint with a
very big brush, and yet not be a great painter," says a satirical friend
of mine! This is becoming more and more apparent, as the dust-whirlwind,
and huge uproar of the last generation, gradually dies away again.
2. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
One of the grand difficulties in a History of Friedrich is, all along,
this same, That he lived in a Century which has no History and can have
little or none. A Century so opulent in accumulated falsities,--sad
opulence descending on it by inheritance, always at compound interest,
and always largely increased by fresh acquirement on such immensity of
standing capital;--opulent in that bad way as never Century before was!
Which had no longer the consciousness of being false, so false had it
grown; and was so steeped in falsity, and impregnated with it to the
very bone, that--in fact the measure of the thing was full, and a French
Revolution had to end it. To maintain much veracity in such an element,
especially for a king, was no doubt doubly remarkable. But now, how
extricate the man from his Century? How show the man, who is a Reality
worthy of being seen, and yet keep his Century, as a Hypocrisy worthy of
being hidden and forgotten, in the due abeyance?
To resuscitate the Eighteenth Century, or call into men's view, beyond
what is necessary, the poor and sordid personages and transactions of an
epoch so related to us, can be no purpose of mine on this occasion. The
Eighteenth Century, it is well known, does not figure to me as a lovely
one; needing to be kept in mind, or spoken of unnecessarily. To me the
Eighteenth Century has nothing grand in it, except that grand universal
Suicide, named French Revolution, by which it terminated its otherwise
most worthless existence with at least one worthy act;--setting fire to
its old home and self; and going up in flames and volcanic explosions,
in a truly memorable and important manner. A very fit termination, as
I thankfully feel, for such a Century. Century spendthrift,
fraudulent-bankrupt; gone at length utterly insolvent, without real
MONEY of performance in its pocket, and the shops declining to take
hypocrisies and speciosities any farther:--what could the poor Century
do, but at length admit, "Well, it is so. I am a swindler-century,
and have long been,--having learned the trick of it from my father and
grandfather; knowing hardly any trade but that in false bills, which I
thought foolishly might last forever, and still bring at least beef
and pudding to the favored of mankind. And behold it ends; and I am a
detected swindler, and have nothing even to eat. What remains but that
I blow my brains out, and do at length one true action?" Which the poor
Century did; many thanks to it, in the circumstances.
For there was need once more of a Divine Revelation to the torpid
frivolous children of men, if they were not to sink altogether into
the ape condition. And in that whirlwind of the Universe,--lights
obliterated, and the torn wrecks of Earth and Hell hurled aloft into the
Empyrean; black whirlwind, which made even apes serious, and drove most
of them mad,--there was, to men, a voice audible; voice from the heart
of things once more, as if to say: "Lying is not permitted in this
Universe. The wages of lying, you behold, are death. Lying means
damnation in this Universe; and Beelzebub, never so elaborately decked
in crowns and mitres, is NOT God!" This was a revelation truly to be
named of the Eternal, in our poor Eighteenth Century; and has greatly
altered the complexion of said Century to the Historian ever since.
Whereby, in short, that Century is quite confiscate, fallen bankrupt,
given up to the auctioneers;--Jew-brokers sorting out of it at this
moment, in a confused distressing manner, what is still valuable or
salable. And, in fact, it lies massed up in our minds as a disastrous
wrecked inanity, not useful to dwell upon; a kind of dusky chaotic
background, on which the figures that had some veracity in them--a small
company, and ever growing smaller as our demands rise in strictness--are
delineated for us.--"And yet it is the Century of our own Grandfathers?"
cries the reader. Yes, reader! truly. It is the ground out of which we
ourselves have sprung; whereon now we have our immediate footing, and
first of all strike down our roots for nourishment;--and, alas, in large
sections of the practical world, it (what we specially mean by IT)
still continues flourishing all round us! To forget it quite is not yet
possible, nor would be profitable. What to do with it, and its forgotten
fooleries and "Histories," worthy only of forgetting?--Well; so much of
it as by nature ADHERES; what of it cannot be disengaged from our Hero
and his operations: approximately so much, and no more! Let that be our
bargain in regard to it.
