History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 10 [25]
the noble loyalty, natural politeness and pious lucency of Suhm. One of his Letters to Friedrich has this slightly impertinent passage;--Friedrich, just getting settled in Reinsberg, having transiently mentioned 'the quantity of fair sex' that had come about him there:--
"'BERLIN, 26th AUGUST, 1736 (to the Crown-Prince). ... I am well persuaded your Royal Highness will regulate all that to perfection, and so manage that your fair sex will be charmed to find themselves with you at Reinsberg, and you charmed to have them there. But permit me, your Royal Highness, to repeat in this place, what I one day took the liberty of saying here at Berlin: Nothing in the world would better suit the present interests of your Royal Highness and of us all, than some Heir of your Royal Highness's making! Perhaps the tranquil convenience with which your Royal Highness at Reinsberg can now attend to that object, will be of better effect than all those hasty and transitory visits at Berlin were. At least I wish it with the best of my heart. I beg pardon, Monseigneur, for intruding thus into everything which concerns your Royal Highness;'--In truth, I am a rather impudent busybodyish fellow, with superabundant dashing manner, speculation, utterance; and shall get myself ordered out of the Country, by my present correspondent, by and by.-- 'Being ever,' with the due enthusiasm, 'MANTEUFEL.' [ OEuvres de Frederic, xxv. 487;--Friedrich's Answer is, Reinsberg, 23d September (Ib. 489).]
"To which Friedrich's Answer is of a kind to put a gag in the foul mouth of certain extraordinary Pamphleteerings, that were once very copious in the world; and, in particular, to set at rest the Herr Dr. Zimmermann, and his poor puddle of calumnies and credulities, got together in that weak pursuit of physiology under obscene circumstances;--
"Which is the one good result I have gathered from the Manteufel Correspondence," continues our German friend; whom I vote with!-- Or if the English reader never saw those Zimmermann or other dog- like Pamphleteerings and surmisings, let this Excerpt be mysterious and superfluous to the thankful English reader.
On the whole, we conceive to ourselves the abundant nature of Friedrich's Correspondence, literary and other; and what kind of event the transit of that Post functionary "from Fehrbellin northwards," with his leathern bags, "twice a week," may have been at Reinsberg, in those years.
Chapter III.
CROWN-PRINCE MAKES A MORNING CALL.
Thursday, 25th October, 1736, the Crown-Prince, with Lieutenant Buddenbrock and an attendant or two, drove over into Mecklenburg, to a Village and serene Schloss called Mirow, intending a small act of neighborly civility there; on which perhaps an English reader of our time will consent to accompany him. It is but some ten or twelve miles off, in a northerly direction; Reinsberg being close on the frontier there. A pleasant enough morning's-drive, with the October sun shining on the silent heaths, on the many- colored woods and you.
Mirow is an Apanage for one of the Mecklenburg-Strelitz junior branches: Mecklenburg-Strelitz being itself a junior compared to the Mecklenburg-Schwerin of which, and its infatuated Duke, we have heard so much in times past. Mirow and even Strelitz are not in--a very shining state,--but indeed, we shall see them, as it were, with eyes. And the English reader is to note especially those Mirow people, as perhaps of some small interest to him, if he knew it. The Crown-Prince reports to papa, in a satirical vein, not ungenially, and with much more freedom than is usual in those Reinsberg letters of his:--
"TO HIS PRUSSIAN MAJESTY (from the Crown-Prince).
"REINSBERG, 26th October, 1736.
... "Yesterday I went across to Mirow. To give my Most All- gracious Father an idea of the place, I cannot liken it to anything higher than Gross-Kreutz [term of comparison lost upon us; say GARRAT, at a venture, or the CLACHAN OF ABERFOYLE]: the one house in it, that can be called a house, is not so good as the Parson's
"'BERLIN, 26th AUGUST, 1736 (to the Crown-Prince). ... I am well persuaded your Royal Highness will regulate all that to perfection, and so manage that your fair sex will be charmed to find themselves with you at Reinsberg, and you charmed to have them there. But permit me, your Royal Highness, to repeat in this place, what I one day took the liberty of saying here at Berlin: Nothing in the world would better suit the present interests of your Royal Highness and of us all, than some Heir of your Royal Highness's making! Perhaps the tranquil convenience with which your Royal Highness at Reinsberg can now attend to that object, will be of better effect than all those hasty and transitory visits at Berlin were. At least I wish it with the best of my heart. I beg pardon, Monseigneur, for intruding thus into everything which concerns your Royal Highness;'--In truth, I am a rather impudent busybodyish fellow, with superabundant dashing manner, speculation, utterance; and shall get myself ordered out of the Country, by my present correspondent, by and by.-- 'Being ever,' with the due enthusiasm, 'MANTEUFEL.' [
"To which Friedrich's Answer is of a kind to put a gag in the foul mouth of certain extraordinary Pamphleteerings, that were once very copious in the world; and, in particular, to set at rest the Herr Dr. Zimmermann, and his poor puddle of calumnies and credulities, got together in that weak pursuit of physiology under obscene circumstances;--
"Which is the one good result I have gathered from the Manteufel Correspondence," continues our German friend; whom I vote with!-- Or if the English reader never saw those Zimmermann or other dog- like Pamphleteerings and surmisings, let this Excerpt be mysterious and superfluous to the thankful English reader.
On the whole, we conceive to ourselves the abundant nature of Friedrich's Correspondence, literary and other; and what kind of event the transit of that Post functionary "from Fehrbellin northwards," with his leathern bags, "twice a week," may have been at Reinsberg, in those years.
Chapter III.
CROWN-PRINCE MAKES A MORNING CALL.
Thursday, 25th October, 1736, the Crown-Prince, with Lieutenant Buddenbrock and an attendant or two, drove over into Mecklenburg, to a Village and serene Schloss called Mirow, intending a small act of neighborly civility there; on which perhaps an English reader of our time will consent to accompany him. It is but some ten or twelve miles off, in a northerly direction; Reinsberg being close on the frontier there. A pleasant enough morning's-drive, with the October sun shining on the silent heaths, on the many- colored woods and you.
Mirow is an Apanage for one of the Mecklenburg-Strelitz junior branches: Mecklenburg-Strelitz being itself a junior compared to the Mecklenburg-Schwerin of which, and its infatuated Duke, we have heard so much in times past. Mirow and even Strelitz are not in--a very shining state,--but indeed, we shall see them, as it were, with eyes. And the English reader is to note especially those Mirow people, as perhaps of some small interest to him, if he knew it. The Crown-Prince reports to papa, in a satirical vein, not ungenially, and with much more freedom than is usual in those Reinsberg letters of his:--
"TO HIS PRUSSIAN MAJESTY (from the Crown-Prince).
"REINSBERG, 26th October, 1736.
... "Yesterday I went across to Mirow. To give my Most All- gracious Father an idea of the place, I cannot liken it to anything higher than Gross-Kreutz [term of comparison lost upon us; say GARRAT, at a venture, or the CLACHAN OF ABERFOYLE]: the one house in it, that can be called a house, is not so good as the Parson's