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History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 16 by Thomas Carlyle
page 3 of 308 (00%)
forgettable;--ACH HIMMEL! Which indispensable preliminary process,
how can an English Editor, at this time, do it; no Prussian, at any
time, having thought of trying it! From a painful Predecessor of
mine, I collect, rummaging among his dismal Paper-masses, the
following Three Fragments, worth reading here:--

1. "Friedrich was as busy, in those Years, as in the generality of
his life; and his actions, and salutary conquests over
difficulties, were many, profitable to Prussia and to himself.
Very well worth keeping in mind. But not fit for History; or at
least only fit in the summary form; to be delineated in little,
with large generic strokes,--if we had the means;--such details
belonging to the Prussian Antiquary, rather than to the English
Historian of Friedrich in our day. A happy Ten Years of time.
Perhaps the time for Montesquieu's aphorism, 'Happy the People
whose Annals are blank in History-Books!' The Prussian Antiquary,
had he once got any image formed to himself of Friedrich, and of
Friedrich's History in its human lineaments and organic sequences,
will glean many memorabilia in those Years: which his readers then
(and not till then) will be able to intercalate in their places,
and get human good of. But alas, while there is no intelligible
human image, nothing of lineaments or organic sequences, or other
than a jumbled mass of Historical Marine-Stores, presided over by
Dryasdust and Human Stupor (unsorted, unlabelled, tied up in blind
sacks), the very Antiquary will have uphill work of it, and his
readers will often turn round on him with a gloomy expression
of countenance!"

2. "Friedrich's Life--little as he expected it, that day when he
started up from his ague-fit at Reinsberg, and grasped the fiery
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