Friedrich Wilhelm's History is one of ECONOMICS; which study, so soon as
there are Kings again in this world, will be precious to them. In that
happy state of matters, Friedrich Wilhelm's History will well reward
study; and teach by example, in a very simple and direct manner. In what
is called the Political, Diplomatic, "Honor-to-be" department, there is
not, nor can ever be, much to be said of him; this Economist King
having always kept himself well at home, and looked steadily to his own
affairs. So that for the present he has, as a King, next to nothing
of what is called History; and it is only as a fellow-man, of singular
faculty, and in a most peculiar and conspicuous situation, that he can
be interesting to mankind. To us he has, as Father and daily teacher
and master of young Fritz, a continual interest; and we must note
the master's ways, and the main phenomena of the workshop as they
successively turned up, for the sake of the notable Apprentice serving
there.
He was not tall of stature, this arbitrary King: a florid-complexioned
stout-built man; of serious, sincere, authoritative face; his attitudes
and equipments very Spartan in type. Man of short firm stature; stands
(in Pesne's best Portraits of him) at his ease, and yet like a tower.
Most solid; "plumb and rather more;" eyes steadfastly awake; cheeks
slightly compressed, too, which fling the mouth rather forward; as if
asking silently, "Anything astir, then? All right here?" Face, figure
and bearing, all in him is expressive of robust insight, and
direct determination; of healthy energy, practicality, unquestioned
authority,--a certain air of royalty reduced to its simplest form. The
face in Pictures by Pesne and others, is not beautiful or agreeable;
healthy, genuine, authoritative, is the best you can say of it. Yet it
may have been, what it is described as being, originally handsome.
High enough arched brow, rather copious cheeks and jaws; nose smallish,
inclining to be stumpy; large gray eyes, bright with steady fire and
life, often enough gloomy and severe, but capable of jolly laughter too.
Eyes "naturally with a kind of laugh in them," says Pollnitz;--which
laugh can blaze out into fearful thunderous rage, if you give him
provocation. Especially if you lie to him; for that he hates above all
things. Look him straight in the face: he fancies he can see in your
eyes, if there is an internal mendacity in you: wherefore you must look
at him in speaking; such is his standing order.
His hair is flaxen, falling into the ash-gray or darker; fine copious
flowing hair, while he wore it natural. But it soon got tied into clubs,
in the military style; and at length it was altogether cropped away, and
replaced by brown, and at last by white, round wigs. Which latter also,
though bad wigs, became him not amiss, under his cocked-hat and cockade,
says Pollnitz. [Pollnitz, _Memoiren_ (Berlin, 1791), ii. 568.] The
voice, I guess, even when not loud, was of clangorous and penetrating,
quasi-metallic nature; and I learn expressly once, that it had a nasal
quality in it. [Busching, _Beitrage,_ i. 568.] His Majesty spoke through
the nose; snuffled his speech in an earnest ominously plangent manner.
In angry moments, which were frequent, it must have been--unpleasant
to listen to. For the rest, a handsome man of his inches; conspicuously
well-built in limbs and body, and delicately finished off to the very
extremities. His feet and legs, says Pollnitz, were very fine. The
hands, if he would have taken care of them, were beautifully white;
fingers long and thin; a hand at once nimble to grasp, delicate to feel,
and strong to clutch and hold: what may be called a beautiful hand,
because it is the usefulest.
Nothing could exceed his Majesty's simplicity of habitudes. But one
loves especially in him his scrupulous attention to cleanliness of
person and of environment. He washed like a very Mussulman, five times
a day; loved cleanliness in all things, to a superstitious extent; which
trait is pleasant in the rugged man, and indeed of a piece with the rest
of his character. He is gradually changing all his silk and other
cloth room-furniture; in his hatred of dust, he will not suffer a
floor-carpet, even a stuffed chair; but insists on having all of wood,
where the dust may be prosecuted to destruction. [Forster, i. 208.] Wife
and womankind, and those that take after them, let such have stuffing
and sofas: he, for his part, sits on mere wooden chairs;--sits, and also
thinks and acts, after the manner of a Hyperborean Spartan, which he
was. He ate heartily, but as a rough farmer and hunter eats; country
messes, good roast and boiled; despising the French Cook, as an entity
without meaning for him. His favorite dish at dinner was bacon and
greens, rightly dressed; what could the French Cook do for such a man?
He ate with rapidity, almost with indiscriminate violence: his object
not quality but quantity. He drank too, but did not get drunk: at the
Doctor's order he could abstain; and had in later years abstained.
Pollnitz praises his fineness of complexion, the originally eminent
whiteness of his skin, which he had tanned and bronzed by hard riding
and hunting, and otherwise worse discolored by his manner of feeding and
digesting: alas, at last his waistcoat came to measure, I am afraid to
say how many Prussian ells,--a very considerable diameter indeed! [Ib.
i. 163.]
