iii.

145.] Friedrich, in his own utterances and occasional rhymes, is abundantly cynical; now and then rises to a kind of epic cynicism, on this very matter.

But at no time can the painful critic call it cynicism as of OTHER than an observer; always a kind of vinegar cleanness in it, EXCEPT in theory.

Cynicism of an impartial observer in a dirty element; observer epically sensible (when provoked to it) of the brutal contemptibilities which lie in Human Life, alongside of its big struttings and pretensions.

In Friedrich's utterances there is that kind of cynicism undeniable;--and yet he had a modesty almost female in regard to his own person; "no servant having ever seen him in an exposed state." [Preuss, i.