lans of her own in regard
to Fritz, and the others; being a lady of many plans. That of the
"Double-Marriage," for example; of marrying her Prince and Princess to
a Princess and Prince of the English-Hanoverian House; it was a pleasant
eligible plan, consented to by Papa and the other parties; but when it
came to be perfected by treaty, amid the rubs of external and internal
politics, what new amazing discrepancies rose upon her poor children and
her! Fearfully aggravating the quarrel of Father and Son, almost to
the fatal point. Of that "Double-Marriage," whirled up in a universe
of intriguing diplomacies, in the "skirts of the Kaiser's huge
Spectre-Hunt," as we have called it, there will be sad things to say by
and by.

Plans her Majesty has; and silently a will of her own. She loves all her
children, especially Fritz, and would so love that they loved her.--For
the rest, all along, Fritz and Wilhelmina are sure allies. We perceive
they have fallen into a kind of cipher-speech; [_Memoires de Bareith,_
i. 168.] they communicate with one another by telegraphic signs. One
of their words, "RAGOTIN (Stumpy)," whom does the reader think it
designates? Papa himself, the Royal Majesty of Prussia, Friedrich
Wilhelm I., he to his rebellious children is tyrant "Stumpy," and no
better; being indeed short of stature, and growing ever thicker, and
surlier in these provocations!--

Such incurable discrepancies have risen in the Berlin Palace: fountains
of bitterness flowing ever wider, till they made life all bitter for Son
and for Father; necessitating the proud Son to hypocrisies towards his
terrible Father, which were very foreign to the proud youth, had there
been any other resource. But there was none, now or afterwards. Even
when the young man, driven to reflection and insight by intolerable
miseries, had begun to recognize the worth of his surly Rhadamanthine
Father, and the intrinsic wisdom of much that he had meant with him, the
Father hardly ever could, or could only by fits, completely recognize
the Son's worth. Rugged suspicious Papa requires always to be humored,
cajoled, even when our feeling towards him is genuine and loyal.
Friedrich, to the last, we can perceive, has to assume masquerade in
addressing him, in writing to him,--and in spite of real love, must have
felt it a relief when such a thing was over. That is, all along, a sad
element of Friedrich's education! Out of which there might have come
incalculable d