The fermentation, therefore, had to go on under cover; what the result of it was, is notorious enough; though the steps of the process are not in any point known.
Enough now of such details.

Outwardly or inwardly, there is no History, or almost none, to be had of this Reinsberg Period; the extensive records of it consisting, as usual, mainly of chaotic nugatory matter, opaque to the mind of readers.

There is copious correspondence of the Crown-Prince, with at least dates to it for most part: but this, which should be the main resource, proves likewise a poor one; the Crown-Prince's Letters, now or afterwards, being almost never of a deep or intimate quality; and seldom turning on events or facts at all, and then not always on facts interesting, on facts clearly apprehensible to us in that extinct element.
The Thing, we know always, IS there; but vision of the Thing is only to be had faintly, intermittently.

Dim inane twilight, with here and there a transient SPARK falling somewhither in it;--you do at last, by desperate persistence, get to discern outlines, features:--"The Thing cannot always have been No-thing," you reflect! Outlines, features:--and perhaps, after all, those are mostly what the reader wants on this occasion..