Visits from his Kindred are still pretty frequent; never except on invitation. For the rest, completely an old Bachelor, an old Military Abbot; with business for every hour. Princess Amelia takes care of his linen, not very well, the dear old Lady, who is herself a cripple, suffering, and voiceless, speaking only in hoarse whisper. I think I have heard there were but twelve shirts, not in first-rate order, when the King died. A King supremely indifferent to small concerns; especially to that of shirts and tailorages not essential. Holds to Literature, almost more than ever;occasionally still writes; [For one instance: The famous Pamphlet, DE LA LITTERATURE ALLEMANDE (containing his onslaught on Shakspeare, and his first salutation, with the reverse of welcome, to Goethe's GOTZ VON BERLICHINGEN);--printed, under stupid Thiebault's care, Berlin, 1780. Stands now in <italic> OEuvres de Frederic, <end italic> vii. 89-122. The last Pieces of all are chiefly MILITARY INSTRUCTIONS of a practical or official nature.]
has his daily Readings, Concerts, Correspondences as usual:--readers can conceive the dim Household Picture, dimly reported withal. The following Anecdotes may be added as completion of it, or at least of all I have to say on it:--YOU GO ON WEDNESDAY, THEN?--"Loss of time was one of the losses Friedrich could least stand. In visits even from his Brothers and Sisters, which were always by his own express invitation, he would say some morning (call it Tuesday morning): 'You are going on Wednesday, I am sorry to hear' (what YOU never heard before)!--'Alas, your Majesty, we must!' 'Well, I am sorry: but I will lay no constraint on you. Pleasant moments cannot last forever!' And sometimes, after this had been agreed to; he would say: 'But cannot you stay till Thursday, then? Come, one other day of it!'--'Well, since your Majesty does graciously press!' And on Thursday, not Wednesday, on those curious terms, the visit would terminate.
This trait is in the Anecdote-Books: but its authenticity does not rest on that uncertain basis; singularly enough, it comes to me, individually, by two clear stages, from Friedrich's Sister the Duchess of Brunswick, who, if anybody, would know it well!"[My informant is Sir George Sinclair, Baronet, of Thurso; his was the distinguished Countess of Finlater, still remembered for her graces of mind and person, who had been Maid-of-Honor to the Duchess.]
DINNER WITH THE QUEEN.--The Queen, a prudent, simple-minded, worthy person, of perfect behavior in a difficult position, seems to have been much respected in Berlin Society and the Court Circles.
Nor was the King wanting in the same feeling towards her; of which there are still many proofs: but as to personal intercourse,--what a figure has that gradually taken! Preuss says, citing those who saw: "When the King, after the Seven-Years War, now and then, in Carnival season, dined with the Queen in her Apartments, he usually said not a word to her. He merely, on entering, on sitting down at table and on leaving it, made the customary bow; and sat opposite to her. Once, in the Seventies [years 1770, years now past], the Queen was ill of gout; table was in her Apartments; but she herself was not there, she sat in an easy-chair in the drawing-room.
On this occasion the King stepped up to the Queen, and inquired about her health. The circumstance occasioned, among the company present, and all over Town as the news spread, great wonder and sympathy (VERWUNDERUNG UND THEILNAHME). This is probably the last time he ever spoke to her." [Preuss, iv. 187.]
THE TWO GRAND-NEPHEWS.--"The King was fond of children; liked to have his Grand-Nephews about him. One day, while the King sat at work in his Cabinet, the younger of the two, a boy of eight or nine [who died soon after twenty], was playing ball about the room;and knocked it once and again into the King's writing operation;who twice or oftener flung it back to him, but next time put it in his pocket, and went on. 'Please your Majesty, give it me back!'
begged the Boy; and again begged: Majesty took no notice;continued writing. Till at length came, in the tone of indignation, 'Will your Majesty give me my ball, then?' The King looked up;found the little Hohenzollern planted firm, hands on haunches, and wearing quite a peremptory air. 'Thou art a brave little fellow;they won't get Silesia out of thee!' cried he laughing, and flinging him his ball." [Fischer, ii. 445 ("year 1780").]
Of the elder Prince, afterwards Friedrich Wilhelm III. (Father of the now King), there is a much more interesting Anecdote, and of his own reporting too, though the precise terms are irrecoverable:
"How the King, questioning him about his bits of French studies, brought down a LA FONTAINE from the shelves, and said, 'Translate me this Fable;' which the Boy did, with such readiness and correctness as obtained the King's praises: praises to an extent that was embarrassing, and made the honest little creature confess, 'I did it with my Tutor, a few days since!' To the King's much greater delight; who led him out to walk in the Gardens, and, in a mood of deeper and deeper seriousness, discoursed and exhorted him on the supreme law of truth and probity that lies on all men, and on all Kings still more; one of his expressions being, 'Look at this high thing [the Obelisk they were passing in the Gardens], its UPRIGHTness is its strength (SA DROITURE FAIT SA FORCE);' and his final words, 'Remember this evening, my good Fritz; perhaps thou wilt think of it, long after, when I am gone.' As the good Friedrich Wilhelm III. declares piously he often did, in the storms of fate that overtook him." [R. F. Eylert, <italic> Charakterzuge und historische Fragmente aus dem Leben des Konigs von Preussen Friedrich Wilhelm III. <end italic> (Magdeburg, 1843), i. 450-456.