3. ENGLISH PREPOSSESSIONS.
With such wagon-loads of Books and Printed Records as exist on the
subject of Friedrich, it has always seemed possible, even for
a stranger, to acquire some real understanding of him;--though
practically, here and now, I have to own, it proves difficult beyond
conception. Alas, the Books are not cosmic, they are chaotic; and turn
out unexpectedly void of instruction to us. Small use in a talent of
writing, if there be not first of all the talent of discerning, of
loyally recognizing; of discriminating what is to be written! Books born
mostly of Chaos--which want all things, even an INDEX--are a painful
object. In sorrow and disgust, you wander over those multitudinous
Books: you dwell in endless regions of the superficial, of the nugatory:
to your bewildered sense it is as if no insight into the real heart
of Friedrich and his affairs were anywhere to be had. Truth is, the
Prussian Dryasdust, otherwise an honest fellow, and not afraid of labor,
excels all other Dryasdusts yet known; I have often sorrowfully felt
as if there were not in Nature, for darkness, dreariness, immethodic
platitude, anything comparable to him. He writes big Books wanting in
almost every quality; and does not even give an INDEX to them. He has
made of Friedrich's History a wide-spread, inorganic, trackless
matter; dismal to your mind, and barren as a continent of Brandenburg
sand!--Enough, he could do no other: I have striven to forgive him.
Let the reader now forgive me; and think sometimes what probably my
raw-material was!--
Curious enough, Friedrich lived in the Writing Era,--morning of that
strange Era which has grown to such a noon for us;--and his favorite
society, all his reign, was with the literary or writing sort. Nor have
they failed to write about him, they among the others, about him and
about him; and it is notable how little real light, on any point of his
existence or environment, they have managed to communicate. Dim indeed,
for most part a mere epigrammatic sputter of darkness visible, is the
"picture" they have fashioned to themselves of Friedrich and his Country
and his Century. Men not "of genius," apparently? Alas, no; men fatally
destitute of true eyesight, and of loyal heart first of all. So far as
I have noticed, there was not, with the single exception of Mirabeau for
one hour, any man to be called of genius, or with an adequate power of
human discernment, that ever personally looked on Friedrich. Had many
such men looked successively on his History and him, we had not found it
now in such a condition. Still altogether chaotic as a History; fatally
destitute even of the Indexes and mechanical appliances: Friedrich's
self, and his Country, and his Century, still undeciphered; very dark
phenomena, all three, to the intelligent part of mankind.
In Prussia there has long been a certain stubborn though planless
diligence in digging for the outward details of Friedrich's
Life-History; though as to organizing them, assorting them, or even
putting labels on them; much more as to the least interpretation or
human delineation of the man and his affairs,--you need not inquire
in Prussia. In France, in England, it is still worse. There an immense
ignorance prevails even as to the outward facts and phenomena of
Friedrich's life; and instead of the Prussian no-interpretation, you
find, in these vacant circumstances, a great promptitude to interpret.
Whereby judgments and prepossessions exist among us on that subject,
especially on Friedrich's character, which are very ignorant indeed.
To Englishmen, the sources of knowledge or conviction about Friedrich, I
have observed, are mainly these two. FIRST, for his Public Character: it
was an all-important fact, not to IT, but to this country in regard to
it, That George II., seeing good to plunge head-foremost into German
Politics, and to take Maria Theresa's side in the Austrian-Succession
War of 1740-1748, needed to begin by assuring his Parliament and
Newspapers, profoundly dark on the matter, that Friedrich was a robber
and villain for taking the other side. Which assurance, resting on
what basis we shall see by and by, George's Parliament and Newspapers
cheerfully accepted; nothing doubting. And they have re-echoed and
reverberated it, they and the rest of us, ever since, to all lengths,
down to the present day; as a fact quite agreed upon, and the
preliminary item in Friedrich's character. Robber and villain to begin
with; that was one settled point.
Afterwards when George and Friedrich came to be allies, and the grand
fightings of the Seven-Years War took place, George's Parliament and
Newspapers settled a second point, in regard to Friedrich: "One of the
greatest soldiers ever born." This second item the British Writer fully
admits ever since: but he still adds to it the quality of robber, in a
loose way;--and images to himself a royal Dick Turpin, of the kind known
in Review-Articles, and disquisitions on Progress of the Species, and
labels it FREDERICK; very anxious to collect new babblement of lying
Anecdotes, false Criticisms, hungry French Memoirs, which will confirm
him in that impossible idea. Had such proved, on survey, to be the
character of Friedrich, there is one British Writer whose curiosity
concerning him would pretty soon have died away; nor could any amount of
unwise desire to satisfy that feeling in fellow-creatures less seriously
disposed have sustained him alive, in those baleful Historic Acherons
and Stygian Fens, where he has had to dig and to fish so long, far away
from the upper light!--Let me request all readers to blow that sorry
chaff entirely out of their minds; and to believe nothing on the subject
except what they get some evidence for.
