[History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia Vol. VII. (of XXI.) by Thomas Carlyle]@TWC D-Link bookHistory Of Friedrich II. of Prussia Vol. VII. (of XXI.) CHAPTER II 27/39
The day is our own, my Grumkow; yes, our own, my Nosti:--and so our Colloquy of Rookeries shall be suppressible henceforth. HIS MAJESTY GETS SIGHT OF THE ST.-MARY-AXE DOCUMENTS; BUT NOTHING FOLLOWS FROM IT. We have only to add what Hotham reports (Berlin, May 6th), That he "has had an interview with his Majesty, and spoken of the St.-Mary-Axe affair; Knyphausen having found a moment to lay it before his Majesty." So that the above Excerpts from St.Mary Axe (all but the last two),--the above, and many more suppressed by us,--are in his Majesty's hands: and he is busy studying them; will, it is likely, produce them in an amazed Tobacco-Parliament one of these evenings!-- What the emotions of the royal breast were during the perusal of this extraordinary dialogue of birds, which has come to him through St.Mary Axe--? Manifold probably: manifold, questionable; but not tragical, or not immediately so.
Certainly it is definable as the paltriest babble; no treason visible in it, nor constructive treason; but it painfully indicates, were his Majesty candid, That his Majesty is subject to spies in his own House; nay that certain parties do seem to fancy they have got his Majesty by the nose, and are piping tunes with an eye to his dancing, thereto.
This is a painful thought, which, I believe, does much agitate his Majesty now and afterwards .-- A painful thought or suspicion, rising sometimes (in that temperament of his) to the pitch of the horrible.
I believe it occasionally, ever henceforth, keeps haunting the highly poetic temperament of his Majesty, nor ever quits him again at all; stalking always, now and then, through the vacant chambers of his mind, in what we may call the night-season (or time of solitude and hypochondriacal reflection),--though in busy times again (in daylight, so to speak) he impatiently casts it from him.
Poor Majesty! But figure Grumkow, figure the Tobacco-Parliament when Majesty laid these Papers on the Table! A HANSARD of that night would be worth reading.
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