t Prussian by
nation or interest, recognizes in Friedrich Wilhelm "DEN GROSSEN WIRTH
(the great Manager, Husbandry-man, or Landlord) of the epoch;" and
lectures on his admirable "works, arrangements and institutions" in that
kind. [Rodenbeck's _Beitrage_ (p. 14),--Year, or Name of Lecturer,
not mentioned.] Nay the dapper Royal gentlemen saw, with envy, the
indubitable growth of this mad savage Brother; and ascribed it to "his
avarice," to his mean ways, which were in such contrast to their sublime
ones. That he understood National Economics has now become very certain.
His grim semi-articulate Papers and Rescripts, on these subjects, are
still almost worth reading, by a lover of genuine human talent in the
dumb form. For spelling, grammar, penmanship and composition, they
resemble nothing else extant; are as if done by the paw of a bear:
indeed the utterance generally sounds more like the growling of a bear
than anything that could be handily spelt or parsed. But there is a
decisive human sense in the heart of it; and there is such a dire hatred
of empty bladders, unrealities and hypocritical forms and pretences,
what he calls "wind and humbug (WIND UND BLAUER DUNST)," as is very
strange indeed. Strange among all mankind; doubly and trebly strange
among the unfortunate species called Kings in our time. To whom,--for
sad reasons that could be given,--"wind and blue vapor (BLAUER DUNST),"
artistically managed by the rules of Acoustics and Optics, seem to be
all we have left us!--

It must be owned that this man is inflexibly, and with a fierce slow
inexorable determination, set upon having realities round him. There is
a divine idea of fact put into him; the genus sham was never hatefuler
to any man. Let it keep out of his way, well beyond the swing of that
rattan of his, or it may get something to remember! A just man, too;
would not wrong any man, nor play false in word or deed to any man. What
is Justice but another form of the REALITY we love; a truth acted out?
Of all the humbugs or "painted vapors" known, Injustice is the least
capable of profiting men or kings! A just man, I say; and a valiant and
veracious: but rugged as a wild bear; entirely inarticulate, as if dumb.
No bursts of parliamentary eloquence in him, nor the least tendency
that way. His talent for Stump-Oratory may be reckoned the minimum
conceivable, or practically noted a ZERO. A man who would not have risen
in modern Political Circles; man unchoosab