At present, I can only say they astonish me, and put me to shame: the unresting diligence displayed in them, and the immense sum-total of them,--what man, in any the noblest pursuit, can say that he has stood to it, six-and-forty years long, in the style of this man?
Nor did the harvest fail; slow sure harvest, which sufficed a patient Friedrich in his own day; harvest now, in our day, visible to everybody: in a Prussia all shooting into manufactures, into commerces, opulences,--I only hope, not TOO fast, and on more solid terms than are universal at present! Those things might be didactic, truly, in various points, to this Generation; and worth looking back upon, from its high LAISSEZ-FAIRE altitudes, its triumphant Scrip-transactions and continents of gold-nuggets,--pleasing, it doubts not, to all the gods.
To write well of what is called 'Political Economy' (meaning thereby increase of money's-worth) is reckoned meritorious, and our nearest approach to the rational sublime.

But to accomplish said increase in a high and indisputable degree; and indisputably very much by your own endeavors wisely regulating those of others, does not that approach still nearer the sublime?
"To prevent disappointment, I ought to add that Friedrich is the reverse of orthodox in 'Political Economy;' that he had not faith in Free-Trade, but the reverse;--nor had ever heard of those ultimate Evangels, unlimited Competition, fair Start, and perfervid Race by all the world (towards 'CHEAP-AND-NASTY,' as the likeliest winning-post for all the world), which have since been vouchsafed us.

Probably in the world there was never less of a Free-Trader! Constraint, regulation, encouragement, discouragement, reward, punishment; these he never doubted were the method, and that government was good everywhere if wise, bad only if not wise.

And sure enough these methods, where human justice and the earnest sense and insight of a Friedrich preside over them, have results, which differ notably from opposite cases that can be imagined! The desperate notion of giving up government altogether, as a relief from human blockheadism in your governors, and their want even of a wish to be just or wise, had not entered into the thoughts of Friedrich; nor driven him upon trying to believe that such, in regard to any Human Interest whatever, was, or could be except for a little while in extremely developed cases, the true way of managing it.

How disgusting, accordingly, is the Prussia of Friedrich to a Hanbury Williams; who has bad eyes and dirty spectacles, and hates Friedrich: how singular and lamentable to a Mirabeau Junior, who has good eyes, and loves him! No knave, no impertinent blockhead even, can follow his own beautiful devices here; but is instantly had up, or comes upon a turnpike strictly shut for him.