SECOND English source relates to the Private Character. Friedrich's
Biography or Private Character, the English, like the French, have
gathered chiefly from a scandalous libel by Voltaire, which used to
be called _ Vie Privee du Roi de Prusse _ (Private Life of the King
of Prussia) [First printed, from a stolen copy, at Geneva, 1784; first
proved to be Voltaire's (which some of his admirers had striven to
doubt), Paris, 1788; stands avowed ever since, in all the Editions of
his Works (ii. 9-113 of the Edition by Bandouin Freres, 97 vols.,
Paris, 1825-1834), under the title _ Memoires pour servir a Vie de M. de
Voltaire, _--with patches of repetition in the thing called _Commentaire
Historique,_ which follows ibid. at great length.] libel undoubtedly
written by Voltaire, in a kind of fury; but not intended to be published
by him; nay burnt and annihilated, as he afterwards imagined; No line of
which, that cannot be otherwise proved, has a right to be believed;
and large portions of which can be proved to be wild exaggerations and
perversions, or even downright lies,--written in a mood analogous to
the Frenzy of John Dennis. This serves for the Biography or Private
Character of Friedrich; imputing all crimes to him, natural and
unnatural;--offering indeed, if combined with facts otherwise known, or
even if well considered by itself, a thoroughly flimsy, incredible
and impossible image. Like that of some flaming Devil's Head, done in
phosphorus on the walls of the black-hole, by an Artist whom you had
locked up there (not quite without reason) overnight.
Poor Voltaire wrote that _ Vie Privee _ in a state little inferior to
the Frenzy of John Dennis,--how brought about we shall see by and by.
And this is the Document which English readers are surest to have read,
and tried to credit as far as possible. Our counsel is, Out of window
with it, he that would know Friedrich of Prussia! Keep it awhile, he
that would know Francois Arouet de Voltaire, and a certain numerous
unfortunate class of mortals, whom Voltaire is sometimes capable of
sinking to be spokesman for, in this world!--Alas, go where you will,
especially in these irreverent ages, the noteworthy Dead is sure to be
found lying under infinite dung, no end of calumnies and stupidities
accumulated upon him. For the class we speak of, class of "flunkies
doing _ saturnalia _ below stairs," is numerous, is innumerable; and can
well remunerate a "vocal flunky" that will serve their purposes on such
an occasion!--
Friedrich is by no means one of the perfect demigods; and there are
various things to be said against him with good ground. To the last,
a questionable hero; with much in him which one could have wished not
there, and much wanting which one could have wished. But there is one
feature which strikes you at an early period of the inquiry, That in his
way he is a Reality; that he always means what he speaks; grounds his
actions, too, on what he recognizes for the truth; and, in short, has
nothing whatever of the Hypocrite or Phantasm. Which some readers will
admit to be an extremely rare phenomenon. We perceive that this man was
far indeed from trying to deal swindler-like with the facts around
him; that he honestly recognized said facts wherever they disclosed
themselves, and was very anxious also to ascertain their existence where
still hidden or dubious. For he knew well, to a quite uncommon degree,
and with a merit all the higher as it was an unconscious one, how
entirely inexorable is the nature of facts, whether recognized or not,
ascertained or not; how vain all cunning of diplomacy, management and
sophistry, to save any mortal who does not stand on the truth of things,
from sinking, in the long-run. Sinking to the very mud-gods, with all
his diplomacies, possessions, achievements; and becoming an unnamable
object, hidden deep in the Cesspools of the Universe. This I hope
to make manifest; this which I long ago discerned for myself, with
pleasure, in the physiognomy of Friedrich and his life. Which indeed
was the first real sanction, and has all along been my inducement and
encouragement, to study his life and him. How this man, officially a
King withal, comported himself in the Eighteenth Century, and managed
not to be a Liar and Charlatan as his Century was, deserves to be seen a
little by men and kings, and may silently have didactic meanings in it.
