ecause he was
without guile, and had no vulpinism at all. In which they were very much
mistaken indeed. History is proud to report that the guileless Prussian
Majesty, steadily attending to his own affairs in a wise manner, though
hoodwinked and led about by Black-Artists as he had been, turned out
when Fact and Nature subsequently pronounced upon it, to have had more
intellect than the whole of them together,--to have been, in a manner,
the only one of them that had any real "intellect," or insight into Fact
and Nature, at all. Consummate Black-art Diplomacies overnetting the
Universe, went entirely to water, running down the gutters to the last
drop; and a prosperous Drilled Prussia, compact, organic in every part,
from diligent plough-sock to shining bayonet and iron ramrod, remained
standing. "A full Treasury and 200,000 well-drilled men would be the one
guarantee to your Pragmatic Sanction," Prince Eugene had said. But that
bit of insight was not accepted at Vienna; Black-art, and Diplomatic
spider-webs from pole to pole, being thought the preferable method.

Enough, Seckendorf was ordered to manipulate and soothe down the
Prussian Majesty, as surely would be easy; to continue his galvanic
operations on the Double-Match, or produce a rotation in the purposes of
the royal breast. Which he diligently strove to do, when once admitted
to speech again;--Grumkow steadily declining to meddle, and only Queen
Sophie, as we can fancy, auguring joyfully of it. Seckendorf, admitted
to speech the third day after that explosive Session, snuffles his
softest, his cunningest;--continues to ride diligently, the concluding
portion (such it proved) of his 25,000 miles with the Prussian Majesty
up and down through winter and spring; but makes not the least progress,
the reverse rather.

Their dialogues and arguings on the matter, here and elsewhere, are lost
in air; or gone wholly to a single point unexpectedly preserved for us.
One day, riding through some village, Priort some say his Majesty calls
it, some give another name,--advocate Seckendorf, in the fervor of
pleading and arguing, said some word, which went like a sudden flash of
lightning through the dark places of his Majesty's mind, and never would
go out of it again while he lived after. In passionate moments, his
Majesty spoke of it sometimes, a clangorous pathos in his tones, as of
a thing hideous, horrible, never to be forgotten, which had killed
him,--death from a frien