From this, and from other sources, readers will assure themselves that discontents were not wanting; that King Friedrich was not amiable to everybody at this time,--which indeed he never grew to be at any other time.

He had to be a King; that was the trade he followed, not the quite different one of being amiable all round.

Amiability is good, my Princess; but the question rises, "To whom ?--for example, to the young gentleman who shot himself in Lobegun ?" There are young gentlemen and old sometimes in considerable quantities, to whom, if you were in your duty, as a King of men (or even as a "King of one man and his affairs," if that is all your kingdom), you should have been hateful instead of amiable! That is a stern truth; too much forgotten by Wilhelmina and others.

Again, what a deadening and killing circumstance is it in the career of amiability, that you are bound not to be communicative of your inner man, but perpetually and strictly the reverse! It may be doubted if a good King can be amiable; certainly he cannot in any but the noblest ages, and then only to a select few.

I should guess Friedrich was at no time fairly loved, not by those nearest to him.