He that was honest with his existence has always meaning for us, be he
king or peasant. He that merely shammed and grimaced with it, however
much, and with whatever noise and trumpet-blowing, he may have cooked
and eaten in this world, cannot long have any. Some men do COOK
enormously (let us call it COOKING, what a man does in obedience to
his HUNGER merely, to his desires and passions merely),--roasting
whole continents and populations, in the flames of war or other
discord;--witness the Napoleon above spoken of. For the appetite of man
in that respect is unlimited; in truth, infinite; and the smallest of
us could eat the entire Solar System, had we the chance given, and then
cry, like Alexander of Macedon, because we had no more Solar Systems to
cook and eat. It is not the extent of the man's cookery that can much
attach me to him; but only the man himself, and what of strength he had
to wrestle with the mud-elements, and what of victory he got for his own
benefit and mine.
4. ENCOURAGEMENTS, DISCOURAGEMENTS.
French Revolution having spent itself, or sunk in France and elsewhere
to what we see, a certain curiosity reawakens as to what of great
or manful we can discover on the other side of that still troubled
atmosphere of the Present and immediate Past. Curiosity quickened, or
which should be quickened, by the great and all-absorbing question, How
is that same exploded Past ever to settle down again? Not lost forever,
it would appear: the New Era has not annihilated the old eras: New Era
could by no means manage that;--never meant that, had it known its own
mind (which it did not): its meaning was and is, to get its own well out
of them; to readapt, in a purified shape, the old eras, and appropriate
whatever was true and NOT combustible in them: that was the poor New
Era's meaning, in the frightful explosion it made of itself and its
possessions, to begin with!
And the question of questions now is: What part of that exploded Past,
the ruins and dust of which still darken all the air, will continually
gravitate back to us; be reshaped, transformed, readapted, that so, in
new figures, under new conditions, it may enrich and nourish us again?
What part of it, not being incombustible, has actually gone to flame and
gas in the huge world-conflagration, and is now GASEOUS, mounting aloft;
and will know no beneficence of gravitation, but mount, and roam
upon the waste winds forever,--Nature so ordering it, in spite of any
industry of Art? This is the universal question of afflicted mankind at
present; and sure enough it will be long to settle.
On one point we can answer: Only what of the Past was TRUE will come
back to us. That is the one ASBESTOS which survives all fire, and comes
out purified; that is still ours, blessed be Heaven, and only that. By
the law of Nature nothing more than that; and also, by the same
law, nothing less than that. Let Art, struggle how it may, for or
against,--as foolish Art is seen extensively doing in our time,--there
is where the limits of it will be. In which point of view, may not
Friedrich, if he was a true man and King, justly excite some curiosity
again; nay some quite peculiar curiosity, as the lost Crowned Reality
there was antecedent to that general outbreak and abolition? To many
it appears certain there are to be no Kings of any sort, no Government
more; less and less need of them henceforth, New Era having come.
Which is a very wonderful notion; important if true; perhaps still more
important, just at present, if untrue! My hopes of presenting, in this
Last of the Kings, an exemplar to my contemporaries, I confess, are not
high.
On the whole, it is evident the difficulties to a History of Friedrich
are great and many: and the sad certainty is at last forced upon me that
no good Book can, at this time, especially in this country, be written
on the subject. Wherefore let the reader put up with an indifferent
or bad one; he little knows how much worse it could easily have
been!--Alas, the Ideal of history, as my friend Sauerteig knows, is very
high; and it is not one serious man, but many successions of such, and
whole serious generations of such, that can ever again build up History
towards its old dignity. We must renounce ideals. We must sadly take up
with the mournfulest barren realities;--dismal continents of Brandenburg
sand, as in this instance; mere tumbled mountains of marine-stores,
without so much as an Index to them!
Has the reader heard of Sauerteig's last batch of _ Springwurzeln, _ a
rather curious valedictory Piece? "All History is an imprisoned Epic,
nay an imprisoned Psalm and Prophecy," says Sauerteig there. I wish,
from my soul, he had DISimprisoned it in this instance! But he
only says, in magniloquent language, how grand it would be if
disimprisoned;--and hurls out, accidentally striking on this subject,
the following rough sentences, suggestive though unpractical, with which
I shall conclude:--
"Schiller, it appears, at one time thought of writing an _ Epic Poem
upon Friedrich the Great, _ 'upon some action of Friedrich's,' Schiller
says. Happily Schiller did not do it. By oversetting fact, disregarding
reality, and tumbling time and space topsy-turvy, Schiller with his fine
gifts might no doubt have written a temporary 'epic poem,' of the kind
read an admired by many simple persons. But that would have helped
little, and could not have lasted long. It is not the untrue imaginary
Picture of a man and his life that I want from my Schiller, but the
actual natural Likeness, true as the face itself, nay TRUER, in a sense.
