HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II. OF PRUSSIA
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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,