one story high; on the pleasant Hill-top near Potsdam, with other little
green Hills, and pleasant views of land and water, all round--had been
sketched in part by Friedrich himself; and the diggings and terracings
of the Hill-side were just beginning, when he quitted for the Last
War. "April 14th, 1745," while he lay in those perilous enigmatic
circumstances at Neisse with Pandours and devouring bugbears round him,
"the foundation-stone was laid" (Knobelsdorf being architect, once more,
as in the old Reinsberg case): and the work, which had been steadily
proceeding while the Master struggled in those dangerous battles and
adventures far away from it, was in good forwardness at his return. An
object of cheerful interest to him; prophetic of calmer years ahead.

It was not till May, 1747, that the formal occupation took place:
"Mayday, 1747," he had a grand House-heating, or "First Dinner, of 200
covers: and May 19th-20th was the first night of his sleeping there."
For the next Forty Years, especially as years advanced, he spent the
most of his days and nights in this little Mansion; which became more
and more his favorite retreat, whenever the noises and scenic etiquettes
were not inexorable. "SANS-SOUCI;" which we may translate "No-Bother." A
busy place this too, but of the quiet kind; and more a home to him
than any of the Three fine Palaces (ultimately Four), which lay always
waiting for him in the neighborhood. Berlin and Charlottenburg are
about twenty miles off; Potsdam, which, like the other two, is rather
consummate among Palaces, lies leftwise in front of him within a short
mile. And at length, to RIGHT hand, in a similar distance and direction,
came the "NEUE SCHLOSS" (New Palace of Potsdam), called also the "PALACE
of Sans-Souci," in distinction from the Dwelling-House, or as it were
Garden-House, which made that name so famous.

Certainly it is a significant feature of Friedrich; and discloses the
inborn proclivity he had to retirement, to study and reflection, as the
chosen element of human life. Why he fell upon so ambitious a title for
his Royal Cottage? "No-Bother" was not practically a thing he, of all
men, could consider possible in this world: at the utmost perhaps, by
good care, "LESS-Bother"! The name, it appears, came by accident. He had
prepared his Tomb, and various Tombs, in the skirts of this new Cottage:
looking at these, as the building of them went on, he was heard to say,
one day (Spring