y from paternal or other
criticisms, for the present. The Crown-Prince drills or hunts, with his
Grumkows, Anhalt-Dessaus: these are harmless employments;--and a man may
have within his own head what thoughts he pleases, without offence so
long as he keeps them there. Friedrich the old Grandfather lived only
thirteen months after the birth of his grandson: Friedrich Wilhelm was
then King; thoughts then, to any length, could become actions on the
part of Friedrich Wilhelm.

Chapter IV. -- FATHER'S MOTHER.

Friedrich Wilhelm's Mother, as we hinted, did not live to see this
marriage which she had forecast in her maternal heart. She died, rather
suddenly, in 1705, [1st February (Erman, p. 241; Forster, i. 114): born,
20th October, 1666; wedded, 28th September 1684; died, 1st February,
1705.] at Hanover, whither she had gone on a visit; shortly after
parting with this her one boy and child, Friedrich Wilhelm, who is then
about seventeen; whom she had with effort forced herself to send abroad,
that he might see the world a little, for the first time. Her sorrow
on this occasion has in it something beautiful, in so bright and gay
a woman: shows us the mother strong in her, to a touching degree. The
rough cub, in whom she noticed rugged perverse elements, "tendencies
to avarice," and a want of princely graces, and the more brilliant
qualities in mind and manner, had given her many thoughts and some
uneasy ones. But he was evidently all she had to love in the world;
a rugged creature inexpressibly precious to her. For days after his
departure, she had kept solitary; busied with little; indulging in
her own sad reflections without stint. Among the papers she had been
scribbling, there was found one slip with a HEART sketched on it, and
round the heart "PARTI" (Gone): My heart is gone!--poor lady, and after
what a jewel! But Nature is very kind to all children and to all mothers
that are true to her.

Sophie Charlotte's deep sorrow and dejection on this parting was the
secret herald of fate to herself. It had meant ill health withal, and
the gloom of broken nerves. All autumn and into winter she had felt
herself indefinitely unwell; she determined, however, on seeing Hanover
and her good old Mother at the usual time. The gloomy sorrow over
Friedrich Wilhelm had been the premonition of a sudden illness which
seized her on the road to Hanover, some five months afterwards, and
which ended fatally in that city. Her death was