For some years after his accession he still appeared occasionally in
"burgher dress," or unmilitary clothes; "brown English coat, yellow
waistcoat" and the other indispensables. But this fashion became rarer
with him every year; and ceased altogether (say Chronologists) about
the year 1719: after which he appeared always simply as Colonel of the
Potsdam Guards (his own Lifeguard Regiment) in simple Prussian uniform:
close military coat; blue, with red cuffs and collar, buff waistcoat and
breeches; white linen gaiters to the knee. He girt his sword about the
loins, well out of the mud; walked always with a thick bamboo in his
hand; Steady, not slow of step; with his triangular hat, cream-white
round wig (in his older days), and face tending to purple,--the eyes
looking out mere investigation, sharp swift authority, and dangerous
readiness to rebuke and set the cane in motion:--it was so he walked
abroad in this earth; and the common run of men rather fled his approach
than courted it.
For, in fact, he was dangerous; and would ask in an alarming manner,
"Who are you?" Any fantastic, much more any suspicious-looking person,
might fare the worse. An idle lounger at the street-corner he has been
known to hit over the crown; and peremptorily despatch: "Home, Sirrah,
and take to some work!" That the Apple-women be encouraged to knit,
while waiting for custom;--encouraged and quietly constrained, and
at length packed away, and their stalls taken from them, if
unconstrainable,--there has, as we observed, an especial rescript been
put forth; very curious to read. [In Rodenbeck, _Beitrage,_ p. 15.]
Dandiacal figures, nay people looking like Frenchmen, idle flaunting
women even,--better for them to be going. "Who are you?" and if you
lied or prevaricated (_"Er blicke mich gerade an,_ Look me in the
face, then!"), or even stumbled, hesitated, and gave suspicion of
prevaricating, it might be worse for you. A soft answer is less
effectual than a prompt clear one, to turn away wrath. "A _Candidatus
Theoligiae,_ your Majesty," answered a handfast threadbare youth one
day, when questioned in this manner.--"Where from?" "Berlin, your
Majesty."--"Hm, na, the Berliners are a good-for-nothing set." "Yes,
truly, too many of them; but there are exceptions; I know two."--"Two?
which then?" "Your Majesty and myself!"--Majesty burst into a laugh: the
Candidatus was got examined by the Consistoriums, and Authorities proper
in that matter, and put into a chaplaincy.
This King did not love the French, or their fashions, at all. We said he
dismissed the big Peruke,--put it on for the last time at his Father's
funeral, so far did filial piety go; and then packed it aside,
dismissing it, nay banishing and proscribing it, never to appear more.
The Peruke, and, as it were, all that the Peruke symbolized. For this
was a King come into the world with quite other aims than that of
wearing big perukes, and, regardless of expense, playing burst-frog to
the ox of Versailles, which latter is itself perhaps a rather
useless animal. Of Friedrich Wilhelm's taxes upon wigs; of the old
"Wig-inspectors," and the feats they did, plucking off men's periwigs on
the street, to see if the government-stamp were there, and to discourage
wiggery, at least all but the simple scratch or useful Welsh-wig, among
mankind: of these, and of other similar things, I could speak; but do
not. This little incident, which occurred once in the review-ground
on the outskirts of Berlin, will suffice to mark his temper in that
respect. It was in the spring of 1719; our little Fritz then six years
old, who of course heard much temporary confused commentary, direct and
oblique, triumphant male laughter, and perhaps rebellious female sighs,
on occasion of such a feat.
Count Rothenburg, Prussian by birth, [Buchholz, _Neueste
Preuwssisch-Brandenburgische Geschichte,_ i. 28.] an accomplished and
able person in the diplomatic and other lines of business, but much
used to Paris and its ways, had appeared lately in Berlin, as French
envoy,--and, not unnaturally, in high French costume; cocked-hat,
peruke, laced coat, and the other trimmings. He, and a group of dashing
followers and adherents, were accustomed to go about in that guise; very
capable of proving infectious to mankind. What is to be done with them?
thinks the anxious Father of his People. They were to appear at the
ensuing grand Review, as Friedrich Wilhelm understood. Whereupon
Friedrich Wilhelm took his measures in private. Dressed up, namely,
his Scavenger-Executioner people (what they call PROFOSSEN in Prussian
regiments) in an enormous exaggeration of that costume; cocked-hats
about an ell in diameter, wigs reaching to the houghs, with other
fittings to match: these, when Count Rothenburg and his company appeared
upon the ground, Friedrich Wilhelm summoned out, with some trumpet-peal
or burst of field-music; and they solemnly crossed Count Rothenburg's
field of vision; the strangest set of, Phantasms he had seen lately.
Awakening salutary reflections in him. [Forster, i. 165; Faasmann,
_Leben und Thaten des allerdurchlauchtigsten gc. Konigs von Preussen
Frederici Wilhelmi_ (Hambug und Breslau, 1735), pp. 223, 319.]
Fancy that scene in History; Friedrich Wilhelm for comic-symbolic
Dramaturgist. Gods and men (or at least Houyhnhnm horses) might have
saluted it; with a Homeric laugh,--so huge and vacant is it, with a
suspicion of real humor too:--but the men were not permitted, on parade,
more than a silent grin, or general irrepressible rustling murmur;
and only the gods laughed inextinguishably, if so disposed. The
Scavenger-Executioners went back to their place; and Count Rothenburg
took a plain German costume, so long as he continued in those parts.
