This rude, coarse discipline was thoroughly uncongenial to the Crown Prince. He was a boy of delicate feelings and sensitive temperament. The poetic nature very decidedly predominated in him. He was fond of music, played the flute, wrote verses, and was literary in his tastes. He simply hated chasing boars, riding on the sausage car, and being drenched with rain and spattered with mud. The old king, a mere animal with an active intellect, could not appreciate, could not understand even, the34 delicate mental and physical organization of his child. It is interesting to observe how early in life these constitutional characteristics will develop themselves, and how unavailing are all the efforts of education entirely to obliterate them. When Frederick William was a boy, he received, as a present, a truly magnificent dressing-gown, of graceful French fashion, richly embroidered with gold. Indignantly he thrust the robe into the fire, declaring that he would wear no such finery, and demanded instead a jacket of wholesome homespun. Fritz, on the contrary, could not endure the coarse homespun, but, with almost girlish fondness, craved handsome dress. He had no money allowance until he was seventeen years of age. A minute account was kept of every penny expended for him, and the most rigid economy was practiced in providing him with the mere necessaries of life. When Fritz was in the tenth year of his age, his father gave the following curious directions to the three teachers of his son in reference to his daily mode of life. The document, an abridgment of which we give, was dated Wusterhausen, September 3, 1721:
Two events occurred at this time highly characteristic of the king. There was a nobleman by the name of Schlubhut, occupying a high official position, who was found a defaulter to the amount of a sum equal to twenty-five thousand dollars. The supreme court sentenced him to three or four years imprisonment. The king was indignant at the mildness of the sentence. What, said he, when the private thief is sent to the gallows, shall a nobleman and a magistrate escape with fine and imprisonment? Schlubhut was immediately sent to prison. All night long he was disturbed with the noise of carpentering in the castle square in front of his cell. In the morning he saw directly before his window a huge gallows erected. Upon that126 gallows he was immediately hung, and his body was left to swing in the wind for several days, some say for weeks.185 On the 26th of May the Crown Prince received an express informing him that his father was dying, and that he must hasten to Potsdam with the utmost speed if he would ever again see him alive. Reinsberg was about thirty miles north from Potsdam. It took the courier some hours to reach the place. Frederick, with emotions not easily imagined, started before the dawn of the morning, followed by a train of attendants, to hasten to the death-bed of his father, and to receive the kingly crown of Prussia.Yes, was the monosyllabic reply.
ONE:Though Fritz wrote a legible business hand, was well instructed in most points of useful knowledge, and had a very decided taste for elegant literature, he never attained correctness in spelling. The father was bitterly opposed to Latin. Perhaps it was the prohibition which inspired the son with an intense desire to learn that language. He took secret lessons. His vigilant father38 caught him in the very act, with dictionary and grammar, and a teacher by his side. The infuriated king, volleying forth his rage, would have caned the teacher had he not in terror fled.5The other trait I have to give you is this. On the 15th of February last, the day of concluding this peace, which is so glorious to him, some one said to him, It is the finest day of your majestys life. The king replied,
There is something truly sublime in the devotion with which he, in disregard of sleeplessness, exhaustion, and pain, gave himself to work. His three clerks were summoned to his room each morning at four oclock.I have not the least desire, the king replied, to aggrandize myself in those parts, or to spend money in fortifying there. It would be useless to me. Am I not fortifying Brieg and Glogau? These are enough for one who wishes to live well with his neighbors. Neither the Dutch nor the French have offended me, nor will I offend them by acquisitions in the Netherlands. Besides, who would guarantee them? Ann Amelia.72The last letter which it is supposed that he wrote was the following cold epistle to his excellent wife, whom, through a long life, he had treated with such cruel neglect:
路见不平Eason吼
