Curious enough, Friedrich lived in the Writing Era,--morning of
that strange Era which has grown to such a noon for us;--and his
favorite society, all his reign, was with the literary or writing
sort. Nor have they failed to write about him, they among the
others, about him and about him; and it is notable how little real
light, on any point of his existence or environment, they have
managed to communicate. Dim indeed, for most part a mere
epigrammatic sputter of darkness visible, is the "picture" they
have fashioned to themselves of Friedrich and his Country and his
Century. Men not "of genius," apparently? Alas, no; men fatally
destitute of true eyesight, and of loyal heart first of all.
So far as I have noticed, there was not, with the single exception
of Mirabeau for one hour, any man to be called of genius, or with
an adequate power of human discernment, that ever personally
looked on Friedrich. Had many such men looked successively on his
History and him, we had not found it now in such a condition.
Still altogether chaotic as a History; fatally destitute even of
the Indexes and mechanical appliances: Friedrich's self, and
his Country, and his Century, still undeciphered; very dark
phenomena, all three, to the intelligent part of mankind.

In Prussia there has long been a certain stubborn though planless
diligence in digging for the outward details of Friedrich's Life-
History; though as to organizing them, assorting them, or even
putting labels on them; much more as to the least interpretation
or human delineation of the man and his affairs,--you need not
inquire in Prussia. In France, in England, it is still worse.
There an immense ignorance prevails even as to the outward facts
and phenomena of Friedrich's life; and instead of the Prussian