rules to it!" A piece of wit, which could not but provoke
Friedrich; and warn him that negotiation on this matter might as
well terminate. Such had been his own thought, from the first; but
in compliance with Schwerin and Podewils he was willing to try.

Better for Maria Theresa, and for all the world how much better,
could she have accepted this Fifth Proposition! But how could she,
--the high Imperial Lady, keystone of Europe, though by accident
with only a few pounds of ready money at present? Twenty years of
bitter fighting, and agony to herself and all the world, were
necessary first; a new Fact of Nature having turned up, a new
European Kingdom with real King to it; NOT recognizable as such,
by the young Queen of Hungary or by any other person, till it do
its proofs.


WHAT BERLIN IS SAYING; WHAT FRIEDRICH IS THINKING.

What Friedrich's own humor is, what Friedrich's own inner man is
saying to him, while all the world so babbles about his Silesian
Adventure? Of this too there are, though in diluted state, some
glimmerings to be had,--chiefly in the Correspondence with Jordan.

Ingenious Jordan, Inspector of the Poor at Berlin,--his thousand
old women at their wheels humming pleasantly in the background of
our imaginations, though he says nothing of that,--writes twice a
week to his Majesty: pleasant gossipy Letters, with an easy
respectfulness not going into sycophancy anywhere; which keep the
campaigning King well abreast of the Berlin news and rumors:
something like the essence of an Old Newspaper; not without worth