History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 10 [36]
Majesty,--are in waiting for this distinguished honor. The Prince of Orange we have already seen, for a moment once; at the siege of Philipsburg four years ago, when the sale of Chasot's horses went off so well. "Nothing like selling horses when your company have dined well," whispered he to Chasot, at that time; since which date we have heard nothing of his Highness.
He is not a beautiful man; he has a crooked back, and features conformable; but is of prompt vivacious nature, and does not want for sense and good-humor. Paternal George, the gossips say, warned his Princess, when this marriage was talked of, "You will find him very ill-looking, though!" "And if I found him a baboon--!" answered she; being so heartily tired of St. James's. And in fact, for anything I have heard, they do well enough together. She is George II.'s eldest Princess;--next elder to our poor Amelia, who was once so interesting to us! What the Crown-Prince now thought of all that, I do not know; but the Books say, poor Amelia wore the willow, and specially wore the Prince's miniature on her breast all her days after, which were many. Grew corpulent, somewhat a huddle in appearance and equipment, "eyelids like upper-LIPS," for one item: but when life itself fled, the miniature was found in its old place, resting on the old heart after some sixty years. O Time, O Sons and Daughters of Time!--
His Majesty's reception at Loo was of the kind he liked,--cordial, honorable, unceremonious; and these were three pleasant days he had. Pleasant for the Crown-Prince too; as the whole Journey had rather been; Papa, with covert satisfaction, finding him a wise creature, after all, and "more serious" than formerly. "Hm, you don't know what things are in that Fritz!" his Majesty murmured sometimes, in these later years, with a fine light in his eyes.
Loo itself is a beautiful Palace: "Loo, close by the Village Appeldoorn, is a stately brick edifice, built with architectural regularity; has finely decorated rooms, beautiful gardens, and round are superb alleys of oak and linden." [Busching, Erdbeschreibung, viii. 69.] There saunters pleasantly our Crown-Prince, for these three days;--and one glad incident I do perceive to have befallen him there: the arrival of a Letter from Voltaire. Letter much expected, which had followed him from Wesel; and which he answers here, in this brick Palace, among the superb avenues and gardens. [ OEuvres, xxi. 203, the Letter, "Cirey, June, 1738;" Ib. 222, the Answer to it, "Loo, 6th August, 1738."]
No doubt a glad incident, irradiating, as with a sudden sunburst in gray weather, the commonplace of things. Here is news worth listening to; news as from the empyrean! Free interchange of poetries and proses, of heroic sentiments and opinions, between the Unique of Sages and the Paragon of Crown-Princes; how charming to both! Literary business, we perceive, is brisk on both hands; at Cirey the Discours sur l'Homme ("Sixth DISCOURS" arrives in this packet at Loo, surely a deathless piece of singing); nor is Reinsberg idle: Reinsberg is copiously doing verse, such verse! and in prose, very earnestly, an "ANTI- MACHIAVEL;" which soon afterwards filled all the then world, though it has now fallen so silent again. And at Paris, as Voltaire announces with a flourish, "M. de Maupertuis's excellent Book, Figure de la T'erre, is out;" [Paris, 1738: Maupertuis's "measurement of a degree," in the utmost North, 1736-1737 (to prove the Earth flattened there). Vivid Narrative; somewhat gesticulative, but duly brief. The only Book of that great Maupertuis which is now readable to human nature.] M. de Maupertuis, home from the Polar regions and from measuring the Earth there; the sublimest miracle in Paris society at present. Might build, new-build, an ACADEMY OF SCIENCES at Berlin for your Royal Highness, one day? suggests Voltaire, on this occasion: and Friedrich, as we shall see, takes the hint. One passage of the Crown-Prince's Answer is in these terms;--fixing
He is not a beautiful man; he has a crooked back, and features conformable; but is of prompt vivacious nature, and does not want for sense and good-humor. Paternal George, the gossips say, warned his Princess, when this marriage was talked of, "You will find him very ill-looking, though!" "And if I found him a baboon--!" answered she; being so heartily tired of St. James's. And in fact, for anything I have heard, they do well enough together. She is George II.'s eldest Princess;--next elder to our poor Amelia, who was once so interesting to us! What the Crown-Prince now thought of all that, I do not know; but the Books say, poor Amelia wore the willow, and specially wore the Prince's miniature on her breast all her days after, which were many. Grew corpulent, somewhat a huddle in appearance and equipment, "eyelids like upper-LIPS," for one item: but when life itself fled, the miniature was found in its old place, resting on the old heart after some sixty years. O Time, O Sons and Daughters of Time!--
His Majesty's reception at Loo was of the kind he liked,--cordial, honorable, unceremonious; and these were three pleasant days he had. Pleasant for the Crown-Prince too; as the whole Journey had rather been; Papa, with covert satisfaction, finding him a wise creature, after all, and "more serious" than formerly. "Hm, you don't know what things are in that Fritz!" his Majesty murmured sometimes, in these later years, with a fine light in his eyes.
Loo itself is a beautiful Palace: "Loo, close by the Village Appeldoorn, is a stately brick edifice, built with architectural regularity; has finely decorated rooms, beautiful gardens, and round are superb alleys of oak and linden." [Busching,
No doubt a glad incident, irradiating, as with a sudden sunburst in gray weather, the commonplace of things. Here is news worth listening to; news as from the empyrean! Free interchange of poetries and proses, of heroic sentiments and opinions, between the Unique of Sages and the Paragon of Crown-Princes; how charming to both! Literary business, we perceive, is brisk on both hands; at Cirey the