[History of Friedrich II. of Prussia Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) by Thomas Carlyle]@TWC D-Link bookHistory of Friedrich II. of Prussia Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) CHAPTER VII 2/39
In regard to which, and to which alone, in this place, we will permit ourselves a little more detail. In the sandy moors towards the Silesian border of the Neumark, southwest of Zullichau,--where we once were, with Dictator Wedell, fighting the Russians in a tragic way,--there is, as was casually then indicated, on one of the poor Brooks trickling into Oder, a Mill called KREBSMUHLE (Crabmill); Millers of which are a line of dusty Arnolds, laboriously for long generations grinding into meal the ryes, pulses, barleys of that dim region; who, and whose Crabmill, in the year 1779-1780, burst into a notoriety they little dreamt of, and became famous in the fashionable circles of this Universe, where an indistinct rumor of them lives to this day.
We indicated Arnold and his Mill in Wedell's time; Wedell's scene being so remote and empty to readers: in fact, nobody knows on what paltriest of moors a memorable thing will not happen;--here, for instance, is withal the Birthplace of that Rhyming miracle, Frau Karsch (Karschin, KarchESS as they call her), the Berlin literary Prodigy, to whom Friedrich was not so flush of help as had been expected.
The child of utterly poor Peasants there; whose poverty, shining out as thrift, unweariable industry and stoical valor, is beautiful to me, still more their poor little girl's bits of fortunes, "tending three cows" in the solitudes there, and gazing wistfully into Earth and Heaven with her ingenuous little soul,--desiring mainly one thing, that she could get Books, any Book whatever; having half-accidentally picked up the art of reading, and finding hereabouts absolutely nothing to read.
Frau Karsch, I have no doubt, knows the Crabmill right well; and can, to all permissible lengths, inform the Berlin Circles on this point.
[See JORDENS (Karschin), ii.
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