I assure him that
I will never, all my days, fail with my will; and, notwithstanding his
disfavor to me, remain

"My dear Papa's

"Most faithful and obedient Servant and Son,

"FRIEDRICH."

To which Friedrich Wilhelm, by return of messenger, writes what follows.
Very implacable, we may perceive;--not calling his Petitioner "Thou," as
kind Paternity might have dictated; infinitely less by the polite title
"They (SIE)," which latter indeed, the distinguished title of "SIC,"
his Prussian Majesty, we can remark, reserves for Foreigners of the
supremest quality, and domestic Princes of the Blood; naming all other
Prussian subjects, and poor Fritz in this place, "He (ER)," in the style
of a gentleman to his valet,--which style even a valet of these new days
of ours would be unwilling to put up with. "ER, He," "His" and the other
derivatives sound loftily repulsive in the German ear; and lay
open impassable gulfs between the Speaker and the Spoken-to.
"His obstinate"--But we must, after all, say THY and THOU for
intelligibility's sake:--

"Thy obstinate perverse disposition [KOPF, head], which does not love
thy Father,--for when one does everything [everything commanded] and
really loves one's Father, one does what the Father requires, not while
he is there to see it, but when his back is turned too [His Majesty's
style is very abstruse, ill-spelt, intricate, and in this instance trips
itself, and falls on its face here, a mere intricate nominative without
a verb!]--For the rest, thou know'st very well that I can endure no
effeminate fellow (EFEMINIRTEN KERL), who has no human inclination in
him; who puts himself to shame, cannot ride nor shoot; and withal is
dirty in his person; frizzles his hair like a fool, and does not cut
it off. And all this I have, a thousand times, reprimanded; but all in
vain, and no improvement in nothing (KEINE BESSERUNG IN NITS IST). For
the rest, haughty, proud as a churl; speaks to nobody but some few, and
is not popular and affable; and cuts grimaces with his face, as if he
were a fool; and does my will in nothing unless held to it by force;
nothing out of love;--and has pleasure in nothing but following his own
whims [own KOPF],--no use to him in anything else. This is the answer.

"FRIEDRICH WILHELM."

[Preuss, i. 27; from Cramer, pp. 33, 34.]

DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT RE-EMERGES IN AN OFFICIAL SHAPE.

These are not favorable outlooks for the Double-Marriage. Nevertheless
it