Which the Artist, if there is one, might help to give, and the Botcher _
(Pfuscher)_ never can! Alas, and the Artist does not even try it; leaves
it altogether to the Botcher, being busy otherwise!--
"Men surely will at length discover again, emerging from these dismal
bewilderments in which the modern Ages reel and stagger this long while,
that to them also, as to the most ancient men, all Pictures that cannot
be credited are--Pictures of an idle nature; to be mostly swept out of
doors. Such veritably, were it never so forgotten, is the law! Mistakes
enough, lies enough will insinuate themselves into our most earnest
portrayings of the True: but that we should, deliberately and of
forethought, rake together what we know to be not true, and introduce
that in the hope of doing good with it? I tell you, such practice was
unknown in the ancient earnest times; and ought again to become unknown
except to the more foolish classes!" That is Sauerteig's strange notion,
not now of yesterday, as readers know:--and he goes then into "Homer's
Iliad," the "Hebrew Bible," "terrible Hebrew VERACITY of every line of
it;" discovers an alarming "kinship of Fiction to lying;" and asks,
If anybody can compute "the damage we poor moderns have got from our
practices of fiction in Literature itself, not to speak of awfully
higher provinces? Men will either see into all this by and by,"
continues he; "or plunge head foremost, in neglect of all this, whither
they little dream as yet!--
"But I think all real Poets, to this hour, are Psalmists and Iliadists
after their sort; and have in them a divine impatience of lies, a divine
incapacity of living among lies. Likewise, which is a corollary, that
the highest Shakspeare producible is properly the fittest Historian
producible;--and that it is frightful to see the _ Gelehrte Dummkopf _
[what we here may translate, DRYASDUST] doing the function of History,
and the Shakspeare and the Goethe neglecting it. 'Interpreting events;'
interpreting the universally visible, entirely INdubitable Revelation
of the Author of this Universe: how can Dryasdust interpret such things,
the dark chaotic dullard, who knows the meaning of nothing cosmic or
noble, nor ever will know? Poor wretch, one sees what kind of meaning
HE educes from Man's History, this long while past, and has got all the
world to believe of it along with him. Unhappy Dryasdust, thrice-unhappy
world that takes Dryasdust's reading of the ways of God! But what
else was possible? They that could have taught better were engaged
in fiddling; for which there are good wages going. And our damage
therefrom, our DAMAGE,--yes, if thou be still human and not
cormorant,--perhaps it will transcend all Californias, English National
Debts, and show itself incomputable in continents of Bullion!--
"Believing that mankind are not doomed wholly to dog-like annihilation,
I believe that much of this will mend. I believe that the world will not
always waste its inspired men in mere fiddling to it. That the man
of rhythmic nature will feel more and more his vocation towards the
Interpretation of Fact; since only in the vital centre of that, could
we once get thither, lies all real melody; and that he will become, he,
once again the Historian of Events,--bewildered Dryasdust having at last
the happiness to be his servant, and to have some guidance from him.
Which will be blessed indeed. For the present, Dryasdust strikes me
like a hapless Nigger gone masterless: Nigger totally unfit for
self-guidance; yet without master good or bad; and whose feats in that
capacity no god or man can rejoice in.
"History, with faithful Genius at the top and faithful Industry at
the bottom, will then be capable of being written. History will then
actually BE written,--the inspired gift of God employing itself to
illuminate the dark ways of God. A thing thrice-pressingly needful to
be done!--Whereby the modern Nations may again become a little less
godless, and again have their 'epics' (of a different from the Schiller
sort), and again have several things they are still more fatally in want
of at present!"--
So that, it would seem, there WILL gradually among mankind, if Friedrich
last some centuries, be a real Epic made of his History? That is to
say (presumably), it will become a perfected Melodious Truth, and duly
significant and duly beautiful bit of Belief, to mankind; the essence of
it fairly evolved from all the chaff, the portrait of it actually given,
and its real harmonies with the laws of this Universe brought out,
in bright and dark, according to the God's Fact as it was; which poor
Dryasdust and the Newspapers never could get sight of, but were always
far from!--
Well, if so,--and even if not quite so,--it is a comfort to reflect that
every true worker (who has blown away chaff &c.), were his contribution
no bigger than my own, may have brought the good result NEARER by a
hand-breadth or two. And so we will end these preludings, and proceed
upon our Problem, courteous reader.