Nor have they failed to write about him, they among the others, about him and about him; and it is notable how little real light, on any point of his existence or environment, they have managed to communicate.

Dim indeed, for most part a mere epigrammatic sputter of darkness visible, is the "picture" they have fashioned to themselves of Friedrich and his Country and his Century.

Men not "of genius," apparently?
Alas, no; men fatally destitute of true eyesight, and of loyal heart first of all.

So far as I have noticed, there was not, with the single exception of Mirabeau for one hour, any man to be called of genius, or with an adequate power of human discernment, that ever personally looked on Friedrich.

Had many such men looked successively on his History and him, we had not found it now in such a condition.