I am too tired to reply to your delightful verses, and shivering too much with cold to taste all the charm of them. But that will come round again. Do not ask poetry from a man who is actually doing the work of a wagoner, and sometimes even of a wagoner stuck in the mud. Would you like to know my way of life? We march from seven in the morning till four in the afternoon. I dine then; afterward I workI receive tiresome visits; with these comes a detail of insipid matters of business. Tis wrong-headed men, punctiliously difficult, who are to be set right; heads too hot which must be restrained, idle fellows that must be urged, impatient men that must be rendered docile, plunderers to be restrained within the bounds of equity, babblers to hear babbling, dumb people to keep in talk; in fine, one has to drink with those that like it, to eat with those who are hungry; one has to become a Jew with Jews, a pagan with pagans. Such are my occupations, which I would willingly make over to another if the phantom they call glory did not rise on me too often. In truth, it is a great folly, but a folly difficult to cast away when once you are smitten by it.
And so from right wing to left, writes Carlyle, miles long there is now universal storm of volleying, bayonet charging, thunder of artillery, case-shot, cartridge-shot, and sulphurous devouring whirlwind; the wrestle very tough and furious, especially on the assaulting side. Here, as at Prague, the Prussian troops were one and all in the fire, each doing strenuously his utmost. There is no reserve left. All is gone up into one combustion. To fan the fire, to be here, there, fanning the fire where need shows, this is now Fredericks function. This death-wrestle lasted, perhaps, four hours; till seven, or perhaps eight oclock, of a June evening.
FORE:About a fortnight ago the prince was in a humor of extraordinary gayety at the table. His gayety animated all the rest; and some glasses of Champagne still more enlivened our mirth. The prince, perceiving our disposition, was willing to promote it, and on rising from table, told us that he was determined that we should recommence our jollity at supper.
Prince Leopold was keenly wounded by this reproof. Though he uttered not a word in self-defense, he was ever after, in the presence of his majesty, very silent, distant, and reserved. Though scrupulously faithful in every duty, he compelled the king to feel that an impassable wall of separation had risen up between them. He was seeking for an honorable pretext to withdraw from his majestys service.This was in January, 1744. The young lady, with her mother, by express invitation, and with this object in view, visited the Russian court. Sophia embraced the Greek religion, received in baptism the new name of Catharine, and on the 1st of September, 1745, was married to her second cousin Peter. And with invocation of the Russian heaven and Russian earth they were declared to be one flesh, though at last they turned out to be two fleshes, as my reader well knows.171The letter was as follows:His Prussian majesty has unquestionably talent, but what361 a character! He is frivolous in the extreme, and sadly a heretic in his religious views. He is a dishonorable man, and what a neighbor he has been! As to Silesia, I would as soon part with my last garment as part with it.
