Political, Diplomatic, "Honor-to-be" department, there is not, nor can ever be, much to be said of him; this Economist King having always kept himself well at home, and looked steadily to his own affairs. So that for the present he has, as a King, next to nothing of what is called History; and it is only as a fellow-man, of singular faculty, and in a most peculiar and conspicuous situation, that he can be interesting to mankind. To us he has, as Father and daily teacher and master of young Fritz, a continual interest; and we must note the master's ways, and the main phenomena of the workshop as they successively turned up, for the sake of the notable Apprentice serving there.
He was not tall of stature, this arbitrary King: a florid-complexioned stout-built man; of serious, sincere, authoritative face; his attitudes and equipments very Spartan in type. Man of short firm stature; stands (in Pesne's best Portraits of him) at his ease, and yet like a tower. Most solid; "plumb and rather more;" eyes steadfastly awake; cheeks slightly compressed, too, which fling the mouth rather forward; as if asking silently, "Anything astir, then? All right here?" Face, figure and bearing, all in him is expressive of robust insight, and direct determination; of healthy energy, practicality, unquestioned authority—a certain air of royalty reduced to its simplest form. The face in Pictures by Pesne and others, is not beautiful or agreeable; healthy, genuine, authoritative, is the best you can say of it. Yet it may have been, what it is described as being, originally handsome. High enough arched brow, rather copious cheeks and jaws; nose smallish, inclining to be stumpy; large gray eyes, bright with steady fire and life, often enough gloomy and severe, but capable of jolly laughter too. Eyes "naturally with a kind of laugh in them," says Pollnitz;—which laugh can blaze out into fearful thunderous rage, if you give him provocation. Especially if you lie to him; for that he hates above all things. Look him straight in the face: he fancies he can see in your eyes, if there is an internal mendacity in you: wherefore you must look at him in speaking; such is his standing order.
His hair is flaxen, falling into the ash-gray or darker; fine copious flowing hair, while he wore it natural. But it soon got tied into clubs, in the military style; and at length it was altogether cropped away, and replaced by brown, and at last by white, round wigs. Which latter also, though bad wigs, became him not amiss, under his cocked-hat and cockade, says Pollnitz. [Pollnitz, Memoiren (Berlin, 1791), ii. 568.] The voice, I guess, even when not loud, was of clangorous and penetrating, quasi-metallic nature; and I learn expressly once, that it had a nasal quality in it. [Busching, Beitrage, i. 568.] His Majesty spoke through the nose; snuffled his speech in an earnest ominously plangent manner. In angry moments, which were frequent, it must have been—unpleasant to listen to. For the rest, a handsome man of his inches; conspicuously well-built in limbs and body, and delicately finished off to the very extremities. His feet and legs, says Pollnitz, were very fine. The hands, if he would have taken care of them, were beautifully white; fingers long and thin; a hand at once nimble to grasp, delicate to feel, and strong to clutch and hold: what may be called a beautiful hand, because it is the usefulest.
Nothing could exceed his Majesty's simplicity of habitudes. But one loves especially in him his scrupulous attention to cleanliness of person and of environment. He washed like a very Mussulman, five times a day; loved cleanliness in all things, to a superstitious extent; which trait is pleasant in the rugged man, and indeed of a piece with the rest of his character. He is gradually changing all his silk and other cloth room-furniture; in his hatred of dust, he will not suffer a floor-carpet, even a stuffed chair; but insists on having all of wood, where the dust may be prosecuted to destruction. [Forster, i. 208.] Wife and womankind, and those that take after them, let such have stuffing and sofas: he, for his part, sits on mere wooden chairs;—sits, and also thinks and acts, after the manner of a Hyperborean Spartan, which he was. He ate heartily, but as a rough farmer and hunter eats; country messes, good roast and boiled; despising the French Cook, as an entity without meaning for him. His favorite dish at dinner was bacon and greens, rightly dressed; what could the French Cook do for such a man? He ate with rapidity, almost with indiscriminate violence: his object not quality but quantity. He drank too, but did not get drunk: at the Doctor's order he could abstain; and had in later years abstained. Pollnitz praises his fineness of complexion, the originally eminent whiteness of his skin, which he had tanned and bronzed by hard riding and hunting, and otherwise worse discolored by his manner of feeding and digesting: alas, at last his waistcoat came to measure, I am afraid to say how many Prussian ells—a very considerable diameter indeed! [Ib. i. 163.]
