No other counsel can I listen to.'" SAME LETTER, OR ANOTHER?
(Herr Ranke having his caprices!)...

"You are a good man, my Podewils, and do what can be expected of you" (Podewils has been apologizing for his terrors; and referring hopefully "to Providence"): "Perform faithfully the given work on your side, as I on mine; for the rest, let what you call 'Providence' decide as it likes [UNE PROVIDENCE AVEUGLE?
Ranke, who alone knows, gives "BLINDE VORSEHUNG." What an utterance, on the part of this little Titan! Consider it as exceptional with him, unusual, accidental to the hard moment, and perhaps not so impious as it looks!]--Neither our prudence nor our courage shall be liable to blame; but only circumstances that would not favor us....
"I prepare myself for every event.

Fortune may be kind or be unkind, it shall neither dishearten me nor uplift me.

If I am to perish, let it be with honor, and sword in hand.

What the issue is to be--Well, what pleases Heaven, or the Other Party (J'AI JETE LE BONNET PAR DESSUS LES MOULINS)! Adieu, my dear Podewils; become as good a philosopher as you are a politician; and learn from a man who does not go to Elsner's Preaching [fashionable at the time], that one must oppose to ill fortune a brow of iron; and, during this life, renounce all happiness, all acquisitions, possessions and lying shows, none of which will follow us beyond the grave." [Ranke, iii.pp.