History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol 1 | Page 7

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