For some years after his accession he still appeared occasionally in "burgher dress," or unmilitary clothes; "brown English coat, yellow waistcoat" and the other indispensables. But this fashion became rarer with him every year; and ceased altogether (say Chronologists) about the year 1719: after which he appeared always simply as Colonel of the Potsdam Guards (his own Lifeguard Regiment) in simple Prussian uniform: close military coat; blue, with red cuffs and collar, buff waistcoat and breeches; white linen gaiters to the knee. He girt his sword about the loins, well out of the mud; walked always with a thick bamboo in his hand; Steady, not slow of step; with his triangular hat, cream-white round wig (in his older days), and face tending to purple—the eyes looking out mere investigation, sharp swift authority, and dangerous readiness to rebuke and set the cane in motion:—it was so he walked abroad in this earth; and the common run of men rather fled his approach than courted it.
For, in fact, he was dangerous; and would ask in an alarming manner, "Who are you?" Any fantastic, much more any suspicious-looking person, might fare the worse. An idle lounger at the street-corner he has been known to hit over the crown; and peremptorily despatch: "Home, Sirrah, and take to some work!" That the Apple-women be encouraged to knit, while waiting for custom;—encouraged and quietly constrained, and at length packed away, and their stalls taken from them, if unconstrainable—there has, as we observed, an especial rescript been put forth; very curious to read. [In Rodenbeck, Beitrage, p. 15.]
Dandiacal figures, nay people looking like Frenchmen, idle flaunting women even—better for them to be going. "Who are you?" and if you lied or prevaricated ("Er blicke mich gerade an, Look me in the face, then!"), or even stumbled, hesitated, and gave suspicion of prevaricating, it might be worse for you. A soft answer is less effectual than a prompt clear one, to turn away wrath. "A Candidatus Theoligiae, your Majesty," answered a handfast threadbare youth one day, when questioned in this manner.—"Where from?" "Berlin, your Majesty."—"Hm, na, the Berliners are a good-for-nothing set." "Yes, truly, too many of them; but there are exceptions; I know two."—"Two? which then?" "Your Majesty and myself!"—Majesty burst into a laugh: the Candidatus was got examined by the Consistoriums, and Authorities proper in that matter, and put into a chaplaincy.
This King did not love the French, or their fashions, at all. We said he dismissed the big Peruke—put it on for the last time at his Father's funeral, so far did filial piety go; and then packed it aside, dismissing it, nay banishing and proscribing it, never to appear more. The Peruke, and, as it were, all that the Peruke symbolized. For this was a King come into the world with quite other aims than that of wearing big perukes, and, regardless of expense, playing burst-frog to the ox of Versailles, which latter is itself perhaps a rather useless animal. Of Friedrich Wilhelm's taxes upon wigs; of the old "Wig-inspectors," and the feats they did, plucking off men's periwigs on the street, to see if the government-stamp were there, and to discourage wiggery, at least all but the simple scratch or useful Welsh-wig, among mankind: of these, and of other similar things, I could speak; but do not. This little incident, which occurred once in the review-ground on the outskirts of Berlin, will suffice to mark his temper in that respect. It was in the spring of 1719; our little Fritz then six years old, who of course heard much temporary confused commentary, direct and oblique, triumphant male laughter, and perhaps rebellious female sighs, on occasion of such a feat.
Count Rothenburg, Prussian by birth, [Buchholz, Neueste Preuwssisch-Brandenburgische Geschichte, i. 28.] an accomplished and able person in the diplomatic and other lines of business, but much used to Paris and its ways, had appeared lately in Berlin, as French envoy—and, not unnaturally, in high French costume; cocked-hat, peruke, laced coat, and the other trimmings. He, and a group of dashing followers and adherents, were accustomed to go about in that guise; very capable of proving infectious to mankind. What is to be done with them? thinks the anxious Father of his People. They were to appear at the ensuing grand Review, as Friedrich Wilhelm understood. Whereupon