HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II. OF PRUSSIA
Page: 9

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: