Pages, sometimes two, instead of perhaps
three dozen idle that there used to be. In King Friedrich's time, there
were wont to be a thousand saddle-horses at corn and hay: but how
many of them were in actual use? Very many of them were mere imaginary
quadrupeds; their price and keep pocketed by some knavish STALLMEISTER,
Equerry or Head-groom. Friedrich Wilhelm keeps only thirty Horses; but
these are very actual, not imaginary at all; their corn not running
into any knave's pocket; but lying actually in the mangers here; getting
ground for you into actual four-footed speed, when, on turf or highway,
you require such a thing. About, thirty for the saddle,--with a few
carriage-teams, are what Friedrich Wilhelm can employ in any reasonable
measure: and more he will not have about him.

In the like ruthless humor he goes over his Pension-list; strikes three
fourths of that away, reduces the remaining fourth to the very bone.
In like humor, he goes over every department of his Administrative,
Household and other Expenses: shears everything down, here by the
hundred thalers, there by the ten, willing even to save HALF A THALER.
He goes over all this three several times;--his Papers, the three
successive Lists he used on that occasion, have been printed.
[Rodenbeck, _Beitrage zur Bereicherung der Lebembeschreibungen Friedrich
Wilhelms I. und Friedrichs des Grossen_ (Berlin, 1836), pp. 99-127.] He
has satisfied himself, in about two months, what, the effective minimum
is; and leaves it so. Reduced to below the fifth of what it was; 55,000
THALERS, instead of 276,000. [Stenzel, iii. 237.]

By degrees he went over, went into and through, every department of
Prussian Business, in that fashion; steadily, warily, irresistibly
compelling every item of it, large and little, to take that same
character of perfect economy and solidity, of utility pure and
simple. Needful work is to be rigorously well done; needless work, and
ineffectual or imaginary workers, to be rigorously pitched out of doors.
What a blessing on this Earth; worth purchasing almost at any price!
The money saved is something, nothing if you will; but the amount of
mendacity expunged, has any one computed that? Mendacity not of tongue;
but the far feller sort, of hand, and of heart, and of head; short
summary of all Devil's-worship whatsoever. Which spreads silently along,
once you let it in, with full purse or with empty; some fools even
praising it: the quiet DRY-ROT