y, by one means or other, Voltaire got the Lawsuit ended,--1740,
we might guess, but the time is not specified;--and Friedrich had a
new claim, had there been need of new, to be regarded with worship by
Madame. [Record of all this, left, like innumerable other things there,
in an intrinsically dark condition, lies in Voltaire's LETTERS,--not
much worth hunting up into clear daylight, the process being so
difficult to a stranger.] But the proposed meeting with Madame could
never take effect; not even when Friedrich's hands were free. Nay
I notice at last, Friedrich had privately determined it never
should--Madame evidently an inconvenient element to him. A young man not
wanting in private power of eyesight; and able to distinguish chaff from
meal! Voltaire and he will meet; meet, and also part; and there will
be passages between them:--and the reader will again hear of this
Correspondence of theirs, where it has a biographical interest. We are
to conceive it, at present, as a principal light of life to the
young heart at Reinsberg; a cheerful new fire, almost an altar-fire,
irradiating the common dusk for him there.

Of another Correspondence, beautifully irradiative for the young heart,
we must say almost nothing: the Correspondence with Suhm. Suhm the Saxon
Minister, whom we have occasionally heard of, is an old Friend of the
Crown-Prince's, dear and helpful to him: it is he who is now doing those
_Translations of Wolf,_ of which Voltaire lately saw specimens; translate
at large, for the young man's behoof. The young man, restless to know
the best Philosophy going, had tried reading of Wolf's chief Book; found
it too abstruse, in Wolf's German: wherefore Suhm translates; sends it
to him in limpid French; fascicle by fascicle, with commentaries;
young man doing his best to understand and admire,--gratefully, not too
successfully, we can perceive. That is the staple of the famous SUHM
CORRESPONDENCE; staple which nobody could now bear to be concerned with.

Suhm is also helpful in finance difficulties, which are pretty frequent;
works out subventions, loans under a handsome form, from the Czarina's
and other Courts. Which is an operation of the utmost delicacy;
perilous, should it be heard of at Potsdam. Wherefore Suhm and the
Prince have a covert language for it: and affect still to be speaking
of "Publishers" and "new Volumes," when they mean Lenders and
Bank-Draughts. All these loans, I will hope, were accurately paid