and after him came one and the other, whom the reader is not to be troubled with here. Enough if the patient reader have seen, a little, into that background of Friedrich Wilhelm's existence;and, for the didactic part, have caught up his real views or instincts upon Spiritual Phosphorescence, or Stupidity grown Vocal, which are much sounder than most of us suspect.
These were the sports of the Tobacco-Parliament; and it was always meant primarily for sport, for recreation: but there is no doubt it had a serious function as well. "Business matters," adds Beneckendorf, who had means of knowing, [Benekendorf, <italic>
Karakterzuge, <end italic> i. 137-149; vi. 37.] "were often a subject of colloquy in the TABAKS-COLLEGIUM. Not that they were there finished off, decided upon, or meant to be so. But Friedrich Wilhelm often purposely brought up such things in conversation there, that he might learn the different opinions of his generals and chief men, without their observing it,"--and so might profit by the Collective Wisdom, in short.
Chapter VIII.
SECKENDORF'S RETORT TO HER MAJESTY.
The Treaty of Wusterhausen was not yet known to Queen Sophie, to her Father George, or to any external creature: but that open flinching, and gradual withdrawal, from the Treaty of Hanover was too well known; and boded no good to her pet project. Female sighs, male obduracies, and other domestic phenomena, are to be imagined in consequence. "A grand Britannic Majesty indeed;very lofty Father to us, Madam, ever since he came to be King of England: Stalking along there, with his nose in the air;not deigning the least notice of us, except as of a thing that may be got to fight for him! And he does not sign the Double-Marriage Treaty, Madam; only talks of signing it,--as if we were a starved coach-horse, to be quickened along by a wisp of hay put upon the coach-pole close ahead of us always!"--"JARNI-BLEU!" snuffles Seckendorf with a virtuous zeal, or looks it; and things are not pleasant at the royal dinner-table.
Excellenz Seckendorf, we find at this time, "often has his Majesty to dinner:" and such dinners; fitting one's tastes in all points, --no expense regarded (which indeed is the Kaiser's, if we knew it)! And in return, Excellenz is frequently at dinner with his Majesty; where the conversation; if it turn on England, which often happens, is more and more an offence to Queen Sophie.
Seckendorf studies to be polite, reserved before the Queen's Majesty at her own table; yet sometimes he lisps out, in his vile snuffling tone, half-insinuations, remarks on our Royal Kindred, which are irritating in the extreme. Queen Sophie, the politest of women, did once, says Pollnitz, on some excessive pressure of that lisping snuffling unendurability, lose her royal patience and flame out. With human frankness, and uncommonly kindled eyes, she signified to Seckendorf, That none who was not himself a kind of scoundrel could entertain such thoughts of Kings and gentlemen!
Which hard saying kindled the stiff-backed rheumatic soul of Seckendorf (Excellenz had withal a temper in him, far down in the deeps); who answered: "Your Majesty, that is what no one else thinks of me. That is a name I have never permitted any one to give me with impunity." And verily, he kept his threat in that latter point, says Pollnitz. [ii. 244.]
At this stage, it is becoming, in the nature of things, unlikely that the projected Double-Marriage, or any union with England, can ever realize itself for Queen Sophie and her House. The Kaiser has decreed that it never shall. Here is the King already irritated, grown indisposed to it; here is the Kaiser's Seckendorf, with preternatural Apparatus, come to maintain him in that humor.