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.

Voltaire, at his leisure in Brussels or the Old Palace and its spider-webs, writes much more expansively; not with insincerity, he either;--with endless airy graciosities, and ingenious twirls, and touches of flattering unction, which latter, he is aware, must not be laid on too thick.

As thus:-- In regard to the ANTI-MACHIAVEL,--Sire, deign to give me your permissions as to the scoundrel of a Van Duren; well worth while, Sire,--"IT is a monument for the latest posterity; the only Book worthy of a King for these fifteen hundred years." This is a strongish trowelful, thrown on direct, with adroitness; and even this has a kind of sincerity.