HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH II. OF PRUSSIA
Page: 21

Sophie Wilhelmine de Prusse, Margrave de Bareith, Soeur d
Frederic-le-Grand (London, 1812), i. 5.] and would
amuse himself whole days with the pranks and prattle of the little
child. Good old man: he, we need not doubt, brightened up into
unusual vitality at sight of this invaluable little Brother of
hers; through whom he can look once more into the waste dim future
with a flicker of new hope. Poor old man: he got his own back
half-broken by a careless nurse letting him fall; and has slightly
stooped ever since, some fifty and odd years now: much against his
will; for he would fain have been beautiful; and has struggled all
his days, very hard if not very wisely, to make his existence
beautiful,--to make it magnificent at least, and regardless of
expense;--and it threatens to come to little. Courage, poor
Grandfather: here is a new second edition of a Friedrich, the
first having gone off with so little effect: this one's back is
still unbroken, his life's seedfield not yet filled with tares and
thorns: who knows but Heaven will be kinder to this one?
Heaven was much kinder to this one. Him Heaven had kneaded of
more potent stuff: a mighty fellow this one, and a strange;
related not only to the Upholsteries and Heralds' Colleges,
but to the Sphere-harmonies and the divine and demonic powers;
of a swift far-darting nature this one, like an Apollo clad in
sunbeams and in lightnings (after his sort); and with a back which
all the world could not succeed in breaking!--Yes, if, by most
rare chance, this were indeed a new man of genius, born into the
purblind rotting Century, in the acknowledged rank of a king
there,--man of genius, that is to say, man of originality and
veracity; capable of seeing with his eyes, and incapable of not
believing what he sees;--then truly!--But as yet none knows;
the poor old Grandfather never knew.

Meanwhile they christened the little fellow, with immense
magnificence and pomp of apparatus; Kaiser Karl, and the very
Swiss Republic being there (by proxy), among the gossips;
and spared no cannon-volleyings, kettle-drummings, metal crown,
heavy cloth-of-silver, for the poor soft creature's sake; all of