History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 6 [11]
had: Rutowski taken over to Berlin to learn war and drill, where he did not remain long: in fact a certain liking seems to have risen between the two heteroclite individualities, which is perhaps worth remembering as a point in natural history, if not otherwise. One other small result of the visit is of pictorial nature. In the famed Dresden Gallery there is still a Picture, high up, visible if you have glasses, where the Saxon Court-Painter, on Friedrich Wilhelm's bidding it is said, soon after these auspicious occurrences, represents the two Majesties as large as life, in their respective costumes and features (short Potsdam Grenadier-Colonel and tall Saxon Darius or Sardanapalus), in the act of shaking hands; symbolically burying past grudges, and swearing eternal friendship, so to speak. [Forster, i. 226.] To this Editor the Picture did not seem good for much; but Friedrich Wilhelm's Portrait in it, none of the best, may be of use to travelling friends of his who have no other.
The visit ended on the 12th of February, as the Newspapers testify. Long before daybreak, at three in the morning, Friedrich Wilhelm, "who had smoked after dinner till nine the night before," and taken leave of everybody, was on the road; but was astonished to find King August and the Electoral Prince or Heir-Apparent (who had privately sat up for the purpose) insist on conducting him to his carriage. [Boyer, xxxv. l98.] "Great tokens of affection," known to the Newspapers, there were; and one token not yet known, a promise on King August's part that he would return this ever-memorable compliment in person at Potsdam and Berlin in a few months. Remember, then!--
As for the poor Crown-Prince, whom already his Father did not like, he now fell into circumstances more abstruse than ever in that and other respects. Bad health, a dangerous lingering fit of that, soon after his return home, was one of the first consequences. Frequent fits of bad health, for some years coming; with ominous rumors, consultations of physicians, and reports to the paternal Majesty, which produced small comfort in that quarter. The sad truth, dimly indicated, is sufficiently visible: his life for the next four or five years was "extremely dissolute." Poor young man, he has got into a disastrous course; consorts chiefly with debauched young fellows, as Lieutenants Katte, Keith, and others of their stamp, who lead him on ways not pleasant to his Father, nor conformable to the Laws of this Universe. Health, either of body or of mind, is not to be looked for in his present way of life. The bright young soul, with its fine strengths and gifts; wallowing like a young rhinoceros in the mud-bath:--some say, it is wholesome for a human soul; not we!
All this is too certain; rising to its height in the years we are now got to, and not ending for four or five years to come: and the reader can conceive all this, and whether its effects were good or not. Friedrich Wilhelm's old-standing disfavor is converted into open aversion and protest, many times into fits of sorrow, rage and despair, on his luckless Son's behalf;--and it appears doubtful whether this bright young human soul, comparable for the present to a rhinoceros wallowing in the mud-bath, with nothing but its snout visible, and a dirty gurgle all the sound it makes, will ever get out again or not.
The rhinoceros soul got out; but not uninjured; alas, no; bitterly polluted, tragically dimmed of its finest radiances for the remainder of life. The distinguished Sauerteig, in his SPRINGWURZELN, has these words: "To burn away, in mad waste, the divine aromas and plainly celestial elements from our existence; to change our holy-of-holies into a place of riot; to make the soul itself hard, impious, barren! Surely a day is coming, when it will be known again what virtue is in purity and continence of life; how divine is the blush of young human cheeks; how high, beneficent, sternly inexorable if forgotten, is the duty laid, not on women only, but on every creature, in regard to these particulars? Well; if such a day never
The visit ended on the 12th of February, as the Newspapers testify. Long before daybreak, at three in the morning, Friedrich Wilhelm, "who had smoked after dinner till nine the night before," and taken leave of everybody, was on the road; but was astonished to find King August and the Electoral Prince or Heir-Apparent (who had privately sat up for the purpose) insist on conducting him to his carriage. [Boyer, xxxv. l98.] "Great tokens of affection," known to the Newspapers, there were; and one token not yet known, a promise on King August's part that he would return this ever-memorable compliment in person at Potsdam and Berlin in a few months. Remember, then!--
As for the poor Crown-Prince, whom already his Father did not like, he now fell into circumstances more abstruse than ever in that and other respects. Bad health, a dangerous lingering fit of that, soon after his return home, was one of the first consequences. Frequent fits of bad health, for some years coming; with ominous rumors, consultations of physicians, and reports to the paternal Majesty, which produced small comfort in that quarter. The sad truth, dimly indicated, is sufficiently visible: his life for the next four or five years was "extremely dissolute." Poor young man, he has got into a disastrous course; consorts chiefly with debauched young fellows, as Lieutenants Katte, Keith, and others of their stamp, who lead him on ways not pleasant to his Father, nor conformable to the Laws of this Universe. Health, either of body or of mind, is not to be looked for in his present way of life. The bright young soul, with its fine strengths and gifts; wallowing like a young rhinoceros in the mud-bath:--some say, it is wholesome for a human soul; not we!
All this is too certain; rising to its height in the years we are now got to, and not ending for four or five years to come: and the reader can conceive all this, and whether its effects were good or not. Friedrich Wilhelm's old-standing disfavor is converted into open aversion and protest, many times into fits of sorrow, rage and despair, on his luckless Son's behalf;--and it appears doubtful whether this bright young human soul, comparable for the present to a rhinoceros wallowing in the mud-bath, with nothing but its snout visible, and a dirty gurgle all the sound it makes, will ever get out again or not.
The rhinoceros soul got out; but not uninjured; alas, no; bitterly polluted, tragically dimmed of its finest radiances for the remainder of life. The distinguished Sauerteig, in his SPRINGWURZELN, has these words: "To burn away, in mad waste, the divine aromas and plainly celestial elements from our existence; to change our holy-of-holies into a place of riot; to make the soul itself hard, impious, barren! Surely a day is coming, when it will be known again what virtue is in purity and continence of life; how divine is the blush of young human cheeks; how high, beneficent, sternly inexorable if forgotten, is the duty laid, not on women only, but on every creature, in regard to these particulars? Well; if such a day never