Friedrich Wilhelm has a dumb rough wit and mockery, of that kind, on
many occasions; not without geniality in its Brobdignag exaggeration and
simplicity. Like a wild bear of the woods taking his sport; with some
sense of humor in the rough skin of him. Very capable of seeing through
sumptuous costumes; and respectful of realities alone. Not in French
sumptuosity, but in native German thrift, does this King see his
salvation; so as Nature constructed him: and the world which has long
lost its Spartans, will see again an original North-German Spartan; and
shriek a good deal over him; Nature keeping her own counsel the while,
and as it were, laughing in her sleeve at the shrieks of the flunky
world. For Nature, when she makes a Spartan, means a good deal by it;
and does not expect instant applauses, but only gradual and lasting.
"For my own part," exclaims a certain Editor once, "I perceive well
there was never yet any great Empire founded, Roman, English, down to
Prussian or Dutch, nor in fact any great mass of work got achieved under
the Sun, but it was founded even upon this humble-looking quality of
Thrift, and became achievable in virtue of the same. Which will seem a
strange doctrine, in these days of gold-nuggets, railway-fortunes, and
miraculous, sumptuosities regardless of expense. Earnest readers are
invited to consider it, nevertheless. Though new; it is very old; and a
sad meaning lies in it to us of these times! That you have squandered in
idle fooleries, building where there was no basis, your Hundred Thousand
Sterling, your Eight Hundred Million Sterling, is to me a comparatively
small matter. You may still again become rich, if you have at last
become wise. But if you have wasted your capacity of strenuous, devoutly
valiant labor, of patience, perseverance, self-denial, faith in the
causes of effects; alas, if your once just judgment of what is worth
something and what is worth nothing, has been wasted, and your silent
steadfast reliance on the general veracities, of yourself and of things,
is no longer there,--then indeed you have had a loss! You are, in fact,
an entirely bankrupt individual; as you will find by and by. Yes;
and though you had California in fee-simple; and could buy all the
upholsteries, groceries, funded-properties, temporary (very temporary)
landed properties of the world, at one swoop, it would avail you
nothing. Henceforth for you no harvests in the Seedfield of this
Universe, which reserves its salutary bounties, and noble heaven-sent
gifts, for quite other than you; and I would not give a pin's value for
all YOU will ever reap there. Mere imaginary harvests, sacks of nuggets
and the like; empty as the east-wind;--with all the Demons laughing at
you! Do you consider that Nature too is a swollen flunky, hungry for
veils; and can be taken in with your sublime airs of sumptuosity,
and the large balance you actually have in Lombard Street? Go to
the--General Cesspool, with your nuggets and your ducats!"
The flunky world, much stript of its plush and fat perquisites, accuses
Friedrich Wilhelm bitterly of avarice and the cognate vices. But it is
not so; intrinsically, in the main, his procedure is to be defined as
honorable thrift,--verging towards avarice here and there; as poor human
virtues usually lean to one side or the other! He can be magnificent
enough too, and grudges no expense, when the occasion seems worthy. If
the occasion is inevitable, and yet not quite worthy, I have known him
have recourse to strange shifts. The Czar Peter, for example, used to be
rather often in the Prussian Dominions, oftenest on business of his own:
such a man is to be royally defrayed while with us; yet one would
wish it done cheap. Posthorses, "two hundred and eighty-seven at every
station," he has from the Community; but the rest of his expenses, from
Memel all the way to Wesel? Friedrich Wilhelm's marginal response to his
FINANZ-DIRECTORIUM, requiring orders once on that subject, runs in the
following strange tenor: "Yes, all the way (except Berlin, which I take
upon myself); and observe, you contrive to do it for 6,000 thalers (900
pounds),--which is uncommonly cheap, about 1 pound per mile;--won't
allow you one other penny (_nit einen Pfennig gebe mehr dazu_); but you
are (_sollen Sie_)," this is the remarkable point, "to give out in the
world that it costs me from Thirty to Forty Thousand!" [1717: Forster,
i. 213.] So that here is the Majesty of Prussia, who beyond all men
abhors lies, giving orders to tell one? Alas, yes; a kind of lie, or fib
(white fib, or even GRAY), the pinch of Thrift compelling! But what
a window into the artless inner-man of his Majesty, even that GRAY
fib;--not done by oneself, but ordered to be done by the servant, as if
that were cheaper!
"Verging upon avarice," sure enough: but, unless we are unjust and
unkind, he can by no means be described as a MISER King. He collects
what is his; gives you accurately what is yours. For wages paid he will
see work done; he will ascertain more and more that the work done be
work needful for him; and strike it off, if not. A Spartan man, as we
said,--though probably he knew as little of the Spartans as the Spartans
did of him. But Nature is still capable of such products: if in Hellas
long ages since, why not in Brandenburg now?