the question is, how to group them with skill, so that the necessary elements may converge at the right moment, and one shot kill three or four birds. This is Friedrich's fine way, perceptible in all these Journeys. The French friends, flying each on his own track, with his own load of impediments, Voltaire with his Madame for instance, are a difficult element in such problem;and there has been, and is, much scheming and corresponding about it, within the last month especially.
Voltaire is now at Brussels, with his Du Chatelet, prosecuting that endless "lawsuit with the House of Honsbruck,"--which he, and we, are both desirous to have done with. He is at the Hague, too, now and then; printing, about to print, the ANTI-MACHIAVEL;corresponding, to right and left, quarrelling with Van Duren the Printer; lives, while there, in the VIEILLE COUR, in the vast dusky rooms with faded gilding, and grand old Bookshelves "with the biggest spider-webs in Europe." Brussels is his place for Law-Consultations, general family residence; the Hague and that old spider-web Palace for correcting Proof-sheets; doing one's own private studies, which we never quite neglect. Fain would Friedrich see him, fain he Friedrich; but there is a divine Emilie, there is a Maupertuis, there are--In short, never were such difficulties, in the cooking of an egg with water boiling;and much vain correspondence has already been on that subject, as on others equally extinct. Correspondence which is not pleasant reading at this time; the rather as no reader can, without endless searching, even understand it. Correspondence left to us, not in the cosmic, elucidated or legible state; left mainly as the Editorial rubbish-wagons chose to shoot it; like a tumbled quarry, like the ruins of a sacked city;--avoidable by readers who are not forced into it! [Herr Preuss's edition ( OEuvres de Frederic, vols. xxi. xxii. xxiii.) has come out since the above was written: it is agreeably exceptional; being, for the first time, correctly printed, and the editor himself having mostly understood it,--though the reader still cannot, on the terms there allowed.] Take the following select bricks as sample, which are of some use; the general Heading is, KING FRIEDERIC TO M. DE VOLTAIRE (at the Hague, or at Brussels).
"CHARLOTTENBURG, 12th JUNE, 1740.--... My dear Voltaire, resist no longer the eagerness I have to see you. Do in my favor whatever your humanity allows. In the end of August, I go to Wesel, and perhaps farther. Promise that you will come and join me; for Icould not live happy, nor die tranquil, without having embraced you! Thousand compliments to the Marquise," divine Emilie. "I am busy with both hands [Corn-Magazines, Free Press, Abolition of Torture, and much else]; working at the Army with the one hand, at the People and the Fine Arts with the other.""BERLIN, 5th AUGUST, 1740.--... I will write to Madame du Chatelet, in compliance with your wish:" mark it, reader.
"To speak to you frankly concerning her journey, it is Voltaire, it is you, it is my Friend that I desire to see; and the divine Emilie with all her divinity is only the Accessory of the Apollo Newtonized.
"I cannot yet say whether I shall travel [incognito into foreign parts a little] or not travel;" there have been rumors, perhaps private wishes; but--... "Adieu, dear friend; sublime spirit, first-born of thinking beings. Love me always sincerely, and be persuaded that none can love and esteem you more than I.
VALE. FEDERIC.""BERLIN, 6th AUGUST [which is next day].--You will have received a Letter from me dated yesterday; this is the second I write to you from Berlin; I refer you to what was in the other. If it must be (FAUT) that Emilie accompany Apollo, I consent; but if I could see you alone, that is what I would prefer. I should be too much dazzled; I could not stand so much splendor all at once; it would overpower me. I should need the veil of Moses to temper the united radiance of your two divinities." ... In short, don't bring her, if you please.
"REMUSBERG [poetic for REINSBERG], 8th AUGUST, 1740.--... My dear Voltaire, I do believe Van Duren costs you more trouble and pains than you had with HENRI QUATRE. In versifying the Life of a Hero, you wrote the history of your own thoughts; but in coercing a scoundrel you fence with an enemy who is not worthy of you."To punish him, and cut short his profits, "PRINT, then, as you wish [your own edition of the ANTI-MACHIAVEL, to go along with his, and trip the feet from it]. FAITES ROULER LA PRESSE; erase, change, correct; do as you see best; your judgment about it shall be mine."--"In eight days I leave for [where thinks the reader?
"DANTZIG" deliberately print all the Editors, careful Preuss among them; overturning the terrestrial azimuths for us, and making day night!]--for Leipzig, and reckon on being at Frankfurt on the 22d.
In case you could be there, I expect, on my passage, to give you lodging! At Cleve or in Holland, I depend for certain on embracing you." [Preuss, OEuvres de Frederic, xx.
pp. 5, 19-21; Voltaire, OEuvres, lxxii. 226, &c. (not worth citing, in comparison).]
Intrinsically the Friedrich correspondence at this time, with Voltaire especially, among many friends now on the wing towards Berlin and sending letters, has,--if you are forced into struggling for some understanding of it, and do get to read parts of it with the eyes of Friedrich and Voltaire,--has a certain amiability; and is nothing like so waste and dreary as it looks in the chaotic or sacked-city condition. Friedrich writes with brevity, oftenest on practicalities (the ANTI-MACHIAVEL, the coming Interview, and the like), evidently no time to spare;writes always with considerable sincerity; with friendliness, much admiration, and an ingenuous vivacity, to M. de Voltaire.