Human creatures will not GO quite accurately together, any more than clocks will; and when their dissonance once rises fairly high, and they cannot readily kill one another, any Great Elector who is third party will have a terrible time of it.
Electress Dorothee, the Stepmother, was herself somewhat of a hard lady; not easy to live with, though so far above poisoning as to have "despised even the suspicion of it." She was much given to practical economics, dairy-farming, market-gardening, and industrial and commercial operations such as offered; and was thought to be a very strict reckoner of money.

She founded the _ Dorotheenstadt, _ now oftener called the _ Neustadt, _ chief quarter of Berlin; and planted, just about the time of this unlucky dinner, "A.D.

1680 or so," [Nicolai, _ Beschreibung der koniglichen Residenzstadte Berlin und Potsdam _ (Berlin, 1786), i.

172.] the first of the celebrated Lindens, which (or the successors of which, in a stunted ambition) are still growing there.
_ Unter-den-Linden: _ it is now the gayest quarter of Berlin, full of really fine edifices: it was then a sandy outskirt of Electress Dorothee's dairy-farm; good for nothing but building upon, thought Electress Dorothee.

She did much dairy-and-vegetable trade on the great scale;--was thought even to have, underhand, a commercial interest in the principal Beer-house of the city?
[Horn, _ Leben Friedrich Wilhelms des Grossen Kurfursten von Brandenburg _ (Berlin, 1814).] People did not love her: to the Great Elector, who guided with a steady bridle-hand, she complied not amiss; though in him too there rose sad recollections and comparisons now and then: but with a Stepson of unsteady nerves it became evident to him there could never be soft neighborhood.