History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 1 [23]
commentaries and suspicions, which a Court population, female and male, in little Berlin Town, can contrive to tack to it. Does not the new Sovereign Lady, in her heart, wish YOU were dead, my Prince? Hope it perhaps? Health, at any rate, weak; and, by the aid of a little pharmacy-- ye Heavens!
Such suspicions are now understood to have had no basis except in the waste brains of courtier men and women; but their existence there can become tragical enough. Add to which, the Great Elector, like all the Hohenzollerns, was a choleric man; capable of blazing into volcanic explosions, when affronted by idle masses of cobwebs in the midst of his serious businesses! It is certain, the young Prince Friedrich had at one time got into quite high, shrill and mutually minatory terms with his Stepmother; so that once, after some such shrill dialogue between them, ending with "You shall repent this, Sir!"--he found it good to fly off in the night, with only his Tutor or Secretary and a valet, to Hessen-Cassel to an Aunt; who stoutly protected him in this emergency; and whose Daughter, after the difficult readjustment of matters, became his Wife, but did not live long. And it is farther certain the same Prince, during this his first wedded time, dining one day with his Stepmother, was taken suddenly ill. Felt ill, after his cup of coffee; retired into another room in violent spasms, evidently in an alarming state, and secretly in a most alarmed one: his Tutor or Secretary, one Dankelmann, attended him thither; and as the Doctor took some time to arrive, and the symptoms were instant and urgent, Secretary Dankelmann produced "from a pocket-book some drug of his own, or of the Hessen-Cassel Aunt," emetic I suppose, and gave it to the poor Prince;--who said often, and felt ever after, with or without notion of poison, That Dankelmann had saved his life. In consequence of which adventure he again quitted Court without leave; and begged to be permitted to remain safe in the country, if Papa would be so good. [Pollnitz, Memoiren, i. 191-198.]
Fancy the Great Elector's humor on such an occurrence; and what a furtherance to him in his heavy continual labors, and strenuous swimming for life, these beautiful humors and transactions must have been! A crook-backed boy, dear to the Great Elector, pukes, one afternoon; and there arises such an opening of the Nether Floodgates of this Universe; in and round your poor workshop, nothing but sudden darkness, smell of sulphur; hissing of forked serpents here, and the universal alleleu of female hysterics there;--to help a man forward with his work! O reader, we will pity the crowned head, as well as the hatted and even hatless one. Human creatures will not GO quite accurately together, any more than clocks will; and when their dissonance once rises fairly high, and they cannot readily kill one another, any Great Elector who is third party will have a terrible time of it.
Electress Dorothee, the Stepmother, was herself somewhat of a hard lady; not easy to live with, though so far above poisoning as to have "despised even the suspicion of it." She was much given to practical economics, dairy-farming, market-gardening, and industrial and commercial operations such as offered; and was thought to be a very strict reckoner of money. She founded the Dorotheenstadt, now oftener called the Neustadt, chief quarter of Berlin; and planted, just about the time of this unlucky dinner, "A.D. 1680 or so," [Nicolai, Beschreibung der koniglichen Residenzstadte Berlin und Potsdam (Berlin, 1786), i. 172.] the first of the celebrated Lindens, which (or the successors of which, in a stunted amdition) are still growing there. Unter-den-Linden: it is now the gayest quarter of Berlin, full of really fine edifices: it was then a sandy outskirt of Electress Dorothee's dairy-farm; good for nothing but building upon, thought Electress Dorothee. She did much dairy-and-vegetable trade on the great scale;--was thought even
Such suspicions are now understood to have had no basis except in the waste brains of courtier men and women; but their existence there can become tragical enough. Add to which, the Great Elector, like all the Hohenzollerns, was a choleric man; capable of blazing into volcanic explosions, when affronted by idle masses of cobwebs in the midst of his serious businesses! It is certain, the young Prince Friedrich had at one time got into quite high, shrill and mutually minatory terms with his Stepmother; so that once, after some such shrill dialogue between them, ending with "You shall repent this, Sir!"--he found it good to fly off in the night, with only his Tutor or Secretary and a valet, to Hessen-Cassel to an Aunt; who stoutly protected him in this emergency; and whose Daughter, after the difficult readjustment of matters, became his Wife, but did not live long. And it is farther certain the same Prince, during this his first wedded time, dining one day with his Stepmother, was taken suddenly ill. Felt ill, after his cup of coffee; retired into another room in violent spasms, evidently in an alarming state, and secretly in a most alarmed one: his Tutor or Secretary, one Dankelmann, attended him thither; and as the Doctor took some time to arrive, and the symptoms were instant and urgent, Secretary Dankelmann produced "from a pocket-book some drug of his own, or of the Hessen-Cassel Aunt," emetic I suppose, and gave it to the poor Prince;--who said often, and felt ever after, with or without notion of poison, That Dankelmann had saved his life. In consequence of which adventure he again quitted Court without leave; and begged to be permitted to remain safe in the country, if Papa would be so good. [Pollnitz,
Fancy the Great Elector's humor on such an occurrence; and what a furtherance to him in his heavy continual labors, and strenuous swimming for life, these beautiful humors and transactions must have been! A crook-backed boy, dear to the Great Elector, pukes, one afternoon; and there arises such an opening of the Nether Floodgates of this Universe; in and round your poor workshop, nothing but sudden darkness, smell of sulphur; hissing of forked serpents here, and the universal alleleu of female hysterics there;--to help a man forward with his work! O reader, we will pity the crowned head, as well as the hatted and even hatless one. Human creatures will not GO quite accurately together, any more than clocks will; and when their dissonance once rises fairly high, and they cannot readily kill one another, any Great Elector who is third party will have a terrible time of it.
Electress Dorothee, the Stepmother, was herself somewhat of a hard lady; not easy to live with, though so far above poisoning as to have "despised even the suspicion of it." She was much given to practical economics, dairy-farming, market-gardening, and industrial and commercial operations such as offered; and was thought to be a very strict reckoner of money. She founded the