History of Friedrich II of Prussia, vol 1 | Page 9

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